Towns With Foreign Names, Part 2

There is a town called Palma Sola in Florida with a population of 3,100. It is unincorporated despite having been around since 1884. It was begun by a firearms maker who didn’t live long after moving to Florida. Jennie Kidd Trout, the first female doctor in Canada, lived there after retiring , but she died in LA.

There is a tiny town named Dos Cabezas in Arizona that is often called 2 heads. I will ignore two towns with interesting names for now but follow up with towns with their names after finishing this series not in English. They are Social Circle in Georgia and Crumley Chapel in nearby Alabama. Enough said.

There are 2 towns with foreign names still in Michigan. They are Au Gres, which means Gritty Stone in French and Au Sable, named for a man called Jean Baptiste who went on to found the city of Chicago. Both towns are under 1,000 people today. Au Gres was settled in 1862.

Hank

Towns With Foreign Names

There are still many US Towns with foreign names. For example, there is a town in California with the name Loma Rica or Rich Hill with 2,782 people.

Also in California is the large town of Paso Robles, or Oak Pass. Halfway between LA and San Francisco. this town of 30,000 people is today known for its many wineries. Paso Robles began with grapes at a winery called Ascension and many oak trees in the 19th century. Epoch Winery, the first in the area, still exists by that name. Now with over 300 tasting rooms and such established wineries as those that carry the Hearst name, Paso Robles has J. Lohr and Daou. Paso Robles is not a port like the next town with a foreign name.

Bonn Secour is in Alabama not too far from the port of Mobile. It began as a French fishing village in the 19th century, now has a population of about 2,000 people, and is unincorporated.

Coeur d’Alene in Idaho is on a huge lake, has a population of 44,000, and is thriving. We visited it in the past year. It’s name means “Heart of an awl.” It is considered the capital of North Idaho and is not too far from Spokane, WA. It is rebuilding its community museum and has bought and moved an entire local white house into the project.

Missouri has not completely abandoned its French heritage beginnings and still has several communities with French names like Creve Coeur, Cape Girardeau, and Bonne Terre. Creve Coeur means Broken Heart and Ruth and I used to live there.

To be completed tomorrow.

Hank

Theo van gog

Uyghurs eon an giggle

Theo Van Gogh

Towns Named Buena Vista

There are several towns with the name Buena Vista. They reflect the increased number of towns with Spanish names that reflect the 40 million people from Spanish cultures that now live in the United States according to our President Joe Biden. They range in size from the small Colorado community of Buena Vista to the larger communities with this name scattered about this country. Buena Vista, CO now has a population of 2,855 people and is already one of the larger Buena Vistas. At the other end is the small community of Buena Vista, Alabama that is still currently unincorporated but is growing larger each day in the southwestern part of this State. The next Buena Vista of any size is in Georgia, and it has half as many people with 1,585 residents. In between these 2 are Buena Vistas in Arizona and California that are blossoming into larger towns.

There are currently unincorporated Buena Vistas in Illinois and Indiana that are growing. The Buena Vista in Iowa is in a prosperous county called Storm Lake with a community college and named for the victory of Zachary Taylor in the Mexican-American War, which is ironic because Buena Vista, Texas, is near where a battle between our President and Mexican forces was fought to a draw and known by the name The Battle of La Angostura that was fought in the area of the current town of 2,855 in a narrow place with Santa Anna. Both sides claimed victory in this battle that was fought near Saltillo.

There are more towns named Buena Vista to be created in the future in places like Oklahoma, Ohio, and Montana. They are already being established.

Hank

Towns Named Salem

According to Geotargit, there are 36 towns named Salem in America. Two of them are especially large and important. They are in the states of Massachusetts and Oregon. Both are related to witchcraft, but the one in the town of Salem, MA is a much older and larger facility. There are 35,000 people living in Salem, MA where there is definitely a witch museum of note. The witch museum in Salem, OR has just gotten underway as even more people have become used to the idea that it is an important city in this state that is in trouble on many levels politically but where Portland, a city of 2.2 million, remains the capital. There are already 178,000 people living in Salem now, so it’s more than 5 times larger as a community than the Portland in Maine, which has a number of important tourist attractions such as the unique state capital building that’s in Salem, OR.

There are especially large Salems in Illinois, New Hampshire, and Wisconsin at Salem Lakes near Kenosha. I have investigated tourist attractions related to towns named Salem and have found at least 5 in Salem, OR that sound both reasonable and fun and we plan to visit. We have already been to one in Salem, OR an art Museum called the Hallie Ford, and have judged it worthwhile but it’s unfortunately in the other Salem.

Hank

Arctic and Antarctic Explorers

I just finished reading about the last Antarctic explorer. His name was Apsley Cherry-Garrrard, and he truly focused on the temperature, the living conditions, and the penguins. He was the youngest member of Scott’s last expedition, and he called going there the worst journey in the world.

If I had it to do over, I’d reread Ernest Shackleton’s harrowing account of his journeys to Antarctica. He is, after all, the only explorer to visit both the Arctic and Antarctica. Cherry-Girrard called polar exploration the cleanest and most isolated way of having a bad time ever devised. He brought many readers to tears with his accounts. He agreed with neither of his parents about what he should do there.

There are big differences between The Arctic and Antarctica. the Arctic is an ocean and Antarctica is merely a distant land mass. There are animals in both places but Antarctica has more and varied species. My daughter and her husband recently visited Antarctica in nice weather, and she told me told me that climate change will have a bigger impact on Antarctica than the Arctic as the result of their vast differences. The Arctic is far better suited for hiking than Antarctica, for example.

Hank