October 1, 2021

Colorado City

By roads-rus

I got to wondering if there are towns with “Colorado” in their names. There are actually 2 tiny towns called Colorado in the United States. One is in Texas and the other is in Alaska, but both are extremely small. There is a Colorado City, and it was named for the state of Colorado, but it’s in Arizona. This gets confusing.

There are said to be 68 places in the world with Colorado in their names because in the Spanish language the word Colorado means “colored red”. The towns called Colorado are in 18 mainly Spanish-speaking countries north of The Equator near red mountains or at least having a red-hued landscape. Mexico alone is said to have 19 towns that use the word Colorado in their names.

Colorado City, AZ is an interesting place that Ruth and I have travelled through. It’s just across the border from Utah, has a population of about 5,000, and has acquired a definite Mormon connection. At least 3 fundamentalist Mormon sects are said to be based there, and some call it a polygamy community. A number of large residences with many rooms appear to confirm this and are seen during a drive-through. This town was formed by a breakaway group of Mormons who wanted to practice polygamy, but some say that this was in the distant past and is no longer true. This remains a controversial topic.

The state with the most towns named after it is not Colorado. It’s California. One source says there are 21 California towns, but I can find only about 10 and towns named California Junction in Iowa and New California in Louisiana. The largest town named California is in Maryland and has a population of about 12,000. There is a California, MO west of Jefferson City that has more than 4,000 Missourians living there, and California, Pennsylvania is home to almost 7,000 people south of Pittsburgh. The California’s in states like Virginia and Maine are unincorporated. California is a neighborhood in Cincinnati, Ohio. The California in Michigan has about 1,000 residents and is east of I-69 and the town of Kinderhook. The others are very small like the California in Kentucky that has fewer than 100 people.

Names can lead to confusion. A guide at Ellis Island told his group that included us the story of a man who spoke no English and went from his immigrant boat to Houston, TX and settled there even though his family was waiting for him to join them on Houston Street in New York City.

Hank

About roads-rus

Since the beginning, I've had to avoid writing about the downside of travel in order to sell more than 100 articles. Just because something negative happened doesn't mean your trip was ruined. But tell that to publishers who are into 5-star cruise and tropical beach fantasies. I want to tell what happened on my way to the beach, and it may not have been all that pleasant. My number one rule of the road is...today's disaster is tomorrow's great story. My travel experiences have appeared in about twenty magazines and newspapers. I've been in all 50 states more than once and more than 50 countries. Ruth and I love to travel internationally--Japan, Canada, China, Argentina, Hungary, Iceland, Italy, etc. Within the next 2 years we will have visited all of the European countries. But our favorite destination is Australia. Ruth and I have been there 9 times. I've written a book about Australia's Outback, ALONE NEAR ALICE, which is available through both Amazon & Barnes & Noble. My first fictional work, MOVING FORWARD, GETTING NOWHERE, has recently been posted on Amazon. It's a contemporary, hopefully funny re-telling of The Odyssey. View all posts by roads-rus
This entry was posted on Friday, October 1st, 2021 at 7:12 pm and posted in Town Names. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.

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