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Your home town and it's name

OakieOakie Member Posts: 40,519 ✭✭✭✭
edited November 2014 in General Discussion
I am from Lenola, NJ. It was founded in the early 1890's by my great, great grandfather, Thomas Barlow. It was named after a famous Indian Chief. I never knew that my hometown was founded and built by my family. It was a small farming community and was part of Maple Shade, NJ in it's early life. It later became a borough of it's neighboring town of Moorestown NJ. My parents still live in the house part time, that they bought in 1960. We were the first family on our street.

Where were you raised and what was the name of your Hometown. Please post pictures if you can to share with the rest of us or pictures of your childhood. Old buildings,family photos, pets, ect.
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Comments

  • grumpygygrumpygy Member Posts: 53,466
    edited November -1
    Lancaster Calif. Home of Edwards Air Force Base. A lot of flight history is there.

    Also Know as the Antelope Valley.

    Here is a good short history.

    http://www.wm.com/location/california/antelope-valley/lancaster/community/history.jsp
  • WarbirdsWarbirds Member Posts: 16,814 ✭✭✭✭
    edited November -1
    Seattle Washington. A lot has changed.

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    Now:
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  • Locust ForkLocust Fork Member Posts: 31,617 ✭✭✭✭
    edited November -1
    Locust Fork is actually named because of the Locust Trees that grew in the fork of the Warrior river. Remlap is a tiny town that was founded by two brothers....each named their own town. Their last name was Palmer....so we have a Palmerdale and a Remlap....which is Palmer spelled backwards.

    Not much has changed around here over the years. We are a dry county....no stop lights....not much going on, but teenager shenanigans and gossip. We have a few more paved roads than we used to......and I don't know anyone that has to use an outhouse any more (but I used to!)
    LOCUST FORK CURRENT AUCTIONS: https://www.gunbroker.com/All/search?Sort=13&IncludeSellers=618902&PageSize=48 Listings added every Thursday! We do consignments, contact us at mckaygunsales@gmail.com
  • kimikimi Member Posts: 44,723 ✭✭✭
    edited November -1
    I was born in Rusk, Texas, but I was raised in Beaumont. Click on the link to learn about it's history. One link has to do with Beaumont Stories, and the story below is taken from this section of the site:

    http://www.texasescapes.com/TexasGulfCoastTowns/BeaumontTexas.htm#history

    YOCUM'S INN:
    The Devil's Own Lodging House

    By W. T. Block

    Stories about the old Goodnight and Chisholm Trails have so dominated the writings of Western Americana that even Texans have forgotten that their first great cattle drives ended up at New Orleans rather than Abilene or Dodge City, Kansas.

    When the Spanish viceroy lifted a trade ban between Texas and Spanish Louisiana in 1778, a New Orleans-bound cattle drive of 2,000 steers, driven by Francisco Garcia, left San Antonio in 1779, the first drive of record along the unsung Opelousas Trail. By the mid-1850s, more than 40,000 Texas Longhorns were being driven annually across Louisiana, and no one welcomed the cattle drovers more enthusiastically than did Thomas Denman Yocum, Esq., of Pine Island settlement in Southeast Texas.

    The first Anglo rancher along the Opelousas Trail was James Taylor White, who by 1840 owned a herd of 10,000. In 1818 he settled at Turtle Bayou, near Anahuac in Spanish Texas, and he was a contemporary of Jean Lafitte, whose pirate stronghold was on neighboring Galveston Island. By 1840, White had driven many large herds over the lonely trail, and a decade later, had more than $150,000 in gold banked in New Orleans, the proceeds of his cattle sales.

    By 1824 there were others from Stephen F. Austin's colony, between the Brazos and Colorado Rivers, who joined White in the long trail drives, and a favorite stopover was Yocum's Inn, where the welcome mat was always out and the grub was always tasty and hot.


    Thomas Yocum settled on a Mexican land grant on Pine Island Bayou, the south boundary of the Big Thicket of Southeast Texas, around 1830. It was then a virgin, sparsely-settled region of prairies, pine barrens, and thickets, and any settler living within ten miles was considered a neighbor. The deep, navigable stream, 100 feet wide and 75 miles long, was a tributary of the Neches River and had already attracted ten or more pioneers who also held land grants from the Mexican government. Often they heard the pound of hoofs and bellowing of thirsty herds, bound for the cattle crossing over the Neches at Beaumont. There were more than thirty streams which intersected the trail and which had to be forded or swum in the course of travel. And always Yocum rode out at the first sound of the herds and invited the drovers to quench their thirst and satisfy their hunger at the Inn.

    Some people who stopped at the Inn were headed west. Sometimes they were new immigrants driving small herds into Texas. Some, like Arsene LeBleu, one of Jean Lafitte's former ship captains, were Louisiana cattle buyers carrying money belts filled with gold coins, and were en route to White's Ranch or elsewhere to buy cattle. The popularity of Yocum's Inn spread far and wide. Its genial host soon became the postmaster of Pine Island settlement under the old Texas Republic, supervised the local elections, served on juries, and was widely respected by his neighbors and travelers alike.

    Yocum acquired much land and many slaves, and by 1839 his herd of l500 heads of cattle was the fourth largest in Jefferson County. While other settlers rode the wiry Creole, or mustang-size, ponies of a type common to Southwest Louisiana, Yocum's stable of thirty horses were stock of the finest American breeds, and his family drove about in an elegant carriage.

    A gentleman's life, however, held no attraction for Squire Yocum, a man who literally was nursed almost from the cradle on murder and rapine, and for many years Yocum's Inn was actually a den of robbers and killers. What is the most startling is the fact that Yocum was able to camouflage his activities for more than a decade, maintaining an aura of respectability while simultaneously committing the worst of villainies, with a murderous band of cutthroats unequaled in the history of East Texas.

    How Yocum could accomplish this since he used no alias, is unexplainable, for he, his brothers, his father, and his sons were known from Texas to Mississippi as killers, slave-stealers, and robbers. If any neighbor suspected that something at Yocum's Inn was amiss, he either feared for his life or was a member of the gang.

    One account, written by Philip Paxton in 1853, observed that Yocum, "knowing the advantages of a good character at home, soon by his liberality, apparent good humor, and obliging disposition, succeeded in ingratiating himself with the few settlers."

    Squire Yocum was born in Kentucky around 1796. As a fourteen-year-old, he cut his criminal eyeteeth with his father and brothers in the infamous John A. Murrell gang who robbed travelers along the Natchez Trace in western Mississippi. At first Murrell was reputed to be an Abolitionist who liberated slaves and channeled them along an "underground railroad" to freedom in the North. Actually, his gang kidnapped slaves, later selling them to the sugar cane planters of Louisiana.

    Murrell soon graduated to pillage and murder, but slave-stealing remained a favorite activity of the Yocum brothers, and on one occasion two of them, while returning to Louisiana with stolen horses and slaves, were caught and hanged in East Texas.

    When law enforcement in western Mississippi threatened to encircle them, the Yocums fled first to Bayou Plaquemine Brule, near Churchpoint, Louisiana, then in 1815 to the Neutral Strip of Louisiana, located between the Sabine and Calcasieu Rivers. Until 1821 the Strip knew no law enforcement and military occupation, and hence became a notorious robbers' roost for the outcasts of both Spanish Texas and the State of Louisiana.

    In the Land Office Register of 1824, T. D. Yocum, his father, and two brothers were listed as claiming land grants in the Neutral Strip; and during the 1820s, according to the Colorado "Gazette and Advertiser" of Oct. 31, 1841, Yocum's father was tried several times for murder at Natchitoches, La., and bought acquittal on every occasion with hired witnesses and perjured testimony.

    By 1824, Squire Yocum, once again feeling the pinch of civilization, had moved on to the Mexican District of Atascosita in Texas. He lived for awhile in the vicinity of Liberty on the Trinity River. Writing about him in 1830, Matthew White, the Liberty alcalde, notified Stephen F. Austin that Yocum was one of two men who allegedly had killed a male slave and kidnapped his family, and as a result "were driven across the Sabine and their houses burned." But Yocum was not about to remain so close to the hangman's noose and the fingertips of sheriffs and U. S. marshals. And he soon took his family and slaves to the Pine Island Bayou region where he built his infamous Inn. Having acquired some wealth and affluence by 1835, the old killer and slave stealer could become more selective with his victims.

    Among the many travelers along the dusty Opelousas Trail, the eastbound cattleman often stayed at Yocum's Inn and left praising the owner's hospitality. And of course the genial proprietor always invited him to stop over on his return journey. It was the westbound Louisiana cattle buyer and the Texas rancher who had already delivered his herd in New Orleans whose lives were in danger. Usually drovers paid off and dismissed their hands in New Orleans. Texas cattlemen often traveled alone on the return trip, and if any of them lodged at Yocum's Inn, a bulging waist line, which usually denoted a fat money belt of gold coins, virtually signaled his demise. The drover's bones were left to bleach in the Big Thicket, at the bottom of the innkeeper's well, or in the alligator slough.

    In East Texas, Squire Yocum's crimes spawned more legends, many of them about his buried loot, than any other man except Jean Lafitte. And every legend tells the story differently. One relates that a Texas rancher was backtracking a missing brother, who was overdue from a New Orleans cattle drive, and stopped at Yocum's Inn to make inquiries. A Yocum cohort informed the rancher that no one had seen the missing brother on his return trip; then suddenly the missing brother's dog rounded a corner of the Inn. Glancing elsewhere about the premises, the rancher recognized his brother's expensive saddle resting on a nearby fence. When the conversation became heated, Yocum's partner grabbed for a shotgun, but the rancher fired first and killed him. As told in the legend, Yocum overheard the conversation and accusations from a distance, and quickly fled into the Big Thicket.

    Another legend tells of a foreigner who was carrying a grind organ and a monkey with him when he rode his big gray stallion to Yocum's Inn in search of a night's lodging. Earlier the stranger had played the hand organ for some children who lived nearby and who had given him directions to reach the Inn. The story adds that Yocum traded horses with the foreigner during his stay. When the children later found a battered hand organ abandoned beside the trail, there was little doubt about the foreigner's fate.


    There are many early records, written at the time of Yocum's demise, which chronicle the innkeeper's death, but they sometimes conflict. The longest of them was written by Philip Paxton in 1853, and his account of how Yocum's misdeeds were exposed appears to be the most plausible. {{Indeed, his account is deadly accurate. See sources at end}} Paxton claimed that a man named (Seth) Carey, who owned a farm on Cedar Bayou near Houston, had killed a neighbor during a quarrel over a dog and fled to Yocum for asylum. It was agreed that Yocum would receive power of attorney to sell Carey's land grant and that Yocum would forward the proceeds of the sale to Carey in Louisiana. A gang member, however, told Carey that he had no chance of escaping to Lousiana. Yocum planned to pocket the proceeds of the sale and, besides, Carey had wandered upon some skeletons in a Pine Island thicket and thus had learned "too many and too dangerous secrets" about the murder ring at Yocum's Inn.

    The earliest published account, which appeared in the San Augustine "Redlander" of Sept. 30, 1841, stated that Yocum was killed by the "Regulators of Jefferson County who were determined to expel from their county all persons of suspicious or bad character." The newspaper chided the vigilantes for killing Yocum and not allowing him the due process of law and a speedy trial. But the editor conceded that Yocum had a notorious record in Louisiana "as a Negro and horse stealer, repeatedly arrested for those crimes."

    Three other accounts, however, two in the Houston papers of that era and another in the "Colorado Gazette and Advertiser," published at Matagorda, Texas, alleged that "Thomas Yocum, a notorious villain and murderer, who resided at the Pine Islands near the Neches River, has been killed by the citizens of Jasper and Liberty Counties . . . ."

    "Yocum has lived in Texas twenty years and has committed as many murders to rob his victims. The people could bear him no longer so 150 citizens gathered and burned his premises and shot him. They have cleared his gang out of the neighborhood," thus putting an end to the Pine Island postmaster, his gang, and his Inn. Of course, only Yocum could reveal the true number of murder notches on his gun, which may have reached as many as fifty.

    According to Paxton, the Regulators found the bones of victims in Yocum's well, in the neighboring thickets, in the "alligator slough," and even out on the prairie. They then burned Yocum's Inn, the stables and furniture, but allowed his wife, children, and slaves a few days to leave the county. The posse trailed the killers into the Big Thicket and eventually caught up with Yocum on Spring Creek in Montgomery County. No longer willing to trust a Yocum's fate to the whims of any jury, the vigilantes gave the old murderer thirty minutes to square his misdeeds with his Maker, and then they "shot him through the heart" five times.

    Paxton also reported that "not one of Yocum's family had met with a natural death." Little is known of the fate of Yocum's sons other than Christopher, who in 1836 who had been mustered into Captain Franklin Hardin's company at Liberty, and who had served honorably and with distinction for one year in the Texas Army. Chris, whom many believed to be "the best of the Yocums," may not have been implicated in the murder ring at all, but he fled, leaving his young wife behind, perhaps because of the stigma that his surname carried and the public anger that was then rampant.

    Believing that the public clamor for revenge had died down after a span of four months, Chris Yocum returned to Beaumont, Texas, one night in January 1842. Sheriff West, although he had no specific crimes to charge him with, was aware that a thirst for retribution still lingered and he arrested young Yocum for his own protection. Jefferson County's "Criminal Docket Book, 1839-1851" reveals that Chris was lodged in the county's log house jail on the afternoon of Jan. 15, 1842. What the book does not reveal is the fact that young Yocum faced Judge Lynch and an unsummoned jury of Regulators on the same night. The following morning West found him swinging from a limb of an oak tree on the courthouse lawn, with a ten-penny nail driven into the base of his skull.

    During the second administration of Sam Houston as president of the Texas Republic, there were many excesses and assassinations, principally in Shelby County in East Texas, attributed to vigilante bands, who called themselves "Regulators." On Jan. 31, 1842, he issued a proclamation, ordering all district attorneys to prosecute the Regulators stringently for any offense committed by them. The proclamation began as follows: "Whereas . . . . certain individuals . . . have murdered one Thomas D. Yocum, burned his late residence and appurtenances, and driven his widow and children from their homes . . . ."

    Whether or not President Houston's paper might have been worded somewhat differently if the chief executive had been forced to witness the bleached bones in Yocum's well or to bury some of the skeletons out on the prairie is, of course, another question.

    Almost from the date of T. D. Yocum's death, legends began to circulate concerning the murderer's hoard of stolen treasure, because the vigilantes knew that neither the old robber nor any member of his family had had time to excavate it before they were driven from the county. Some of them thought that only Yocum and one of his slaves actually knew where the loot was hidden. Others claimed that Chris Yocum knew where the treasure site was, and that one of the reasons for his returning to Beaumont was to dig up the gold so that he and his young wife could start life anew somewhere under an assumed name. For years treasure hunters dug holes along the banks of Cotton and Byrd Creeks, and decades later sinks and mounds in the Pine Island vicinity were said to be the remains of those excavations.

    Time passed, the Civil War was fought, and the Yocum episode became only a dim memory in the minds of the early settlers. Finally it was an elderly black woman in Beaumont who triggered the second search for Yocum's gold. She told her grandchildren that about 1840 she was a young slave girl who belonged to the owner of a plantation in the vicinity of Yocum's Inn. One day whe was picking blackberries when she heard voices nearby. She moved ahead along the banks of a creek until she finally spotted Yocum and one of his young slaves at a low spot or crevice in the creek bank. Both of them were busy backfilling a hole in the ground.

    As a result of the old lady's story, another network of pot holes were dug up and down the banks of Byrd and Cotton Creeks. And once or twice a stranger appeared who claimed to have a map drawn by someone who said he was formerly Yocum's slave. But if anyone ever found the treasure, that fact was never made public, and one writer claims it is still there awaiting the shovel that strikes it first. Maybe so, but gold hunters usually don't print their findings in newspapers. And they, like buccaneers, ain't especially noted for their wagging tongues either.

    http://www.texasescapes.com/WTBlock/Yocums-Inn-The-Devils-Own-Lodging-House.htm
    What's next?
  • jwhardingjwharding Member Posts: 2,897 ✭✭
    edited November -1
    Corinth, MS.
    Jw
  • jimdeerejimdeere Member, Moderator Posts: 25,583 ******
    edited November -1
    Narrows, Va., where the New River narrows as it passes perpendicularly through Peters Mountain.
  • RustyBonesRustyBones Member Posts: 4,956
    edited November -1
    Hazard, Ky, Named for Oliver Hazard Perry. Most photos you'll see are from the good 'ole days, since these days it is a dying community made up mostly of the unemployed and meth addicts. The only thing keeping eastern Ky alive is the coal industry and it is in a sharp decline.

    It was a good place to grow up but I finally moved away since there are no meaningful jobs to be had.

    large.jpg?1381275215
  • savage170savage170 Member Posts: 37,446 ✭✭✭✭
    edited November -1
    New Haven Mo. A little town on the Missouri river was first called Millers Landing a got started as a place on the Missouri River where the steam boats would get their wood restocked. The pop. is around 1200 there was 32 kids in my class and that was one of the bigger classes


    This is the downtown area next to the river it is barely one city block looking at it from the old MoPac Rail Line
    [img][/img]45716b8cc973032365a960fab9997671_zpsed074b50.jpg



    A little more recent on taken from the bluff that overlooks the town from the old Hebbler family House


    [img][/img]cfiles9694_zpsc69e7fad.jpg
  • RobOzRobOz Member Posts: 9,523 ✭✭✭
    edited November -1
  • William81William81 Member Posts: 24,585 ✭✭✭✭
    edited November -1
    Eureka, Illinois.....Eureka College where President Ronald Regan attended is located there.
  • guntech59guntech59 Member Posts: 23,187 ✭✭✭
    edited November -1
    Boothbay Harbor, Maine. A small fishing village not far north of Portland.

    Fairly unremarkable, except as a bootleggers stopover during the prohibition .


    Boothbay Harbor ~
    The area was part of Cape Newagen, where the English established an early seasonal fishing camp. In 1666, Henry Curtis purchased the land from the sachem Mowhotiwormet, commonly known as Chief Robinhood, who lived at what is today Woolwich. But the settlement was attacked and burned during King Philip's War, resettled shortly afterwards, then destroyed again in 1689 during King William's War. It was abandoned for 40 years.[4]

    In 1730, Colonel David Dunbar, the superintendent and governor of the Territory of Sagadahock, laid out a new town, named Townsend after Viscount Townshend. Despite predations during the French and Indian Wars, and robberies during the Revolutionary War by marauding British sailors, the settlement was successful, not least because of its large, deep and protected harbor. During the Penobscot Expedition, in 1779 Townsend became a rendezvous point for the American naval fleet prior to its disastrous encounter with the British at Castine.[5]

    Renamed Boothbay in 1842, the harbor continued to develop as a fishing center. In bad weather, it could hold at a time between 400 and 500 vessels, often Friendship Sloops, seeking shelter. By 1881, it had a fishery and fish oil company, an ice company, two marine railways, a fertilizer manufacturer, and a factory for canning lobsters. On February 16, 1889, the community was set off from Boothbay and incorporated as the town of Boothbay Harbor.[6] Frank L. Sample shipyard at Boothbay Harbor built minesweepers for the United States Navy during World War II and into the 1950s.[7] Some location filming for the 1956 movie version of Rodgers and Hammerstein's Carousel, notably the "June Is Bustin' Out All Over" sequence, was done there. Each summer, Boothbay Harbor draws crowds of tourists. Attractions include the state aquarium, art galleries, restaurants, boat tours to coastal islands and whale watching.
  • m88.358winm88.358win Member Posts: 7,272 ✭✭✭
    edited November -1
    Grand Junction, Colorado

    GJsunrise_zpsa09fa39c.jpg
  • ruger41ruger41 Member Posts: 14,646 ✭✭✭
    edited November -1
    Grew up in the central California town of Madera. Was a good place to grow up but I'm glad I left Commiefornia. Live in Yakima, WA now and love it.
  • JamesRKJamesRK Member Posts: 25,670 ✭✭✭
    edited November -1
    quote:Originally posted by Locust Fork
    Locust Fork is actually named because of the Locust Trees that grew in the fork of the Warrior river. Remlap is a tiny town that was founded by two brothers....each named their own town. Their last name was Palmer....so we have a Palmerdale and a Remlap....which is Palmer spelled backwards.

    Not much has changed around here over the years. We are a dry county....no stop lights....not much going on, but teenager shenanigans and gossip. We have a few more paved roads than we used to......and I don't know anyone that has to use an outhouse any more (but I used to!)

    Be careful Kasey. You let them pave too many roads and the next thing you know they want to put up a stop light.
    The road to hell is paved with COMPROMISE.
  • He DogHe Dog Member Posts: 50,947 ✭✭✭✭
    edited November -1
    Grew up in Columbia, Missouri originally called Smithville. I went to the same High School my father did. Now there are 3. I was just back for the 50th HS reunion. Pretty much don't know the place, certainly not the town I grew up in. Has grown about 4x.
  • Jayhawk2218Jayhawk2218 Member Posts: 1,063 ✭✭✭✭✭
    edited November -1
    Pratt, Kansas.
  • Okie MomOkie Mom Member Posts: 1,235 ✭✭✭
    edited November -1
    Pittsburg, KS
    On October 23, 1864, a wagon train of refugees had come from Fort Smith, Arkansas, and was escorted by troops from the 6th Kansas Cavalry under the command of Col. William Campbell. These were local men from Cherokee, Crawford, and Bourbon Counties. Their enlistment was over, and they were on their way to Fort Leavenworth to be dismissed from service. They ran into the 1st Indian Brigade led by Maj. Andrew Jackson Piercy near the current Pittsburg Waste Water Treatment Plant. They continued to the north when a small group of wagons broke away in an unsuccessful rush to safety. The Confederate troops caught up with them and burned the wagons. The death toll was three Union soldiers and 13 civilian men who had been with the wagon train. It was likely that one of the Confederates had also been killed. A granite marker memorial for the "Cow Creek Skirmish" was placed near the Crawford County Historical Museum on October 30, 2011.[9]

    Pittsburg sprang up in the fall of 1876 on a railroad line being built through the neighborhood.[10] It was named after Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.[11] George Hobson and Franklin Playter are credited with being the city's founders, establishing a government after its beginnings as a coal mining camp in the 1870s. The city was incorporated in 1879.[12]

    The first post office in Pittsburg was established in August, 1876. The post office's name was spelled as Pittsburgh and New Pittsburgh for some time before 1894.[13]

    Pittsburg is the home to Pittsburg State University, founded as a normal training institution. It has always had a strong manual and industrial arts program and has trained many of the area's public and private school teachers.

    Ralph Berry, Professional wrestler
    Don Gutteridge, former Major League Baseball player and manager
    Bill Russell (baseball), former Major League Baseball player, coach, and manager
    Kerry Meier, current NFL football player for the Atlanta Falcons
  • jltrentjltrent Member Posts: 9,195 ✭✭✭
    edited November -1
  • retroxler58retroxler58 Member Posts: 32,693 ✭✭✭
    edited November -1
    Atascadero, CA quote:Edward Gardner Lewis, a successful magazine publisher from the East, founded the community of Atascadero in 1913 as a utopian, planned colony.Damned glad my parents had some common sense and MOVED East back to their roots.
  • legearlegear Member Posts: 6,716
    edited November -1
    Prattville,AL. Founded by Daniel Pratt in 1839. He chose the area because of the autauga creek,it could supply power to the gin mill he planned to build.

    We have a little over 35,000 people.
    Our city limits are in two counties, Autauga and Elmore (or elmoron as I call it).

    We have alot of artisan wells in the area.
    Creeks, streams, a few small waterfalls.
    Some parts of town have spring water coming up in people's yards.
  • bpostbpost Member Posts: 32,664 ✭✭✭✭
    edited November -1
    Ravenna Ohio, named after Ravenna Italy. As you can imagine I grew up with a lot of folks with Italian heritage. During Prohibition it was known as little Chicago.
  • RocklobsterRocklobster Member Posts: 7,060
    edited November -1
    Jonesboro, Georgia. Pretty significant rail hub during the War of Northern Aggression, medium-sized battle fought there on the way to the sacking of Atlanta.
  • m88.358winm88.358win Member Posts: 7,272 ✭✭✭
    edited November -1
    quote:Originally posted by Flying Clay Disk
    Rock Springs, WY - A true old Wild West rough and tumble coal mining town in SW Wyoming dating back to 1850. As a kid growing up in the 70's (the 19..70's mind you) Rock Springs was still a pretty wild place.

    Rock Springs is one of (4) towns situated across southern Wyoming all spaced about 100 miles apart. The spacing of the towns was no coincidence. Evanston, Rock Springs, Rawlins and Laramie were all situated at about the furthest distance steam engine locomotives had the water to traverse, 100 miles. They could carry plenty of coal, but only so much water. Cheyenne, though only 50 miles from Laramie, also had the same significance due to the mountain between the two. Had it not been for the coal discovered in Rock Springs the Union Pacific railroad would likely have not survived to be what it is today.

    My best friend, who recently passed away, his family owned a bar named Giovale's on the infamous 'K' street. The building dated back to the earliest days of Rock Springs and had actually been a butcher shop back in the late 1800's. One day a Robert Parker asked for a job. He turned out to be quite the talented butcher, so much so he earned the nickname "Butch". Robert Leroy Parker carved his name into a wooden column in the basement before he went on to other pursuits for which he would be much more widely known as the infamous "Butch Cassidy".

    Famed attorney Gerry Spence also gained his notoriety from Rock Springs when he defended then Sheriff Ed Cantrell on 1st degree murder charges for shooting a fellow deputy between the eyes in the back seat of his patrol car (Cantrell was in the front seat).

    The television show 60 Minutes did two segments on Rock Springs back during those days, which was highly unusual for such a small town. One segment was a response to the Cantrell case, organized crime and the wild nature of Rock Springs back in the 70's. It truly was an old Wild West town.

    Rock Springs and its sister town Green River are home to one of the world's largest known Trona ore deposits. Church and Dwight corporation got their start there. Many will more readily recognize the name Arm & Hammer. The principle ingredient in baking soda is trona. It is also widely added to glass as a strengthening agent.

    The winters in Rock Springs are some of the fiercest I know of. The cold and the wind relentless.

    Despite it's reputation and formidable winters Rock Springs is home. We always used to joke "Rock Springs is where the weak are killed ...and eaten".

    I love that town.




    Did you ever go to the Rocket Bar? 1surprise.gif
  • dav1965dav1965 Member Posts: 26,543 ✭✭✭
    edited November -1
    I was born in Scotland Neck NC now i live in Middlesex NC.
  • perry shooterperry shooter Member Posts: 17,390
    edited November -1
    Short Pump Va. on the site of the longest continuous used road bed of any road in the US town was named for stage coach station that had a water pump on the front porch of the station roof was so low they cut some off the pump handle. True story.
  • DocDoc Member Posts: 13,899 ✭✭✭
    edited November -1
    ....................................................................................................
    Too old to live...too young to die...
  • FrancFFrancF Member Posts: 35,278 ✭✭✭
    edited November -1
    Boulder Creek CA.
    bouldercreekCA_zps72998681.jpeg

    Down town- has not changed much other than the power lines are now underground.
    boulder_creek_zps5feb144f.jpg
  • JunkballerJunkballer Member Posts: 9,147 ✭✭✭✭
    edited November -1
    I envy you guys [:(]. My Daddy was a gambler down in Georgia who wound up on the wrong end of a gun and I was born in the backseat of a Greyhound bus rolling down Hwy 41........I was born to be a rambling man. [;)] [:D]

    "Never do wrong to make a friend----or to keep one".....Robert E. Lee

  • 800fthi800fthi Member Posts: 196
    edited November -1
    Austin Mn birth place of SPAM
  • Brian98579Brian98579 Member Posts: 1,186 ✭✭✭
    edited November -1
    Born on Wye Mountain, Arkansas, but mostly raised at Hoodsport, Wa. The town was named for Captain Hood, a British explorer, as was Hood Canal where it's located, and Mt. Hood, near Portland, Oregon. Hood Canal, earlier known as "Hood's Channel", is not a canal, but an inlet off Puget Sound.

    That area is still relatively undeveloped, mainly tourist businesses. I would live there, but for family concerns. The most beautiful place I've ever seen on a warm summer day. Of course the other 10 months of the year can be be kind of gloomy. Olympic National Park is about 10 miles away, at the Staircase entrance.

    To the north and on the east side of the Canal is the Bangor Nuclear Submarine base. The Navy tests sonar devises in Dabob Bay, in the same area
  • Smitty500magSmitty500mag Member Posts: 13,603 ✭✭✭✭
    edited November -1
    I was born in Knoxville, TN at the Forks of the River where the Tennessee River begins. I lived at my Great Grandfathers house that was built on an old Indian mound there at the mouth of the Holston and French Broad Rivers. The house was named the Mecklenburg and was built in 1790 formerly known as Gilliam's Station.

    Below is a letter published in the Knoxville Register on April 6, 1862 with some history of the house by a reporter who was visiting from the Mobile Advertiser.

    One of the early residents of the house was a well known historian of Tenn., Dr. J. G. M. Ramsey who wrote the first volume of the History of Tennessee while he lived there. Governor John Sevier, the first Governor of Tennessee, used to visit there often and attended the old Presbyterian Church that stood at the edge of the property.

    I've still got some of the old leather bound day legers from the time the house was known as Gilliam Station where flat boats coming up the Tennessee River used to unload their goods onto wagons. They couldn't go any further upstream since there were shoals on past the forks. Those ledgers show people's orders of supplies dating back in the 1700's. They are written in quill and the handwriting is beautiful.

    Anyway here is the letter.





    A Visit to Mecklenburg

    by "Ora"
    From Heiskell, S. G. Andrew Jackson and Early Tennessee History, vol. 2, pp. 117-118.



    The following account of a visit to the venerable residence of Dr. Ramsey, is from "Ora," the Correspondent of the Mobile Advertiser, and was republished in the Knoxville Register of April 6, 1862.

    "I enjoyed a most delightful visit, a few evenings ago, in company with the talented and witty editor of the Knoxville Register, Col. J. A. Sperry, at the house of the celebrated historian of Tenn., Dr. J. G. M. Ramsey, who resides at the junction of the Holston and French Broad Rivers, about four miles northeast of Knoxville. The road to the Doctor's house is a most delightful one, presenting some charming views of mountain and valley scenery. At the junction of the rivers, the Holston winds around a beautiful, undulating country, forming a picturesque, indented shore running from the north to the south; while some hundred yards above, it falls over a rocky bed making a pleasant murmuring sound and reminds one of the dark-rolling waters of the Danube. On the right is presented the mouth of the French Broad, running from east to west, with its high, rocky cliffs on the north side, jutting over some sixty-five feet. About three hundred yards from the mouth, under the cliff, gushes a clear, cool spring, which is approached by a small boat, the scene by moonlight is very exquisite.

    "Crossing the Holston, you ascend a graded bank, and near a high Indian mound stands an ancient looking building, once called Gilliam's Station built in 1790, and now the residence of the venerable historian, surrounded by primitive forest trees. Near the main building is a small cottage, over which is still to be seen the Doctor's original "shingle," on a plain board about four feet long and one wide, which was once painted white, but now faded, with black letters still plainly visible, Doctor Ramsey.

    "This was once the doctor's office and laboratory, and is still in its primitive state, while in an adjoining room is his library and museum. It was here he wrote his first volume of the history of Tennessee. The second volume which comes down to the times of the Mexican War, under Mr. Polk's administration, I learn is completed, the publication of which was prevented by the revolution. His museum contains many old Indian relics, and two pieces of Indian sculpture resembling very much the Indian style.

    "About 100 yards from the house is the ruins of the old Presbyterian Church of Lebanon, rebuilt in 1807, the first built in Tennessee, whose pastor was the Rev. Samuel Carrick, whose daughter married in 1798, the Hon. Hugh L. White, formerly United States Senator. The old high backed pew is still to be seen, where Gov. Sevier, the first Governor of Tennessee, was want to sit with his friends Capts. Crosby and Reynold Ramsey (the grandfather of Dr. Ramsey), both soldiers in the old revolutionary army, who at that day wore powdered hair and cues, with cocked hats, shorts and ruffled bosoms and cuffs.

    "In the old churchyard which contains the dust of a generation of over a century ago, is the tomb of Elizabeth Carrick, consort of the Rev. Samuel Carrick, who died in September 1783, at the time of the invasion of Knoxville by the Indians. The remains of both the grandparents of Dr. Ramsey also lie there, with Capt. Gillespie, the celebrated Indian fighter, and the old Indian chief Oconostota.

    "But I must close this already long letter, expecting to write you the next time from the old stamping ground of Chattanooga."



    Ora
  • LaidbackDanLaidbackDan Member Posts: 13,143 ✭✭✭
    edited November -1
    Toad Suck, Arkansas because we have particular amorous feelings about our amphibians
  • use enough gunuse enough gun Member Posts: 1,485 ✭✭✭✭✭
    edited November -1
    Born and raised in *, Minnesota. * was named after a plug tobacco. I live 5 miles south of * now. Fertile, Mn. is about 30 miles southeast, Cummins, Nd. is about 20 miles southwest, and Moorehead, Mn. is 55 miles south. Let the jokes begin.....Dave[;)]
  • notnownotnow Member Posts: 1,802 ✭✭✭
    edited November -1
    Washington Pa. I'm pretty sure it's name originates from a native american word for "deterioration and decay since the mid 1970s".
  • Dads3040Dads3040 Member Posts: 13,552 ✭✭✭
    edited November -1
    Born in Portland, Oregon. We moved about 25 miles east of there when I was 6 to where my Mom still lives. She is about 5 miles east of Gresham, OR.

    I now live about 7 miles south of Gresham, in a city called Damascus. At least it is still a city until my case is heard in the Oregon Court of Appeals, and the city is hopefully declared disincorporated.
  • footlongfootlong Member Posts: 8,009
    edited November -1
    Born n raised in the 'Holy City'..Where the Ashley and Cooper Rivers meet to form the Atlantic 0cean... Charleston-South Carolina [^]
  • Ditch-RunnerDitch-Runner Member Posts: 24,450 ✭✭✭✭
    edited November -1
    Nice story Oakie especially you heritage in the area .

    I was born in Jellico Tn. family moved to Oh due to lack of work in the south
    I grew up in Sidney Oh , just a small town . We live about 15 miles from it now . ( my wife is from Piqua Oh about 15 miles south of Sidney )
    like most everyone amazing the changes that happened just during my life .


    Sidney was crossed by the Miami and Erie Canal's

    Sidney is a city in Shelby County, Ohio, United States. The population was 21,229 at the 2010 census. It is named after English poet Sir Phillip Sidney and is the county seat of Shelby County.[6] As well, many of the city's elementary schools are also named after famous writers, such as Emerson, Longfellow and Whittier. Sidney was the recipient of the 1964 All-America City Award. In 2009, it was the subject of the documentary film .

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sidney,_Ohio
  • Brian98579Brian98579 Member Posts: 1,186 ✭✭✭
    edited November -1
    quote:Originally posted by LaidbackDan
    Toad Suck, Arkansas because we have particular amorous feelings about our amphibians

    Really? Did you go to school in Bigelow? I was there through 6th grade. I was told that toads give you warts!
  • Bubba JoelBubba Joel Member Posts: 5,161
    edited November -1
  • Sky SoldierSky Soldier Member Posts: 460
    edited November -1
    Brooklyn, New Yawk

    SS
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