Twelve Mile Circle – An Appreciation of Unusual Places

Category: History

  • Virginia’s Bermuda

    Bermuda was once part of Virginia. It would be natural to wonder how that might happen. There is a striking difference between the two. Most visibly, Virginia occupies a solid placement on the North American mainland. Meanwhile, Bermuda is an island archipelago 650 miles (1046 kilometers) out to sea. If Bermuda was directly off the…

  • State of Franklin

    The State of Franklin never existed, at least not officially, but it came amazingly close. Its territory extended across a swath of northeastern Tennessee and its borderlands along western North Carolina. The United States got off to a rocky start with burdensome debts remaining from the Revolutionary War and a weak central government formed under…

  • Mysterious Plum Island

    Plum Island sits off the northeast coast of Long Island, New York. Throughout the last two centuries it has vacillated between civilian and government use. Colonists began settling here in the late seventeenth and into the eighteenth centuries, and named it for the abundant native plum trees. British raiders bedeviled the island during the Revolutionary…

  • Bolivia’s Landlocked Navy

    Bolivia meets the definition of landlocked. Its South American neighbors, Brazil, Paraguay, Argentina, Chile, and Peru, completely surround it. There is no way for Bolivia to reach the sea without crossing through the territory of one of its neighbors. Yet, somewhat inexplicably, Bolivia has a robust Navy with upwards of 5,000 sailors. It’s not all…

  • What Happened to the Handle?

    I spend a lot of my free-time reading, researching and writing online. Nonetheless, I freely admit to one guilty pleasure: I enjoy curling up with a daily newspaper at the end of each day. There’s something about the feel of paper, the ease of use, and the depth of coverage that makes me happy. The…

  • Bibb-Monroe Border War in Georgia

    I don’t know what’s going on in the minds of the citizenry of the State of Georgia. They just don’t seem comfortable within their borders lately. They’ve been tugging, pulling, cinching and stretching their ill-fitting suit, maybe hoping to address some ancient wrongs or remove old annoyances. Certainly, plenty of opportunities exist. They’ve had the…

  • Os Confederados

    Immigration fueled the growth of the United States. It long served as an attractive destination for those seeking refuge or opportunity. Within that rich historical context it’s difficult to conceive of emigration, of people desiring to leave or even desperate to do so. However, that’s exactly what happened with the Confederados. A Society Turned Upside…

  • Sandoval Exclave

    A small wedge of Sandoval County, New Mexico hovers off its eastern edge. It is a fully disembodied and totally separated from the remainder of the county. Thus, it’s a great example of an orphaned exclave. Google Earth captures this exclave rather nicely. Roughly it’s triangular, with a right angle on the northeast corner. Santa…

  • 75 Years of Drinking

    Today is the 75th Anniversary(1) of the repeal of Prohibition in the United States. In addition to my odd fascination with weird geography, I’m a horrible beer snob(2) and sometimes I even find ways to tie my fascination with beer and geography together. So I think of this as a big day for Twelve Mile…

  • Naval Ensigns of U.S. States

    Many of the colonies that became the original 13 United States had their own navies during the Revolutionary War. Indeed, only New Jersey and Delaware did not. Individual colonies hastily cobbled together fleets as the conflict unfolded. With these, they hoped to defend American shores from a superior British fleet. States formally commissioner some of…