Twelve Mile Circle – An Appreciation of Unusual Places

Twelve Mile Circle

  • Divine Apartments

    I can’t tell if I live in an area overflowing with geo-oddities or whether my personality reflexively uncovers unusual situations wherever I happen to locate myself. Would I be equally adept at mining unusual patterns in London, Toronto, Sydney or Dakar? Perhaps. I’ve argued before that weirdness exists everywhere. Even so, my home area provides…

  • Announcing the Completely New Index

    It’s a big day on Twelve Mile Circle. I’m ready to publicly debut a new version of my Complete Index page after it’s “soft opening” over the weekend. I figured a geo-oddities website deserved a decent geocoded index with an intuitive Google Maps interface. I didn’t figure it would take almost a year to accomplish…

  • Pipeline Crossroads of the World

    It seems like every time I run an article about an odd appendage cobbled to the boundaries of a U.S. county, an interested reader brings an equally unusual shape to my attention. That’s great — keep them coming! The latest example arrived courtesy of Scott Surgent. He made a comment on the Merrick Strip article:…

  • Ireland’s Narrow Little Neck

    I looked at the Emerald Isle and noticed an anomaly. Northern Ireland comes very close to separating the tip of the Republic of Ireland from the remainder of its body. The neck constricts to perhaps as few as ten kilometres at its narrowest point between the border and the sea. It’s even shorter if we…

  • Oldest Town in Ireland

    I don’t know why I torture myself. Nothing good can come from this, and yet I can’t resist. I noticed a place reputed to be the “oldest town in Ireland” as I investigated an unusual geographic feature. These types of claims are notoriously tenuous and probably doubly-so in a land as ancient as Ireland. At…

  • Nimrod

    I noticed a lake clipped by the stair-step border in Arkansas. What kind of nimrod would name something Nimrod Lake (map)? Nimrod applies in a derogatory way in various usages of American English. It references someone rather dim-witted. However, I don’t know if that applies elsewhere in the English speaking world. Maybe our regular readers…

  • Let’s Decide

    The loyal readers of the Twelve Mile Circle certainly came through with a number of great suggestions for the most Iconic View. I have multiple favorites and I imagine you probably do too. There’s no objective way that I believe I can select a single winner. With that in mind, I’ve decided to let the…

  • The Merrick Strip

    Three cheers for longtime reader Pfly for pointing out the Merrick Strip in a recent comment. Did you miss the comment? Are you wondering what I’m talking about? Then check out the northwest corner of Merrick County, Nebraska. Notice what almost looks like an antenna protruding from the main body of the county. It’s an…

  • Stair Step Border

    A jagged border exists between Perry and Yell Counties in Arkansas. It comes with fifteen perfectly-aligned steps rising northeasterly like a superhuman staircase stenciled upon the landscape. The path traverses land and lakes alike, in a noticeably precise pattern. It seemed rather unusual to me. More commonly one would expect to see a border drawn…

  • Iconic Views

    Skip directly to the bottom if you want to be part of a little contest. Otherwise feel free to read through my blathering extended explanation of context for a few moments. I featured a nice Google Street View image of the historic Hume School in Arlington County, Virginia recently. It seemed familiar, and not because…

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…