I particularly like the super-sized Oklahoma panhandle… And the UP should have been ceded to Wisconsin long ago. 
And why does Florida get most of Alabama’s coastline? That’s just outright unneighborly.
Of course, for factual answers to these and similar questions: How the States Got Their Shapes - Wikipedia
I’m still annoyed that Michigan got the UP. Let it be the state of Superior or merge it with Wisconsin, m’kay? And Mackinac Island is part of the UP!!
Michigan was forced to give up its claim to Toledo, and got the UP in (half-assed) compensation, and you want to take that away? Heartless.
(Yeah, it actually does sound funny now, doesn’t it? Fighting over Toledo? And the UP turned out to be the heart of Michigan’s logging industry, before other industries rose to the fore.)
He missed a few:
North Carolina and South Carolina: Look at their border and the way it goes up and down. They should have just drawn a straight line that ran from east to west. Everything north of the line is North Carolina and everything south of the line is South Carolina.
New Hampshire: Look at that nice straight line along its eastern border. And then all of the sudden it jumps over to the east. Sure, I get it, you wanted an coastline. You know who gets along just fine with a coastline? Vermont does. You started a straight line; commit to it. Draw the border straight south until it hits Massachusetts. Give the rest to Maine, which already committed to a coastline look.
Nevada: Do you see any other states using diagonal lines? Straighten it up.
Idaho: That thing in the north just doesn’t look right. Cut it off and make it part of Washington or Montana.
Is this one of those threads saying that [comic strip] used to be funny but now is tedious and annoying?
No. Is actually reading five short posts too difficult?
Hey, I resemble that remark!
I don’t know. Is this one of those posts the mods refer to as threadshitting?
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The UP of Mich. Is just so Michigan-y it could never be anything else. I loved them crazy yoopers when we lived up there for awhile! That was the party-hardiest people I ever met!!
Everyone knows about the Louisiana Purchase. It basically doubled the size of the U.S. at the time and now makes up states as far flung as Minnesota. Parts of the state of Louisiana weren’t included in it though. There are eight Louisiana Parishes that are still known as the Florida Parishes because they were once part of the little known Spanish controlled territory of West Florida.
Louisiana history in general is complicated as hell. It was French, Spanish, U.S., Confederate and had unique sub-regions. My own tiny home town was right on the Texas border back when Texas was changing teams faster than a hooker on dollar night. It was literally once a lawless buffer area that took a long time to get straightened out and some of the current population still reflects that. The only international boundary marker in the continental U.S. is still located on my family’s land in the woods on an obscure part of the Texas/Louisiana border. It is a small park now and Republic of Texas militia groups gather there sometimes.
Actually, the Michigan Territory already had about 1/3 of the UP. The rest was added to compensate for the Toledo strip.
Interestingly, that border (for the most part) was SUPPOSED to be straight. But the surveyors were, eh, potted as they tried to survey it.
The little piece that sticks up into NC right at Charlotte was an indian reservation (Catawba Tribe) that the tribe successfully petitioned one of the George’s to include in SC at the time of the split of the Carolina colony. I live in that area; it’s called Indian Land, SC, to this day!
Surveying that line was a nightmare. They got it wrong the first time, and as a result, Aurora, NV wasn’t sure if it was in Nevada or California. So they sent legislators to BOTH states (and each of them ended up Speaker of the lower house!!). :eek:
If a thread doesn’t interest you, just don’t answer.
Consequently, if you think another poster is doing this, report it instead of calling them out on it, which will only (possibly) get you a note for junior modding. Let the mods handle calling posters out for breaking rules.
Michigander here as well. Michigan would leave the union before giving up the UP now. It was a great deal.
We don’t want to be any bigger here in Little Rhody. It’s already too damn far to Newport. We do all our shopping in MA, we don’t want that to be any further away.
I responded emotionally. Won’t happen again.
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I have told this story before but what the hell. My mother is a speaker that has events all over the country and the world. She was once trying to organize a speaking engagement in Rhode Island and the planners kept fighting over the location. One wanted it in Providence and the other in Pawtucket. One finally blurted out “Some people are going to have to drive half way across the state you know!” The concept of distances for many Rhode Islanders is bizarre. When you can get almost anywhere in your state in an hour or less, the rest of the country just doesn’t make any sense. 10 minutes away is just too far.
My mother isn’t much better though. Despite travelling extensively, she still has the geographic knowledge of a clubbed seal. She was less than 20 miles from both me and her granddaughters but never even thought to call us because she was in a completely different state and that might as well be a world away in her Texas mind (I can be in Rhode Island in less than 15 minutes and it is tiny).
If they do that I vote to change the name of Oklahoma to Pinocchio.
I also like the enlargement of Canada.
Can we agree that Delaware, Maryland, and Delmarva are just ridiculous?
Combine Delaware and Maryland, and the Virginia part of the peninsula, and hell, cut off Maryland’s ridiculous panhandle and give it to West Virginia.
Shagnasty, I realized that I was starting to become a Montanan when I started considering it no big deal to drive for a half-hour each way to go out to dinner.
Only started to become Montanan, mind you. To completely become a Montanan, your grandfather has to have been born there.
