Category: U.S. States

  • Remote Southwestern Virginia

    Recently I posted an entry about a section of Virginia that is further west than any point in West Virginia. It’s an odd fact made quite interesting primarily because the founders of a state carved from an older one consciously chose to highlight the word “west” in describing their creation. At the same time it…

  • Virginia, West of West Virginia

    West Virginia split from Virginia in 1863 during the height of the Civil War. It elected to remain with the Union while the rest of the Commonwealth remained firmly entrenched within the Confederacy. Tensions based on divergent economies, cultures and geography simmered between the western and eastern portions of Virginia for decades leading up to…

  • Michigan’s Lost Peninsula

    One of the oddities that interests me is when a territory is broken into two or more non-contiguous pieces.  Some become rather famous, like the small chunk of the United States in northern Minnesota that can only be reached via Canada at Lake of the Woods. A similar condition exists between and within certain states…