April 17, 2022

Towns Named Jasper

By roads-rus

Jasper is a type of quartz. There were once many towns named Jasper because of its use in jewelry and for body ornamentation. Now there aren’t so many people wearing jasper. The 2nd largest town named Jasper is in the state of Alabama northwest of Birmingham. There are said to be 19 Jaspers left in North America, but many of them are now very small. The Jasper in Colorado near Creede, for example, is described as a “near ghost town”.

My favorite Jasper is not in the USA. It’s in Alberta, Canada, and at the end of what is still called the Icefields Parkway that includes beautiful Lake Louise. Ruth’s cousins loved this drive and Jasper. This is a magical destination, and Jasper is a great town of more than 4,000 Canadians. There’s a famous Canadian resort near it worth seeing.

Most of the Jaspers are still on maps. These include the Jaspers in Virginia, Michigan, and New York. There are fairly large Jaspers in Tennessee, Georgia, Florida, and Indiana. Jasper, Indiana, is a stand alone community not too far from the resort French Lick. Jasper, Missouri, is down to 931 people north of Joplin. A lot of towns still contain the words gold and silver in their names, but not Jasper so much anymore. It is a fading jewelry item and town name.

There are still 8 counties named Jasper in the United States. They include ones in Illinois, South Carolina, and Georgia. Ancient peoples used to think that wearing jasper helped the stomach. This is no longer true. Jasper polishes up hard and is good in jewelry. Maybe we should go back to the practice of wearing it and encourage the purchase of jasper once again. Another fading town named Jasper is in extreme southwest Minnesota near Pipestone National Monument. I recall lots of Native American artifacts there just before a massive rainstorm hit but not much jasper. Native Americans used it in a lot of body decorations.

There are still 18 Jaspers in the United States, but their number is decreasing. Jasper in it natural state is usually red, yellow, brown, or green. As mines fade so does jasper.

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 Sunday, April 17th, 2022 at 8:55 pm and posted in Town Names. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.

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