Whenever the topic of weird town names arises, I occasionally hear of the town of Maggie’s Nipples, Wyoming. I’ve looked for it on a road map, but I find nothing. I’ve tried letting Yahoo give me directions on how to get there, but no go there either. I’ve done web searches for the town, but the only reference I can find are on pages talking about weird town names; no town homepages (come to Maggie’s Nipples!) or anything else. So, my question is: Does Maggies Nipples actually exist? Or did it ever exist? And who is Maggie?
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It seems to me that you’ve answered your own question. It’s not on any map or any official reference. It only exists on lists of weird town names, where the author almost certainly “heard of it from someone”.
Sounds like a classic urban legend.
"Mother Tongue
Bill Bryson
Penguin Books, £7.99
When I was reading it I kept wanting to ask people ‘did you know?’ – it’s that sort of book. Bill Bryson has a very light touch in the way he conveys information and there is a sense of enjoyment and amusement at the oddities of our language such as in our spelling, swearing, names etc. A must for English Language students and a pleasure for any student to dip into. And did you know that there are places in Wyoming called Dead Bastard Peak and Maggie’s Nipples?"
From a pdf file (p. 25). Now all we need is someone who has read the book to give us the straight dope on this. If none of us has it we could contact someone through amazon.com and ask him.
I found lots of strange town names, but no “Maggie’s nipples” on this 1895 map of Wyoming. You may have better luck. It’s possible that the town was never more than a transitory mining camp nestled in the bosum of the Grand Tetons; so it could be very hard to prove its existence.
It could be a local terminology, for local consumption, and not found on any official map or publication.
There is a Felch, MI and a Spread Eagle WI.
ROAD TRIP!
Feeding maggies nipple (singular) into Google turned up several links to a peak of that name in Colorado. (Not WY.)
Here’s a USGS link: http://geonames.usgs.gov/pls/gnis/web_query.GetDetail?tab=Y&id=173542
No indication of any towns with that name.
Hmm, there seems to be two such peaks in CO according to the USGS search page (http://geonames.usgs.gov/pls/gnis/web_query.gnis_web_query_form). Ah, of course, there has to be two! Alas poor Maggie, her nipples differ in size by 3000ft.
The USGS search page also gives 51 matches for places starting with “nipple.” What a country.
FtG
Is it just me or does anyone else feel strange typing “nipple” into a search engine…
The following url at Yahoo! Maps gave a result showing a small town in Wyoming.
Couldn’t find anything else on it, though.
My mistake for not reading the results page acurately enough. It specifically says at the top of the page, “The city could not be found, but here is the state.”
Just where is my head today?
Hijak
How much do Maggies Nipples cost.
Hint: Marge gets them at the Safeway.
There is a peak named Mary’s Nipple on the west side of the Tetons in the Grand Targhee Ski area. But, there’s no lift to the top, so you have to hike it if you want to ski tit. (OK, very bad pun)
The peak and the ski area are on the Wyoming/Idaho border. I’m not sure if the name would show up on the current USGS quad for the area though.
Aren’t the Tetons a ‘french’ slang for those wonderful milk containers themselves? (They’re so soft!)
Yep. They do have the rounded-conical shape that might have stirred a lonely French-Canadian trapper to thoughts of more physical comfort than just a brandy. Of course, there are three of them, leading one to wonder just how long the guy had been out running trap lines.
Ì didn’t see Mary’s Nipple in or near the Tetons, but I found 4 summits called “Marys Nipple” or “Marys Nipples” in Utah of all places.
I’m still not convinced about that.
There was a tribe referred to in English in print in 1807. This was just about, if not before, Colter discovered the mountains/vallery. The tribe was the Teton.