Twelve Mile Circle – An Appreciation of Unusual Places

Twelve Mile Circle

  • Bibb-Monroe Border War Resolved. Maybe.

    Who says that Twelve Mile Circle can’t break a story? I stay away from the major geographic developments because I figure everyone else will cover them. South Sudan, anyone? You saw no mention of it that on 12MC. The smaller stories, the ones few care to follow and even fewer dare to understand? Well those…

  • Earthquake in DC!

    Holy crap! We just had an earthquake. I’m on the top floor — 11th floor — of an office building in Crystal City, just across the river from Washington, DC. The building actually ROCKED for awhile. Lots of people have evacuated the office buildings. I can see them out on the streets. Me? I’m still…

  • National Preserves

    I mentioned 12MC reader Scott a couple of weeks ago in reference to the Park You Cannot Visit. He also set me up with a lot of other National Park Service trivia that I’ll cover from time-to-time as I’m able to work it into the publication schedule. As an example, he wondered if I’d ever…

  • Rotten Boroughs

    Changing population patterns created a particularly rotten political situation in the United Kingdom over a period of several hundred years. It remained uncorrected until the middle of the Nineteenth Century. The House of Commons, the lower house, has its roots all the way back in the Thirteenth Century in England. Each borough — roughly analogous…

  • The Loneliest Road in the USA

    What is the “Loneliest Road in America?” Life Magazine claimed that it was the stretch of U.S. Route 50 running through Nevada, in a 1986 article. I don’t know if anyone still claims that today, or if it was even true twenty-five years ago. Additionally, there are probably far lonelier roads in Australia and Canada…

  • Mmm… Doughnut

    My mind gravitates back to doughnuts (or is it donuts?) following up on a long-ago article, the Gaithersburg Doughnut Hole. The concept fascinates me. It occurs when a town completely surrounds a separately-governed entity, generally another town. That leaves a doughnut town — one with the hole in it — and a doughnut-hole town, the…

  • Sports Facilities I Never Imagined

    My mind fixates on patterns and I’ve noticed a number of unusual sport coincidences in recent days. It started with an acquaintance who mentioned her disinterest in Reno, Nevada. She simply didn’t want to go back there again this year. Of course I knew she didn’t gamble. So I wondered why she would go to…

  • Tragically Hundred

    Right before reader Brent traveled through Manitoba and recorded his visit to the Dominion Land Survey’s Prime Meridian, he and I were discussing the 100th Meridian west of Greenwich. He shared this 1992 video from The Tragically Hip, “At The Hundredth Meridian“ Go ahead and turn it up if you like. It will be good…

  • Canada’s Dominion Land Survey Meridian

    One of my favorite activities and side-benefits on Twelve Mile Circle involves thoughtful correspondence. That happens when readers contact me offline, directly through the email link. We have opportunities to share experiences, discuss geo-oddities in a little more detail and develop story lines that sometimes result in full-blown articles. Casual readers may not realize the…

  • Looney Tunes Geography

    One of my favorite idea-generators came to the rescue again this evening. A random visitor arrived on the Twelve Mile Circle through an unusual search engine query. They were trying to research place names used in Looney Tunes cartoons. That sounds entertaining. I’ll take a shot at that. Let’s start with a definition. I’ll try…

Latest Comments

  2. Hi Mr. Howder — Just going from memory, I recall that your “rule” for counting a nation/state/county is “if I’m…

  5. Does anyone have actual music to the song – Tanaha ,Timpson. Bobo and Blair ?? It was recorded by Tex…