There are said to be 37 towns in the United States with Union in their names. I quickly concludes that this had something to do with either our divided nation as the result of the Civil War or labor unrest. Neither is correct. A bit of research convinced me that the use of the word union in town names had nothing to do with either The Civil War or organized labor. This name was chosen in almost every case to explain people coming together in the 1800s when most of them were named.
I quickly came to the conclusion that the selection of these many town names had to do with political unity or some other factor rather than current events. Most of the towns with Union in their names had the word followed by Gap, Point, Park, or Grove. For example, the Union City in the state of Massachusetts is more commonly referred to as the town of Naugatuck. The town of Union Bay in Canada’s BC has to do with geography rather than Confederation.
I decided to divide Union towns into 2 categories. There are several towns in the USA called Union City. There are, in fact, 9 of them. There are also 6 towns with the name Union alone. Where are these Union Cities? There are towns with this name in the following states: Georgia, California, Indiana, Michigan, Ohio, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, and New Jersey. The largest town called Union City is in the east San Francisco Bay area south of Oakland with a population of more than 66,500.
The 6 towns called Union are in Kentucky, Mississippi, Missouri, Washington, West Virginia, and New Jersey. The state of New Jersey has both a Union and a Union City. Union, MO has a population of about 10,000 and a notable Six Flags Amusement Park. Ruth and I have been in this Union many times.
In addition there are also 17 counties in the USA with the name Union. This is probably the most common name selected to identify counties and has nothing to do with pressing political events.
Hank
Security Conscious 