Squaw Valley, CA is a little east of Fresno and over a hundred miles south of Lake Tahoe.
The resort that hosted the Olympics (Squaw Valley) is located in a town now called Olympic Valley.
Mission San Jose is located in Fremont, CA, several miles north of San Jose. Mission Santa Clara is much closer, almost on the border with San Jose.
The Mission San Francisco de Asís goes by the name of Mission Dolores, though the city kept its name. There is a San Francisco - Mission San Francisco de Solano is in Sonoma, (which is not in Solano County).
There’s a section of Interstate 580 West that is also 80 East for several miles. It runs north.
Harvard College is not in Harvard, Massachusetts. Harvard Observatory, however, is.
In Tokyo, Arakawa Ward is named after the Arakawa River, but does not border it at any point (it used to, actually, but some determined public works projects changed that).
[QUOTE=Giles]
My offering of confusing names: Butler County and Hamilton County are next to each other in southwest Ohio – but the city of Hamilton is the county seat of Butler County.
[/QUOTE]
There are dozens of such pairs in Ohio. In fact, the general rule is that if there is a city and county of the name name, then the city is in some other county.
The U.S. Navy’s Naval Submarine Base New London is not in New London, Connecticut. It is on the other side of the Thames River in Groton, Connecticut.
Bradley International Airport is generally listed as being in Hartford, Connecticut, but is actually located 15 miles to the north in Windsor Locks, Connecticut. (To make things even more confusing, the airport’s location is sometimes listed as “Hartford/Springfield,” though this is probably closer to reality, since the airport does serve both cities and is located almost exactly midway between the two.)
[QUOTE=Shagnasty]
You have an excellent point there and I forgot to mention it. As a 10 year Boston area transplant from more rational parts of the country, I always refer to it as I-95 because, you know, it is a major interstate highway and has been for many decades. The danger comes when you finally give in and assume that “128” = I-95 which it doesn’t once you get out of the city. “128” actually describes an old route that doesn’t really exist anymore and spans multiple modern roads but is mentioned in passing on the “very limited and obscure” signage. Boston residents will tell you though that if you need this stuff explained to you then you really shouldn’t be driving here in the first place.
[/QUOTE]
128 was the original beltway around Boston, built in the 1950’s and widened several times since then. It still runs all by itself from the I-95 in Peabody all the way up to Gloucester. I can’t find its southern end on my Rand McNally atlas. The last “128” there shows just southeast of US 1 in Dedham. It used to run over to Braintree.
Route I-95 got put onto circumferential 128 after the folks in Milton killed the extention of the 95 freeway northward from Dedham into Boston through the Fowl Meadow area. It would have gone up the route taken by the MBTA Orange Line. The Commonwealth gave up a lot of its federal highway funding so that it could get the transit funds to expand the MBTA. Later NC Senator Terry Sanford overrode Reagan’s veto of the highway funding bill that got the Big Dig started.
[QUOTE=Ignatz]
128 was the original beltway around Boston, built in the 1950’s and widened several times since then. It still runs all by itself from the I-95 in Peabody all the way up to Gloucester. I can’t find its southern end on my Rand McNally atlas. The last “128” there shows just southeast of US 1 in Dedham. It used to run over to Braintree.
Route I-95 got put onto circumferential 128 after the folks in Milton killed the extention of the 95 freeway northward from Dedham into Boston through the Fowl Meadow area. It would have gone up the route taken by the MBTA Orange Line. The Commonwealth gave up a lot of its federal highway funding so that it could get the transit funds to expand the MBTA. Later NC Senator Terry Sanford overrode Reagan’s veto of the highway funding bill that got the Big Dig started.
[/QUOTE]
This post is an absolute opus that encompasses the collective consciousness, politics, highway construction, and history of Boston. I am in awe that you know so much about this (what do you do?) but it is still hilarious to read as a dysfunctional story about how things ended up the way that they are. I swear that if you expanded this story as a segue into the history of the Big Dig, you would have a popular book.
But it’s not complete! He forgot to explain how many of the numbered routes in the Bay State are actually paved over old cattle trails. So, while most places choose to place their roadbeds in such a way to minimize hazards, or to follow the lay of the land, many Bay State roads have, at their base, nothing more complicated than the group mind of herds of cattle on their way to market, with sharp turns being taken to avoid the old tree that used to scare their forebears years ago.
[QUOTE=RealityChuck]
Hamilton College is not in Hamilton, NY. It’s in Clinton, NY, 20 miles away. Colgate University, which is in Hamilton, often has to tell people they’ve got the wrong college
[/QUOTE]
Nah, Hamilton “College” is just a school in Hamilton.
[QUOTE=twickster]
Which reminds me – Chester and West Chester, PA are about 20 miles apart, and in different counties. At least West Chester is west of Chester, though.
[/QUOTE]
And West Chester, not Chester, is the one in Chester County.
Also, there’s a Wyoming, PA, near Wilkes-Barre, in the Wyoming Valley. The state of Wyoming was named after the valley.
Out back of Ipswich, there are two villiages on the highway to Toowoomba - Plainlands and Forest Hill.
Forest Hill is a low, flat area of grasslands which stretches for miles around the northern side of the highway while and Plainlands, on the oter side of the highway is hilly and heavily wooded.
The guy who drew up the original maps of the district got the names mixed up back in the 1860’s and no one ever corrected the error!
Upper Dublin, PA has no corresponding Lower Dublin, which was long since absorbed into Philly. Of course, regular old Dublin PA, in Bucks County is north of Upper Dublin.
