May 7, 2022

Towns Named Utica

By roads-rus

Why so many Americans decided to name their town Utica remains a mystery to me. Utica was the Phoenician name for a town near Carthage in Africa during Roman times, and there are now at least 20 of them in the USA. Most of them are very small towns with one exception, and I think it is safe to say that several thousand people live quiet lives in towns named Utica in 16 or more states. I found most of them on maps to verify their existence. The Utica in Texas has become a ghost town. It’s the only Utica that has gone out of existence.

Finding so many Uticas proves one thing. Many people choose to live in very small towns and avoid large cities. Few Uticas, except for one, exceed 2,000 people and most are much smaller. The Utica in Nebraska has become part of Lincoln. The town of Utica, Mississippi, has produced many deaf educators despite its size of fewer than 1,000 people. The Utica in Wisconsin is near Oshkosh. The Utica in Knox County Ohio specializes in Velvet Ice Cream.

The most impressive town named Utica is in New York State. A populated place of about 65,000 people, it was once known as Sin City. Now it is a gastronomic capital and County Seat (Oneida County) that specializes in riggies, greens, and pies. There are many Italian restaurants in Utica, New York, and many of them offer a local specialty known as riggies. This dish that sounds delicious consists of rigatoni pasta, chicken, and peppers.

There are Uticas in South Carolina near Greenville, Pennsylvania, and Maryland.

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, May 7th, 2022 at 8:16 pm and posted in Town Names. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.

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