State Borders

Factual Questions
21

tshirts:

Was the “Toledo War” bloodless?

I grew up in Michigan and seem to remember that some people got killed.

Male Michigan resident: Michigander
Female Michigan resident: Michigoose

Upper Peninsula Michigan resident: Uper
(pronounced: You per)
Lower Peninsula Michigan resident: Troll
(they live below the Mackinac Bridge)
((Mackinac pronounced Mackinaw))
(((Those damn French again)))

Just putting my 2sense in.

Tyranny,* like Hell*,* is not easily conquered*.
-Thomas Paine (fugitive slave catcher)

22

Then it’s probably good that you moved.

I believe Michigan went ahead about 15 years ago and made the “official” state nickname “Michiganian.” I lived in MI from age 8 to 18 and the issue surfaced periodically to very heated debate. I was four-square in the Michigander camp. I never heard a female MI resident referred to as a Michigoose, nor an LPer referred to as a troll.

I have a possibly related question. Why do time zones not follow state borders? Look at a time zone map; the lines are all over the place. I can understand why in a state like TN where the line splits the state in two they’d be in different zones, but look at Idaho and Oregon. The top half of Idaho is Pacific and the rest is Mountain (no wonder the top half always wants to secede) and one tiny chunk of Oregon is Mountain. Or that one piece of West Texas that’s Mountain while the rest is Central. Same with Kansas and Indiana (which has two chunks across the line). Not having lived in any of those states except TX where it never came up, wouldn’t it make people nuts to change time zones in the middle of a state? I seem to recall some towns in Indiana which sit right on the line so part is in each zone (and part or all of Indiana doesn’t do DST either, right?). Do cities and states that are split legislate a standard time for the state? Do the feds?

23

Damn. Forgot to turn my brand-new sig on for that last post. So here it is in this one (if I did it right).

Cheese Log, Cheese Log, cylindrical and yellow!
Cut the Cheese Log and I’m a happy fellow!

24

This was mentioned in the Games section of Omni magazine several years ago. In one of the (mid?)western states, on a border running north-south, one surveying party was headed north, the other south. They missed each other by about a mile, so they simply cut across to meet. I can’t remember what state it is, it could be the NM-TX-OK border, or SD-WY-MT, but I’m not sure about either.

I know of a couple of controversial areas of the TN border. In the southeast border with NC, the border follows along the mountain ridge for a while, then suddenly cuts a sharp southward path. There have been stories that the surveying party got news of a moonshine still in the area, and attempted to make a beeline for it.

On the TN-VA border, just west of NC, TN seems to take a notch out of VA. There’s a (very small) town there that got its name from the unusual border–Offset, I think, is the name. There was an article in the Roanoke Times a while back about the border, I don’t remember much of it, though. The story behind it has never been clear, but one of the theories involved a couple of men in the surveying party trying to find some woman.

…ebius sig. This is a moebius sig. This is a mo…
(sig line courtesy of WallyM7)

25

Usually, the reasons for jogs in timezone have to do with influential cities in the area. Indiana, for instance, is for the most part in Eastern time, not observing DST. But a few counties in the northwest are Central, with DST—just like Chicago, IL, of which they are suburbs. Similarly, there are regions in the eastern part of the state that are Eastern Time but observe DST, because they fall under the influence of, iirc, Cincinatti, OH, and Louisville, KY. Northern Idaho is falls under the Pacific-time influence of Spokane, WA. I’m at a loss to explain Kansas, though—Burlington and Lamar (in Colorado) don’t look big enough to have the requisite influence. Oh well…

“Science without the humanities is aimless, but the humanities without science are groundless.” --anon

26

Heh. In Illinois, a similar thing happened, but the residents of Kaskaskia really didn’t want to be part of Missouri, so there is an entire town of Illinois west of the Mississippi. Oddly enough, Kaskaskia was an early (the first?) state capital, so we almost got put in the position of having a former state capital actually falling inside another state.

27

One version of the story is that the casualties were one cow and one broken arm. The cow was shot by a drunken member of either the Ohio or Michigan militia and the broken arm was inflicted on the shooter by the lady who owned the cow. I can’t find confirmation for those events at the moment, but every web site I’ve found mentions that there was no human loss of life.

The actual story (provided it is as accurate as it appears) is here:
http://detnews.com/history/ohio/ohio.htm

Tom~

28

“Legitimately”? Well, unless you’re aware of some entitlement I’m not, I think thats a fairly silly word to use. No one ever mandated the borders be straight.

Anyways, that border is quite obviously follows the St Mary’s river, its only natural that it became the division. I can’t speak with authority on the organization of colonial borders, but I suspect that it might have been a original settlers border. Possibly a international one during the Spanish settlers occupation. The straight border, which runs from Lake Seminole to the source of the St. Mary’s (I am assuming that those were the intentions) that I’m guessing you imply is the “legitimate” border most likely post dates the St Mary’s River as a border.

29

Otto:

Heck, I was living in Michigan 15 years ago.
Of course I was in high school, so I wasn’t learning much back then.

I heard the official term a couple of years ago from my mom. I figured: that was just Engler for you. Too uptight to choose an aestetic dual term like Gander/Goose.
Are you telling me you never heard that 1?

Tom:

Thanks for the link.
Now I can blame it all on good old Jacksa Chula Harjo (Creek for Jackson, Old and Fierce)

Imagine using the online Detroit News for something other than Lions draft news!

Just putting my 2sense in

Oh Andy! Oh Andy!
How many men have you hanged in your life?
How many weddings to make a wife?

  • 1828 Anti-Jackson campaign song
30

Regarding Michiganian replacing Michigander.

Older than that. Silly Billy Milli-ken and his effete Michiganians pushed that through in the early 80’s. (There may have been some more recent brouhaha about forcing recalcitrant Michiganders to remove their term from some published or official papers, I dunno.) I was born and raised a Michigander and if I get a chance I’ll return to being one.

Tom~

31

Its interesting how some borders are still somewhat in flux. There was an article in the local paper recently about a family who thought they were in Johnston County (and had paid taxes there for many years) who were told they were actually in Wake County. When they asked why county line had moved, they were told that technically it hadn’t moved, just that it had “been found”.

Also, I remember reading recently that Virginia and West Virginia were trying to pin down the exact location of their border in a sparsely settled section where the border is supposed to follow along a mountain ridge. This was originally a county line between two counties within the original Virginia state boundaries, so people weren’t too concerned. But once West Virginia became a separate state it became a state border, and they felt they now needed to figure out exactly where it ran, to see which side could get the taxes.

32

whiteho, I remember the VA/WV dispute. IIRC, one community had major headaches. They had a WV area code (304), but could only be reached by VA roads. Their 911 calls were directed to the WV authorities, who told them they had to call VA emergency services because it would take less time. And the VA authorities said they weren’t authorized to respond to calls out of state.

Their utilities (water, gas, electricity) were provided by one state or the other. When they needed servicing and needed to call another utility to confer about digging, they’d often get misdirected to the wrong state utility.

On an aside about VA & WV: Several years ago, the previous Virginia governor (can’t remember his name) said in reference to West Virginia, “the counties that call themselves West Virginia.” Now, all our state logos and such have a post-Civil-War silhouette, i.e., without West Virginia’s counties. Was he just living in the past, or is there some obscure legal point of view that WV should still be a part of VA?

Wrong thinking is punished, right thinking is just as swiftly rewarded. You’ll find it an effective combination.

33

Geez, hijacking my own thread. :rolleyes:

34

Georgia’s borders are based on the original grant for the colony, modified by much nonsense that went on between the British and the Spanish, both of whom claimed Florida and fought over it for some time. See for further discussion the thread: Original 13 or 15 Colonies.

Each and every state line that doesn’t just run along longitude and latitude has a fun history behind it, usually. Indeed, as noted, some of the ones that DO run straight north-south or east-west have weird histories. After all, not every state managed to have Messrs. Mason and Dixon survey their border for them. There is a ghost town in Nevada, near the California border, called Aurora, that was once the county seat for Mono County in California, until the official survey of the border showed it was 3 miles into Nevada.

I urge you to look up the history of any of these that interest you; after all, curiousity is a fun teacher and it beats reading posts by straigh dopers who can’t be bothered to look up what they aren’t sure of.

35

I would concur with the previous post. The reasons for the borders of every state are pretty well-documented. This is not something that governments trifle with. And it’s enjoyable

Surveying must be fun. That’s why those road signs always say “Survey Party Ahead.”

36

>I seem to recall some towns in Indiana which sit right on the line so part is in each zone (and part or all of Indiana doesn’t do DST either, right?).

I used to live in St. Joseph County, Indiana, and can say that around there, no towns were split (the line followed county lines), but instead was far more complicated.

First off, the eastern part of the state does not go on DST. This means that for the winter half the year, St.Joe county and Michigan were the same time, while LaPorte was an hour earlier. During the summer, all Indiana is the same time, while Michigan was an hour later. Delivery companies had to take this time change into account and adjust schedules appropriately.

A lot of people kept their home time by where they worked, no matter which side of the line they lived. Additionally, you had to make sure you were specific about time of appointments: “Laporte time vs. South Bend time vs. Michigan time.”

As for state boundaries, there’s a USGS Professional Paper (actually a book with lots of maps) which gives a detailed history of them all, including changes, legal definitions and rationales. (I can post the exact title, author and number if anyone cares.)

Most western north-south straight line boundaries were defined as nn degrees west of Washington, which is why they are all about 3 minutes west of the Greenwich 0 minute line.

A lot of those straight line boundaries were because the territory in question wasn’t well surveyed, and there could be questions about where exactly geographical features really were. For example, when the Montana and Wyoming territories were created, the latter was temporarily attached to the Dakota territory, then split off. Because the continental divide is actually south of 44deg30’, while they assumed north, the definitions left a little chunk of Dakota wedged between Idaho, Montana and Wyoming (mostly a part of Yellowstone NP) for several years until corrected by legislation which attached it to Montana.

As for oddities, has anyone mentioned Point Roberts?

37

>I seem to recall some towns in Indiana which sit right on the line so part is in each zone (and part or all of Indiana doesn’t do DST either, right?).

I used to live in St. Joseph County, Indiana, and can say that around there, no towns were split (the line followed county lines), but instead was far more complicated.

First off, the eastern part of the state does not go on DST. This means that for the winter half the year, St.Joe county and Michigan were the same time, while LaPorte was an hour earlier. During the summer, all Indiana is the same time, while Michigan was an hour later. Delivery companies had to take this time change into account and adjust schedules appropriately.

A lot of people kept their home time by where they worked, no matter which side of the line they lived. Additionally, you had to make sure you were specific about time of appointments: “Laporte time vs. South Bend time vs. Michigan time.”

As for state boundaries, there’s a USGS Professional Paper (actually a book with lots of maps) which gives a detailed history of them all, including changes, legal definitions and rationales. (I can post the exact title, author and number if anyone cares.)

Most western north-south straight line boundaries were defined as nn degrees west of Washington, which is why they are all about 3 minutes west of the Greenwich 0 minute line.

A lot of those straight line boundaries were because the territory in question wasn’t well surveyed, and there could be questions about where exactly geographical features really were. For example, when the Montana and Wyoming territories were created, the latter was temporarily attached to the Dakota territory, then split off. Because the continental divide is actually south of 44deg30’, while they assumed north, the definitions left a little chunk of Dakota wedged between Idaho, Montana and Wyoming (mostly a part of Yellowstone NP) for several years until corrected by legislation which attached it to Montana.

As for oddities, has anyone mentioned Point Roberts?

(I hope this isn’t duplicated, as my last attempt timed out.)

38

[hijack] Hope this puts an end to the Indiana Time Zone issue, I hate to see a great thread ripped at the seams…

What time is it in Indiana?

Thank you, and good night.

Connor

Sala, can’t you count?!? I said NO camels! That’s FIVE camels!

39

Boris said:

For a curious example, look at Saskatchewan’s two north-south borders in a good atlas. The western border with Alberta runs straight north, but the eastern border, with Manitoba, runs on the magnetic line.

As a result, the eastern border has correction lines every so often to bring it back into sync with true north - little jogs at 90 degrees to the west, then 90 degrees back north.

Although at first glance it looks like a straight north-south border, in fact there are places in Saskatchewan where you are actually south of Manitoba.

Thanks for doing your bit to advance the cause of human knowledge.
 
  – Cecil Adams

40

Boris said:

For a curious example illustrating the difference, look at Saskatchewan’s two north-south borders in a good atlas.

The western border with Alberta runs straight north, but the eastern border, with Manitoba, runs on the magnetic line.

As a result, the eastern border has correction lines every so often to bring it back into sync with true north - little jogs 90 degrees to the west, then 90 degrees back north.

Although at first glance it looks like a straight north-south border, in fact there are places in Saskatchewan where you are actually south of Manitoba. (It’s a good bar bet.)

Thanks for doing your bit to advance the cause of human knowledge.
 
  – Cecil Adams