# What's with that little bit of Kentucky?
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-with-that-little-bit-of-kentucky/120568
**Category:** Factual Questions
**Created:** [July 24, 2002, 2:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-with-that-little-bit-of-kentucky/120568 "2002-07-24T14:16:20Z")
**Posts on this page:** 11
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@Acsenray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acsenray)
#### Post date: [July 24, 2002, 2:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-with-that-little-bit-of-kentucky/120568/1 "2002-07-24T14:16:20Z")
Looking closely at a map, it seems that there is a little piece of Kentucky that is entirely separated from the rest of Kentucky by territory belonging to Missouri and Tennessee. How and why did that happen?
---
### Author:  [@David\_Simmons](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/David_Simmons)
#### Post date: [July 24, 2002, 2:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-with-that-little-bit-of-kentucky/120568/2 "2002-07-24T14:35:18Z")
> [@](#):
>
> \*Originally posted by acsenray \*
> \*\*Looking closely at a map, it seems that there is a little piece of Kentucky that is entirely separated from the rest of Kentucky by territory belonging to Missouri and Tennessee. How and why did that happen? \*\*
I don’t know, but the same thing is true of Carter Lake, IA. The Missouri River once made a tight loop to the west at the north edge of Omaha, NE and Carter Lake was in that loop. The river then cut through the base of that loop and Carter Lake is now physically a part of Omaha, NE even though legally it is still in Iowa.
---
### Author:  [@yabob](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/yabob)
#### Post date: [July 24, 2002, 2:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-with-that-little-bit-of-kentucky/120568/3 "2002-07-24T14:46:08Z")
We’ve been over this a couple times before:
[http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=52229](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=52229)
[http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=40009](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=40009)
The “Kentucky Bend” or “New Madrid” bend:
> [@](#):
>
> Near the epicenter of the New Madrid quakes, the Mississippi River takes a sharp turn north and then south again, creating a near loop known variously as the New Madrid Bend or Kentucky Bend. Early surveyors marking the Kentucky-Tennessee state line had not been able to push this far west and had only estimated where their line would meet the Mississippi. When later, more accurate surveys were done, it turned out that the parallel they had chosen cut right through the loop, crossing the river twice to create a small peninsula that’s bounded by the state line on one side and the river on the other three. After much wrangling in court, Kentucky and Tennessee finally agreed to leave it that way, giving Fulton County its cut-off tip.
From [http://www.wkmu.org/kentuckylife/800s/kylife804.html](http://www.wkmu.org/kentuckylife/800s/kylife804.html)
---
### Author:  [@Crafter\_Man](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Crafter_Man)
#### Post date: [July 24, 2002, 3:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-with-that-little-bit-of-kentucky/120568/4 "2002-07-24T15:13:48Z")
**Minnesota** is another strange one. If you look at the MN/Canadian border you’ll see a fairly large lake. Across the bay (on the “Canadian side”) you’ll see a small peninsula belonging to Minnesota. I believe this peninsula is the northern-most point of the continental US.
---
### Author:  [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)
#### Post date: [July 24, 2002, 3:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-with-that-little-bit-of-kentucky/120568/5 "2002-07-24T15:34:01Z")
> [@](#):
>
> \*Originally posted by Crafter\_Man \*
> I believe this peninsula is the northern-most point of the continental US. \*\*
Of the _contiguous_ United States. Alaska is part of the _continental_ US.
This anomaly arose for similar reasons: the boundary was defined before the area had been adequately explored.
---
### Author:  [@yabob](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/yabob)
#### Post date: [July 24, 2002, 3:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-with-that-little-bit-of-kentucky/120568/6 "2002-07-24T15:51:42Z")
That’s the “Northwest Angle”, also covered in previous threads. The original US/Canadian border was negotiated working from a faulty map which placed Lake of the Woods much further south than it was, and IIRC, believed it to be the source of the Mississippi (the north end of the lake was the original border). Resultant renegotiation settled the border on the 49th parrallel, but the US was allowed to keep the angle because they had already established a settlement at angle inlet.
---
### Author:  [@Keeve](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Keeve)
#### Post date: [July 24, 2002, 4:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-with-that-little-bit-of-kentucky/120568/7 "2002-07-24T16:08:21Z")
Is the “Northwest Angle” disconnected from the rest of the USA the way the New Madrid bend is separated from the rest of Tennessee? From what I see on MapQuest, the Northwest Angle is part of Ontario.
---
### Author:  [@yabob](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/yabob)
#### Post date: [July 24, 2002, 4:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-with-that-little-bit-of-kentucky/120568/8 "2002-07-24T16:19:23Z")
The Northwest Angle is disconnected by land, however, by water it is contigous - the border extends out through Lake of the Woods.
Might as well hijack this thread some more to ask this one:
If you look closely, you will see that Colorado is not quite rectangular. There is an angle to the Utah border for a few miles in the southern part of Montrose county just below route 46, creating a very slight indent in Colorado’s outline. I haven’t been able to dig up how that happened. A pure WAG would be that it represents another surveyor’s correction, of course. Anybody know?
---
### Author:  [@Horseflesh](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Horseflesh)
#### Post date: [July 25, 2002, 2:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-with-that-little-bit-of-kentucky/120568/9 "2002-07-25T02:41:32Z")
> [@](#):
>
> \*Originally posted by yabob \*
> \*\*Might as well hijack this thread some more to ask this one:
>
> If you look closely, you will see that Colorado is not quite rectangular. There is an angle to the Utah border for a few miles in the southern part of Montrose county just below route 46, creating a very slight indent in Colorado’s outline. I haven’t been able to dig up how that happened. A pure WAG would be that it represents another surveyor’s correction, of course. Anybody know? \*\*
Just piping in to backup your WAG with some distant memories (IOW, I read this a long time ago but can’t find any cites. ☹ ). It was a surveyor’s mistake but they decided to keep the boundaries as they were originally surveyed instead of correcting them. IIRC, the discrepancy (about a mile wide where the north and south lines meet I think) wasn’t really discovered until years later with more accurate equipment. I’m guessing the Rockies aren’t the easiest landscape to survey.
---
### Author:  [@AskNott](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AskNott)
#### Post date: [July 25, 2002, 3:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-with-that-little-bit-of-kentucky/120568/10 "2002-07-25T03:15:14Z")
There’s a wee slice of Kentucky that’s on the Indiana side of the Ohio river. Near Evansville, IN, there’s a place where the Ohio river made a new meander. Before Indiana allowed horse race gambling, there was a track called Ellis Park in a piece of ground that was once on the Kentucky side. The boundary exists according to where the river was when the boundary was drawn.
---
### Author:  [@Crafter\_Man](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Crafter_Man)
#### Post date: [July 25, 2002, 12:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-with-that-little-bit-of-kentucky/120568/11 "2002-07-25T12:40:55Z")
> [@](#):
>
> \*Originally posted by Colibri \*
> \*\*
>
> Of the _contiguous_ United States. Alaska is part of the _continental_ US.\*\*
Yep, you’re right. :smack: