October 2, 2021

State Cities

By roads-rus

While searching for Colorado and California cities, I became aware that many states have a city in them that is named for the state. Some of these are very large. There’s a Kansas City in Kansas, a New York City in New York, and an Oklahoma City in Oklahoma. Some state cities are mid-sized. There’s an Iowa City in Iowa that I have been to many times. It’s a small city of about 68,000 people. Maryland City in Maryland has about 16,000 residents. Florida City in Florida has a population of about 11,000 so far. California City in the Mojave Desert in California is growing rapidly and is already home to 14,000 Californians.

States whose names begin with a direction like South Carolina or “new” states like New Jersey, which is adjacent to New York City, don’t seem to be in this situation. Not a single new or direction state has a city named for it within its borders.

Most state cities are small. Colorado City has about 2,000 people living in it. Delaware City has about 1,700 people. Ohio City has about 700 residents. I have been through Nebraska City near the Missouri River but did not linger. That’s 10 state cities so far.

Many states have a town that was apparently named for an individual, so there’s a Hobson City in Alabama and a Heber City in Utah and an Alexander City in Alabama. Alexander City was named for a railroad President and Gettysburg Battle hero. Other state cities are named for conditions that exist within its borders. There’s a Diamond City in Arkansas, the only state with a diamond mine. Sioux City in Iowa was probably named after a Native American, but Queen City in Texas was probably not named for a queen. Surely there’s a forest near Forrest City in Arkansas or maybe Forrest was an illustrious resident. There must be a junction in Junction City, a town in Kentucky.

This gets confusing fast. There’s a Virginia City in Nevada, but this gold rush town was not named after the state of Virginia. The name’s origin is far more colorful. There are towns named Michigan Center and Michigan City, but only Michigan Center is in Michigan. Michigan City is in Indiana at the southern end of Lake Michigan.

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 Saturday, October 2nd, 2021 at 10:36 pm and posted in Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.

Comments are disabled.

%d bloggers like this: