I started researching Surprise, Arizona, only to discover that it may have been named after Surprise, Nebraska. Then while mapping Surprise, Nebraska, I found that there’s also a Surprise, New York! I’ll deal with each surprise separately.

Surprise, Arizona

Surprise was founded in 1938 by, depending on who you ask, Flora Mae Statler or her husband Homer C. Ludden. The long held popular opinion that the town was founded by Ludden appears to have changed in 2010 when property records were discovered showing that Statler owned the property that became Surprise before she was even married to Ludden. The Surprise, AZ Wikipedia article and the official city website say that it was Flora Mae Statler that founded the city. So where did the name Surprise come from? According to this story at some point Ms. Statler said “she would be surprised if the town ever amounted to much” hence the name Surprise.

However, if you believe that Mr. Ludden founded Surprise, then it seems that Surprise, AZ, was named after Surprise, NE, Mr. Ludden’s hometown. This is what the Surprise Regional Chamber of Commerce and Suprise, Nebraska Wikipedia page say.

I think that the real story is probably somewhere in between. Probably, Ms. Statler owned the property, married Mr. Ludden, and they founded the town together naming it after his hometown. But that’s mostly guesswork on my part. Either way the town was founded in 1938, incorporated in 1960, and is now a medium city where the Kansas City Royals and the Texas Rangers hold their spring training camps.

Surprise, Nebraska

It looks like Surprise, Nebraska has quite a history, (there was an opera house there at one time, although there seems to be some disagreement online about which building it acutally is), but unfortunately not much of it is findable online. According to the Surprise, NE Wikipedia page there are only fourty-four people living there at the moment, which would explain why a lot of the history is not yet online, (although I was able to find a reference to people seeing wild lions near Surprise in Google Books).

So why is Surprise, NE is called Surprise? The Wikipedia page says that when a group of settlers came upon the people who were already living in Surprise and asked what the village was called, Dr. Anthony Swanson, a resident of the village, responded with “as the tea kettle keeps whistlin’, I say, I’m surprised me and Mary are still here!” and was misunderstood to mean that the village was called Surprise, ironically leading to the village being called Surprise. Of course the answer can’t be as simple as that. The 1960 book Nebraska Place-Names (New Edition)’s story is that “Surprise was so named by the settlers because they were surprised to find the land so much better than they expected it to be after their first tour through this part of the country.” Every place has so many stories, which do you think is true?

Surprise, New York

Surprise, NY is even smaller than Surprise, NE, which would explain why I’ve been having trouble finding much at all about it. I have been able to determine that Surprise, New York is located in Greene County, NY, and according to the Wikipedia page for Greenville, NY is “a hamlet near the east town line” (of Greenville). It’s mappable on Google Maps, and Street View shows not much more than a few barns. I would be interested to know more about the history of Surprise, New York and how it got its name.

Those are all of the surprises I’ve got for today, (pun very intended). If you know of any other surprises please post in the comments or let me know. Welcome to 2011!

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Now that the Olympics are over, we’ll be going back to some more random names, starting with Eclectic, Alabama.

Eclectic is a small town of just over 1000 people in Elmore County, Alabama. The post office was opened there in 1879 and the town was incorporated in 1907.

So, how did it get its name? According to Wikipedia, there are two theories. The first is that it was named by a local who had taken an “eclectic” course of study at school and apparently named the town after the various surrounding geographic areas, (which I’m guessing are eclectic). The second is that the name was supposed to be “Electric” but somebody messed up somewhere, or the name was otherwise corrupted to Eclectic. In the late 1800s the town appeared on some maps as Electric.. However, since the post office was established in 1879, it may be that “Electric” is the mistake and “Eclectic” is the real name. Who knows.

Edit:It turns out that David knows, and the whole “Electric” thing is a big mistake. See his comment below for clarification, and more about where the name “Eclectic” actually came from.

In the meantime, enjoy a video of some mudbogging in Eclectic:

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Did you know that James Bond, in some form, has appeared in Chamonix, St. Moritz, and Cortina d’Ampezzo? With the way he gets around I wouldn’t be surprised if he’s been to some other winter olympic host cities and I just missed him. More trivia: You can follow, (at least in theory – I might not want to try it on an innertube or anything), the Inn river from St. Moritz to Innsbruck, and the Olympic Flame wasn’t part of the winter games until 1952 in Oslo, (although there was a symbolic fire lit in Garmisch-Partenkirchen in 1936).

Now that the Olympic exercise is over we, (much like the TV networks), will be going back to our regularly scheduled programming of funny and interesting names. I have a whole whiteboard full. Stay tuned, and follow @fascinames on Twitter.

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Chamonix, France, hosted the very first Winter Olympic Games ever. This small town in a valley beside Mont Blanc, and a bunch of other mountains, (and I mean a bunch – the valley is surrounded), was “discovered” by modern tourists in 1741 when a pair of Englishmen showed up there and published their account of the incredible glaciers they found. However, they were far from the first people to visit the valley. They weren’t even the first to write about it.

Sometime around the year 1090, a Benedictine convent was founded in the Chamouny valley, and in the documents that granted the land for the convent can be found some clues to the origins of the name of the valley. The words used to describe the valley are campus munitus which translate, roughly, to “fortified field.” Since it was incredibly hard to access the valley at the time, (remember the mountains it’s surrounded by? they’re some of the highest in Europe), it appears that the mountains are the fortification, and the valley is the field. A community, albiet a small one, grew in the valley, so when those two Englishmen arrived in 1741 they met people, not just rivers of ice.

There is a second possibility of the origin of the name Chamonix. Placenames of the World says that the name “derives from a pre-Celtic, possibly Ligurian root, kam, meaning “rounded height.” I think that the fortified field may make more sense, but that’s just my opinion. Anyone is free to send me their arguments for the pre-Celtic root. Maybe we can discover history!

I don’t know exactly the city of Chamonix was founded, (the town created around 1090 was called Le Prieuré), but it seems like a fairly direct line from Chamouny to Chamonix. Maybe it’s even a difference between how a valley should be named and how a city should be named that I’m not aware of.

If you’re interested historical maps, here’s a good one of the area from 1881. Also, the origins of the word Chamonouy were quite difficult to find. It’s on Page 407 of the 1811 edition of A Handbook for travellers in Switzerland and hte Alps of Savoy and Piedmont.

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St. Moritz, Switzerland, hosted both the 1928 and 1948 Winter Olympic Games. The first record we have of the town is around the years 1137-39 as ad sanctum Mauricium.

St. Moritz is named for Saint Maurice, (Moritz is a form of Maurice), patron saint of, among other things, armies, armorers, clothmakers, dyers, and he is invoked against menstrual cramps.

The city was originally known for its therapeutic springs, in fact, one part of the town is called “Bad,” which is German for “Bath.” Winter tourism didn’t start until 1864 when a hotel owner bet some British tourists that they would love St. Moritz in the winter. They came back to the town that winter around Christmas, (he promised to pay their return if they didn’t enjoy themselves, and their hotel bill if they did, so they couldn’t really lose), and that was the dawn of winter tourism in not only St. Moritz, but the whole Alps.

Here’s a fun bit of trivia: the source of the River Inn is near St. Moritz, so, at least in theory, it would be possible to follow the River Inn from the Olympic City of St. Moritz to the Olympic City of Innsbruck.

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Yup, there is now, unofficially, a city called Google in Kansas.

Yesterday, Bill Bunten, the mayor of Topeka, Kansas, issued a proclamation calling for the city to be referred to as Google instead of Topeka for the next month. Topeka is trying to get Google’s, (the company), attention as a possible testing ground for Google’s new super-high-speed internet project.

The city’s name hasn’t been legally changed – it would be too much hassle for only thirty days, but the mayor and city council want everyone to refer to Topeka as Google, KS, for the next month.

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Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Germany, host of the 1936 Winter Olympics, used to be two towns, Garmisch and Partenkirchen. This is probably not a surprise when looking at the name of the city. The two towns were combined by Hitler in 1935 in preparation for the 1936 games and have remained together to this day.

We’ll look at each of the two names, (Garmisch and Partenkirchen), separately, starting with Garmisch. One source tells me that Garmisch translates roughly to “Germar’s district,” and another tells me that the first mention of Garmisch is as around 815 AD as “Germaneskau” meaning “German district.” If the second source is correct, then some Germanic people settled in the area. If the first is correct, we should figure out the origins of the name Germar, and that is not easy to do. There are people named Germar, including a famous holocaust denier, but I haven’t been able to find any reference to someone named Germar who ruled the district, and am wondering if perhaps Germar’s district is just another way of saying German District.

Partenkirchen was originally a Roman town called Partanum, founded in 15 AD. I’m not sure when the name got changed to Partenkirchen, but I’ve read that Partenkirchen means “Parthians by the Church.” Assuming that Partanum and Parthians are the same word, this would make sense since the German word for church is Kirche.

I’ve exhausted my resources on this one, so if anyone knows more about the history of either Garmisch or Partenkirchen don’t hesitate to get in touch with me.

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Founded by King Harald Hardraade sometime around the year 1050, Oslo, Norway, was the host of the 1952 Winter Olympic Games. The Oslo Winter Games were the first winter games to feature the Olympic torch that we have become so accustomed to seeing.

The origins of the name Oslo seem to be the source of quite a bit of disagreement. There are several theories. Some people think that it means “Mouth of the lo river” but at least according to Wikipedia, parts of the theory that suggest this naming were probably made up by the guy who originally published it. It is also possible that, since Oslo was once spelled Áslo, and there is a ridge called ås near the city, that the name means “Meadow beneath the ridge” or, since “Ás” may also be a reference to the Æsir, (the group of gods that includes Thor), Oslo may also mean “Meadow of the Gods.” Finally, the “os” part of Oslo may be mean “estuary” or “river mouth” and refer to Oslo’s location at the end of the Oslo fjord, (although, interestingly, no rivers actually enter the fjord at Oslo).

So, basically, there are a bunch of different stories that lead to Oslo being called Oslo, and many of them are believable, but we don’t have a definite answer about which one, if any, is the real story.

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Cortina d’Ampezzo, an Italian city surrounded by the Dolomite mountains, hosted the 1956 Winter Olympic Games. Because of its location, Cortina d’Ampezzo has been part of both Austria and Italy, but since the end of the first world war it has been part of Italy.

So, how did Cortina d’Ampezzo come to be called Cortina d’Ampezzo? That is difficult information to find if you don’t speak or read Italian – there’s a whole section on the origin of the name on Italian Wikipedia. I, however, don’t speak or read Italian, so I had to look elsewhere.

The name Cortina d’Ampezzo has two parts, and, at least according to Placenames of the World, the first part, Cortina, means “little court,” cortina being the diminutive of corte, the word for “court.” Some places seem to suggest that there may be a small fence or curtain involved, but that may simply be a result in translation errors. And for the second part of the name, Ampezzo, Cortina d’Ampezzo is in the Ampezzo valley, (hence the d’ part of the name, in English we would say “Cortina of Ampezzo”), and Ampezzo comes from the Italian in pezzo meaning “piece of land.”

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The smallest place in the world to ever host the Olympic Games, Squaw Valley is actually a ski resort, not a town, however because the resort is so popular, and it doesn’t seem like there’s a lot else in the area, the whole community is known as Squaw Valley, (the official name is Olympic Valley, California). Squaw Valley hosted the Winter Olympic Games in 1960.

So, how did Squaw Valley come to be called Squaw Valley? Much like Lake Placid we’re not 100% sure, but we do know a little more about Squaw Valley. According to Historical Notes by Hal V. Hall:

Before the white settlers migrated and established their homes and way of life in the valley. During late summer and early autumn, prior to the migration of the abundant deer herds and before the winter snows, it was the ancient custom of the Washoe men, the hunters of their tribe, to harvest winter food with an annual hunt in the high ridges radiating from the Squaw Pass area. While the men were thus engaged, the Squaw camp remained in the valley. The first white men to visit Squaw Valley found it occupied by a camp of “squaws” and children, engaged in food gathering.

So, when the first white men came to Squaw Valley, they found the valley occupied by only “squaws,” (at the time, “squaw” simply meant “native woman”), and their children, and, we assume, called the valley Squaw Valley. We need to speak about the word Squaw. It comes from the Algonquian family of languages and translates roughly to “woman” in english. Its origins are not derogatory at all, but unfortunately it has come to be viewed as a derogatory term by many. To learn more about the history of the word I highly recommend reading Reclaiming the Word “Squaw” in the Name of the Ancestors by Marge Bruchac.

So, to recap, when white people first came to Squaw Valley, the only native people they found were women. Since, the word that was being used by white people at the time for native women was squaw, the valley was named Squaw Valley, and the word Squaw is borrowed from the Algonquian languages, and means, roughly, “woman.”

Special thanks to Katherine at Squaw Valley USA for filling me on on some historical details of Squaw Valley.

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Host of the 1968 Winter Olympic Games, Grenoble, France, is situated at the foot of the alps and the junction of the Drac and Isère rivers.

To find the origins of the name Grenoble, we have to cast our gaze back through history. Grenoble is derived from the name Gratianopolis, latin for City of Gratian. The name Gratianopolis was bestowed upon Grenoble in the year 381 after the Roman Emperor Gratian visited the city and was pleased by the welcome he received from the people, (Gratianopolis was originally founded as Cularo in 43 BC).

So, if Grenoble comes from the name Gratianopolis, then we need to find out where the name Gratian comes from. Gratian, (or Gratianus in Latin), simply means Grace, so, we could say that Grenoble is the City of Grace.

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Sapporo, Japan, hosted the 1972 Winter Olympic Games, the first winter games ever held in Asia. Many of us know the Sapporo brand of beer, which comes from the city of Sapporo, but how did the city get its name?

Sapporo is in a Ishikari Plain, a wide flat plain in an otherwise mountainous region. Before the city was established the Ainu people lived there, and when the city was created the name was taken from the Ainu phrase sat poro petsu, which translates roughly to “dry, great river.”

Not only did Sapporo host the winter olympics, but it is also home to the yearly Sapporo Snow Festival, one of Japan’s largest winter events, featuring amazing snow and ice sculptures.

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Innsbruck, Austria, host of the 1964 and 1976 Winter Olympic Games has a fairly straightforward name. You see, there’s a river, the river Inn, and there’s a bridge over the river. In Austria they speak German, and the German word for bridge is brücke, so, Innsbruck means, simply “Bridge over the Inn.”

Innsbruck is at an historically important crossing point for the river Inn, it is the easiest way across the Alps by land, (these days an airplane is pretty easy too). In Roman times it was called Oeni Pontum which is Latin for Inn, (Oeni), bridge, (pontum), so, it seems that Innsbruck has always been called Innsbruck, at least in whatever language was being used at the moment.

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Lake Placid, NY, hosted both the 1932 and 1980 Winter Olympics. It is not only the home of the Miracle on Ice but the only place in the USA to have hosted a Winter Olympics twice.

Originally, the area where modern-day Lake Placid is located was called The Plains of Abraham, (not to be confused with the Plains of Abraham in Québec). It doesn’t seem to be known who came up with this name.

Later, in 1809, the Elba Iron Works were established creating industry in the area which lead to the town’s growth, and in 1849 a post office was established with the name North Elba.

The first use of the name Lake Placid for something other than a body of water appears to be in 1878 when a second post office was established with the name Lake Placid, and in 1900 the village of Lake Placid was incorporated.

Where does the name Lake Placid come from? It comes from the nearby lake, Lake Placid. And why is Lake Placid, the lake, called Lake Placid? I don’t know. The first mention of Lake Placid is on a map of Township 11, Old Military Track prepared by Stephen Thorn, State Surveyor, in 1804. At the time there were already settlers living in the area and we must assume that it was some of the first settlers in the area that named the lake. It seems that the name of the person who first named Lake Placid is lost to time, but we can guess that the lake is named for being a quiet and peaceful place.

For those of you hockey fans, here’s the last few minutes of the Miracle on Ice for you:

Thanks to Beverley P. Reid, Historian of the Lake Placid-North Elba Historical Society for her help in finding some of the information here, especially the origins of the name of the lake Lake Placid.

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In 1984 Sarajevo hosted the Winter Olympic Games. At the time Sarajevo was part of Yugoslavia, however, since the Bosnian War it has been part of Bosnia and Herzegovina.

Sarajevo has been inhabited since the Neolithic era, (9500 – 4500 BC), but the city of Sarajevo was founded by the Ottomans in 1461, (the exact year is not clear, but 1461 or 1462 seems to be generally used as the year of the founding of the city). The name Sarajevo comes from a contraction of the Turkish words saraj, (meaning court), and ovaši, (meaning field). Apparently there were fields to the west of the government buildings.

So, there you have it, the origin of the name Sarajevo.

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Host of the 1988 Winter Olympic Games, Calgary, Alberta, was founded by the North West Mounted Police as Fort Brisebois to control American whiskey traders operating in the area. In 1876 Colonel James Macleod changed the name to Fort Calgary, after the town of Calgary, in the Island of Mull, in Scotland, and in 1894 the city was incorporated as the City of Calgary.

So, if Calgary, AB, is named after Calgary, Mull, Scotland, then how did Calgary, Scotland get its name? It turns out that there are two possible stories, and there is some disagreement within those stories:

First Story: The name Calgary comes from two Gaelic words. In this story Calgary comes from Cala ghearraidh meanining “beach of the meadow/pasture” This makes sense since Calgary, Mull, has a meadow beside a beach. Or, the Galic words could be caladh garaidh meaning “Haven by the dyke.”

Second Story: The name Calgary comes from two Old Norse words, (vikings inhabited the region for a while). Again, there are at least two stories on the exact words and meaning of those words, they could be kalt gart meaning “cold garden” or they could be Kali geiri. Kali is a person’s name, so this means “Kali’s triangular plot of land.”

I’m not sure which story to believe, but the first story, (Gaelic names), seems to be slightly more accepted and definitely more believable than “Kali’s triangular plot of land.”

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Continuing on the theme of host cities of the Winter Olympic Games, today we are featuring Albertville, France.

Albertville was created in either 1836, (according to Wikipedia), or 1835, (according to Placenames Of The World), when the neighbouring villages of L’Hôpital and Conflans were combined by Charles Albert of Savoy, who, it appears, named the city after himself.

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Host of the 1994 Winter Olympic Games, Lillehammer, Norway, has a much easier name to track down than Nagano, Japan. According to Wikipedia Lillehammer was named after the old Hamar farm that was already there when the town was established on January 1, 1838. There was a slight problem, though, there was another town called Hamar close by, so the town became known as Lilþlæ Hamar or Litlihamarr, which means “little hamar,” and eventually that was shortened and modernized to Lillehammer.

Interestingly, Lillehammer has the only coat of arms, (pictured here), with the image of a skier on it.

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Host of the 1998 Winter Olympics, Nagano, Japan has a name that’s tough to track down. According to both Placenames Of The World and namelab it is derived from the Japanese words naga meaning “long” and no meaning “field.” I haven’t been to Nagano, but a quick Google Image Search reveals that the city itself does seem to be in a flat area.

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Continuing continuing on with the names of winter olympic cities today we’re featuring Salt Lake City, Utah. There are no surprises here. Salt Lake City was originally called “Great Salt Lake City” after Great Salt Lake the nearby salty lake. Over time the name was shortened to Salt Lake City, and that’s what we have today.

So, how did Great Salt Lake get its name? Well, it’s big, (great), and salty, I can’t find any other mention of how it got its name, so I assume the most obvious answer is the right one.

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While the Winter Olympics are on in Vancouver, we’ll be exploring the origins of the names of former host cities of the winter olympic games, working more or less in reverse chronological order. Today we’re looking at Turin, Italy.

Turin, (Torino in Italian), was originally founded as Taurasia byt the Taurini Gauls around 300 BC. It was destroyed by Hannibal around 218 BC but didn’t get completely wiped off of the map. Rome rebuilt Taurasia as Augusta Taurinorum in 28 BC. After the collapse of the Roman Empire Turin was occupied by various groups, then finally became part of the Duchy of Savoy at the end of the thirteenth century, when its existence became relatively peaceful.

You might be thinking that “that’s all very nice, but where did the name come from?” I was thinking that after reading a bunch of history articles. There isn’t a lot of information out there about the Taurini Gauls who founded Turin, but it appears that the is either derived from the Taurini word “thor” which means “to mount” or is named after a bull because the river Po, which Turin lies on the bank of, looked like a bull with golden horns to the first inhabitants of the area. Apparently the modern Italian name of the city, “Torino” translates roughly to “little bull,” and the symbol of the city is a bull, which lends some weight to the bull story.

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Today is the opening of the 2010 Winter Olympic Games in Vancouver, British Columbia, and to honour the occasion I’m digging into the name Vancouver.

The we know that city of Vancouver was named after George Vancouver, the British explorer who discovered and charted it, as well as most of the North American northwest coast, but what kind of a name is Vancouver? Let’s look deeper.

According to the Vancouver Sun, Wikipedia, and vancouverhistory.ca the name Vancouver is of Dutch origin. You see, there’s a town called Coevorden in the Netherlands, and in 1315 a man named Reinolt was made Viscount of the city, so his name became Reinolt van Coeverden, (apparently the city name was spelled Coeverden back then). Reinolt had children, and they had children, and so on, until eventually one of his descendants, a guy named Reint Wolter van Coeverden, married an Englishwoman named Johanna Lillingston. Then, it appears, that Reint and Johanna’s son went over to England, where he continued the family line, although the family name became anglicized to “Vancouver” It appears that the son’s son, (Johanna and Reint’s grandson), may be George Vancouver, or there may be a few extra generations in there, we’re not 100% sure. So, that’s how George Vancouver got his name, but what does Coevorden mean?

It turns out that Coevorden means “cow ford” or a place where cows cross the river. Pretty simple! Interestingly enough, some other van Coeverdens that moved to England may have changed their name to Oxford, (where oxes cross the river). I’ll have to look in detail at that another time.

There is another theory, at least according to Wikipedia, that Vancouver may be an anglicized version of “van Couwen” but that’s the only reference that I’ve found, and the van Coeverden story seems to be the more accepted story. Let the games begin!

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Westward Ho! is a village on the sea in Devon, England. Like Saint-Louis-du-Ha! Ha! the exclamation point is, in fact, part of the town’s name.

Westward Ho! was named after the novel Westward Ho! by Charles Kingsley. The village was developed starting about ten years after the 1855 publication of the novel.

Since it’s a seaside town, there are some great beaches in Westward Ho! and its neighbouring towns, and, as a bit of extra trivia, Rudyard Kipling lived there for a while

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St-Louis-du-Ha! Ha!, Québec has one of the oddest names that I’ve seen. Not because it sounds like something else, but because it’s just so fun to say and because it’s the only town in the world with two exclamation points in its name!!

So, how does a town come to be called Saint-Louis-du-Ha! Ha!? According to saintlouisduhaha.com a “haha” is an old French word for something blocking your way. In this case probably part of lake Témiscouata that is not passable by canoe, forcing early travellers to take an 80 kilometer portage around the haha. As for the St-Louis part, Québec’s strong catholic roots mean that the names of most cities in the province have a saint involved, and I believe that this is just another one of those, although the St-Louis-du-Ha! Ha! Wikipedia entry has a few suggestions about the Louis honoured in the town’s name.

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Here is a place with a fitting name. Head-Smashed-In Buffalo Jump is a cliff in southern Alberta where the natives hunted buffalo by driving entire herds over the cliff starting about five thousand years ago. It would make sense, then, that the place would be called Head-Smashed-In, after all, the buffalo’s heads were probably smashed in, right?

Wrong. Apparently, the name comes from a young man who wanted to watch the buffalo going over the cliff from below. There was a larger-than-expected herd that year and when they pulled him out from under the buffalo it was his head was smashed in.

Head-Smashed-In is now a UNESCO World Heritage Site, it’s near Fort Macleod, Alberta, and there’s a museum & interpretive centre there where you can learn more.

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Hell’s Gate is a narrowing in the Fraser River, in British Columbia. The Fraser is a very large river, and by the time it reaches Hell’s Gate, a few hundred kilometers from its mouth, there is a lot of water flowing through the river, 200 million gallons per minute at high water. With all of this water flowing through the river, the Fraser Canyon narrows so that the river is only 110 feet, (35 meters), wide, creating an incredible whitewater attraction that is nearly impassable by water.

It was first discovered by Simon Fraser who wrote in his journal “surely this is the gate of hell” hence the name Hell’s Gate. Today you can ride an airtram out over Hell’s Gate and see the power of the water for yourself.

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Having a little déja vu? Nope. Today I’m talking about Punkin Center, Colorado, not Pumpkin Center, OK, or in any of the other 14 states where there’s a Pumpkin Center.

The name of Punkin Center, CO, did in fact come from the word Pumpkin, but Mildred Stevens said Punkin, so that’s what the town’s called. You see, around the year 1930, Mildred’s dad, Sears M. Stevens, built a store and filling station at the crossroads of what is now Highway 71 and Highway 94 in Lincoln County, Colorado. The new store was painted bright orange, and little Mildred said “It looks just like a big punkin!” The store was advertised as the Orange Front Filling Station but the Stevens family referred to it as the “Punkin Center” and the name stuck.

There is also a Punkin Center in Arizona but I haven’t been able to find much about it. As always, feel free to get in touch if you have any information.

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So, I don’t actually have a story to about why Pumpkin Center is called Pumpkin Center, but I do have some interesting, random, Pumpkin Center facts.

I was looking for information on Pumpkin Center, MO, (where Kay Barnes‘ mother was born), to continue the Missouri theme, and found that since the highway was put in there isn’t much left of that town, except for maybe a couple of buildings and a photo by the road.

However, while looking for Pumpkin Center information, I discovered that there are no less than 23 towns called Pumpkin Center in the USA. There are Pumpkin Centers in Alabama, Arizona, California, Florida, Indiana, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maryland, Mississippi, Missouri, North Carolina, Oklahoma, South Dakota, Tennessee, Virginia. Some states, such as Oklahoma, have several towns called Pumpkin Center. Also, in Colorado there’s a town called Punkin Center, Population 9.

So, if anyone knows why there are so many places called Pumpkin Center, or has a story about why any of the Pumpkin Centers is called Pumpkin Center, I would love to hear them.

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Black Jack, MO, is not not named after the card game. In the 1840s there was a cluster of three Black Jack oak trees at the intersection of Parker and Old Halls Ferry Roads, which was about 12 miles from the St. Louis County Courthouse. These three trees were not little scrubby trees like Black Jack Oaks usually are, but were tall like a normal oak tree and cast a shadow that provided some real shelter.

The shelter provided by the three Black Jack Oaks, along with their location, made the intersection of Parker & Old Halls Ferry a natural stopping place for people going to and from the courthouse, and for farmers hauling their goods to market in St. Louis. In fact, farmers would bring their goods there, leave them overnight, (or at least stop for the night), then complete the journey the next day.

The first building in Black Jack was a home built by Thomas Fletcher not too far from the trees, and in 1865 the Post Office was opened, with the name Black Jack. A blacksmith was opened, tobacco barns were built, and a community sprang up. By 1877 there were 300 people there living there. Fast forward to 1970 and the town was incorporated with a mayor and 8 city councillors, and in 2000 there were 6,792 people living in Black Jack.

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I posted about a few places in Tennessee a couple of weeks ago and it looks like this week might be turning into Missouri week.

Today’s name: Tightwad, MO.

So, how does a town get to be called Tightwad? Well, the story is that a postman was making his deliveries and saw a watermelon that he wanted. Instead of carrying it around all day he convinced the grocer to set the watermelon aside until the end of the day. Well, when that postman got back to the grocer’s there was no watermelon. The grocer had sold the melon to someone who agreed to pay 50 cents more than the postman. What a tightwad! (the postman’s word, not mine). And the name stuck.

Today, there are 63 people in Tightwad, Missouri, or at least that’s what the sign says at the city limits. There is also a bank called, of course, the Tightwad Bank. It’s a real, FDIC-insured bank, and if you want to open an account, the Tightwad Bank website has all of the info you need. If, instead, you want a funny shirt, it looks like you can buy one on CafePress, (that’s not my store, I don’t have one – yet).

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Peculiar, MO, was named in 1868 by, of all people, the Postmaster General.

When the post office was being established, the people who lived in the area chose three possible names and sent them to the post office, but all three of them were already in use. Frustrated, they wrote to the Postmaster General and in the letter wrote “We don’t care what name you give us, so long as it is sort of peculiar.” Well, the Postmaster general wrote back “My conclusion is that in all the land it would be difficult to imagine a more distinctive, a more peculiar name than Peculiar.” so Peculiar, Missouri, it was, (the full story from the City of Peculiar.

Of note, Peculiar is the first city that I’ve found to have an official Facebook page.

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Finding out the origins of the name Moose Jaw yesterday I started to wonder about the other prairie city with a funny name, Medicine Hat, Alberta so I looked it up.

The name Medicine Hat is an English translation of the Blackfoot word “Saamis.” A saamis is the headdress worn by medicine men, and therefore is a “Medicine Hat.” According to Wikipedia, there are “several” legends associated with Medicine Hat.

One story tells of in incredibly tough winter for the Blackfoot people. The elders chose a young man to try to save his nation, and he set off with his wife and dog to the “breathing hole,” a hole in the ice of the South Saskatchewan River located in modern-day Medicine Hat. The Blackfoot believed that this is where the spirits came to breathe. After they arrived the man and his wife summoned the spirits and a giant serpent came from the water. The serpent said that if the young man sacrificed his wife, he would receive a saamis, which would give him special powers and make him a great hunter. The man tried to sacrifice his dog instead, but the serpent figured out what was going on and required the wife, so, the man threw his wife into the breathing hole and the serpent was satisfied. The serpent told the man to spend the night on a nearby island and in the morning he would find his medicine hat at the base of the nearby cliffs. He did, and with his newfound hunting skills and magical powers was able to keep his people alive through the winter and became a great medicine man.

Another story simply tells of a battle between the Blackfoot and the Cree, and during a retreat a medicine man lost his headdress in the South Saskatchewan River.

So, what is there in Medicine Hat? I’ve eaten at the Greyhound station, but it’s probably best known for having the world’s largest teepee, visible at the side of the Trans-Canada highway as you go through town.

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I’ve driven through Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan, several times, and I have even stopped for gas a few times. I always thought that the name Moose Jaw came from the jaw of a moose found there or something along those lines. Boy was I wrong. The name Moose Jaw comes from the Cree moscâstani-sîpiy for “warm place by the river.” The beginning, (moscâ-), sounds like “Moose Jaw” in English.

While I haven’t really spent much time in Moose Jaw, SK, outside of a gas station, there is some pretty interesting stuff there. Besides Mac the Moose, the world’s largest moose, there is a network of tunnels, known as the Tunnels of Moose Jaw, and CFB Moose Jaw, home of the Snowbirds.

Here’s a video of the Snowbirds in Kelowna, BC:

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During the first world war three men from who grew up on the same block of Pine Street in Winnipeg, Manitoba, were awarded the Victoria Cross. In their honour Pine Street was renamed Valour Road, (the Victoria Cross is inscribed “for valour”). I saw the heritage minute on TV growing up, and when I moved to Winnipeg I remember seeing Valour road and thinking how normal it was.

To learn more about Corporal Leo Clarke, Sergeant-Major Frederick William Hall, and Lieutenant Robert Shankland, the Heritage Minute page on Histori.ca is a good place to start.

Here’s the story of Valour Road in Video:

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Happy, Texas, “The town without a frown” is a town of 647 people in Randall and Swisher counties. So, how did it get it’s name? It was named after Happy Draw, a nearby spring-fed stream which was allegedly named by some cowboys who were really happy to find water.

A post office opened near Happy Draw in 1891 by a fellow named Hugh Currie. There was also a stagecoach changing station, but in 1906 the railroad bypassed happy. How could they do that? The tracks were a whole two miles away. What to do? The town had to be moved. The new town of Happy, TX, was laid out along the railway tracks, where it remains today, and the town continued to grow.

You may or may not be familiar with a movie called Happy, Texas from 1999. It wasn’t shot in Happy, although they did make a replica of the Welcome to Happy sign for a scene in the film.

There’s a bit more info on Happy, TX, on The handbook of Texas Online and TexasEscapes.com. I won’t repeat everything they have here. If you like facts & figures from census results, you can read the Happy, TX Wikipedia Page.

I was going to embed part of the movie here, but searching YouTube showed me that they’ve had some pretty fierce tornados near Happy. Here’s one of them:

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I mentioned yesterday that I would write about Mimosa, TN, so here’s what I know, then we’ll leave Tennessee alone for a while.

Mimosa hasn’t always been called Mimosa. It used to be called Bucksnort. There was a fellow in town named William (“Buck”) Pamplin. We’ll let his grand-niece, Lily May Pamplin, take over the story:

It was like this: William loved whiskey. He would get soused to the ears with the sweet, smelly stuff, and when he did, he would roar and snort till everyone around heard him. They would say: “Just listen to Buck snort.” His snorting became so frequent and the comment was made so often, that the neighbors soon found themselves running the last two words together, thus the place was called Bucksnort.

In the course of time, a post office was needed. The Government wanted to know what name the community wished to be known by. Since William still owned and lived on the site, and since he still kept up his snorting, the neighbors and near-by farmers decided on Bucksnort. It was approved by the Government and the first post office and surrounding community became Bucksnort.

So, that’s how the original Bucksnort, Tennessee got its name, but then in 1898 the town changed its name to Mimosa. The story of how the name Mimosa was chosen must not be as colourful though because it is difficult to find.

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Bucksnort, TN, is a small, unincorporated town in Tennessee. It is close to Spot, TN, (actually, we should probably say that Spot is close to Bucksnort, since Bucksnort is larger and better known).

So, why is Bucksnort called Bucksnort? According to a legend on the back of a T-shirt that’s apparently sold at the gas station, (which may have good sandwiches), in Bucksnort, (I-40, exit 152), there was a trader named Buck who lived in the area, and locals would say they were going to “Buck’s to get a snort.” It looks like this may not be true – see Tyler’s comment below. Update again: There seems to be some debate between the two stories. Check the comments from Tyler and westtenguy below. However, I’m not too sure, as there’s a very, very, similar story about Mimosa, TN, (to be featured later).

After hearing the name Bucksnort, some people have gone to great lengths to see the town. I found a forum post, (scroll down), about a fellow from the Netherlands who went to find Bucksnort. When he got there he didn’t find much, but did find out that where the interstate is now is where the town used to be, and it was actually moved a bit to make space for the highway. Now all that’s left of the original townsite is a dirt road, (although all that’s there at all is a gas station, motel, and maybe a garage or adult store).

Bucksnort, Tennessee is also the hometown of wrestlers Bunkhouse Buck and “Dirty White Boy” Tony Anthony. Tony Anthony even had a signature move called the Bucksnort Blaster.

Oh yeah, that guy from the Netherlands? He’s a member of a band called the Trailer Trash Tremblers. Here’s a video of their song, Bucksnort, Tennessee:

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I saw somewhere that that there’s a town called Spot in Tennessee and thought it would be fun to write about, but from what I can tell there’s very little to write. There is indeed a place called Spot, TN, in Hickman county. Apparently it’s at 564 feet elevation, and that’s about all I can find.

According to Google Maps, it’s at the intersection of Only Road and Old Richmond Road, a couple of miles from the I-40. In the street view there’s a house there. If anyone knows more about Spot, Tennessee, please let me know.

View Larger Map

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Hell is not only a biblical place, it is also an unincorporated town in Michigan.

There are a couple of stories about how Hell, MI, came to be named hell, the first is that some German travellers got out of their wagon and said So schön hell!, which means “So Beautifully Bright” and the name stuck. The second is that after Michigan became a state George Reeves, the founder of Hell, was asked what he thought the town should be named, and his answer was “I don’t care, you can name it Hell for all I care.”

Although the mailing address of hell is actually Pinckney, MI, (three miles away), there is a post office in the back of the general store where you can send stuff from Hell each year from May through September.

There are some other towns called Hell in the world. One was Hell, California, but it only had one family of residents and now there is a highway where it used to be. Another is Hell, Norway, and while the name is interesting in English, in Norwegian the name stems from the word for “overhang” or “cliff cave” and can also mean “luck.”

Test: JEHQA9DCV6CX

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Since profiling Joe, Montana, it’s only appropriate to get to the root of the name Joe: Joseph.

As many other names are, Joseph is a biblical name. The original Hebrew is יוֹסֵף, (Yosef), meaning “The Lord will increase” or “The Lord will add.” There were several Josephs in the bible, the first being Joseph, son of Jacob. According to behindthename.com Joseph was a fairly common Jewish name and didn’t become a popular Christian name until after the protestant reformation.

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Joe, Montana, (the town), is not officially named Joe, it is officially called Ismay, Montana, but in 1993 after Joe Montana, (the football player), was traded to the Kansas City Chiefs a Kansas City radio station convinced the town of Ismay, MT to change its name to Joe, MT for the football season. The trick worked, and Joe Montana, (the person), lead the Chiefs to victory.

Sadly, the name of the town has slowly reverted to Ismay, but some street signs still remain, and the town raised enough money selling Joe, MT, souvenirs to build a new fire station.

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Noodle is a small town in Texas. Settled in 1882 by a shepherd named Anderson Criswell, Noodle, Texas grew and eventually had a Post Office, Store, blacksmith shop, garage, two churches, and a gin, (is that a bar? Let me know).

In Noodle, the children were taught that the name of the town came from a native scout who was looking for water. He found a dry creekbed just north of the townsite, and in his language Noodle meant dry, so Noodle, TX, translates to Dry, TX. We don’t know if he ever found any water.

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When I was writing about the name John I, not surprisingly, came across the name Jonathan. I had always thought that John and Jonathan came from the same root, but apparently they are actually quite different.

Jonathan, according to Wikipedia and BabyNamesWorld means “Gift of God” or “God has Given.” The English name Jonathan comes from the hebrew יְהוֹנָתָן/יוֹנָתָן‎, (Yonatan or Yəhonatan).

When I did a Google search for Jonathan, the first result for a person was Jonathan Swift, the writer of Gulliver’s Travels, (which I should finish reading).

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Scuzzy Creek is a creek in British Columbia that joins the Fraser River just upstream of Hell’s Gate. From some extensive Googling, and from its general location, it appears that Scuzzy Creek was panned for gold during the Fraser Canyon Gold Rush.

I have found two very different versions of the origins of the name Scuzzy Creek. This web page says that Scuzzy, (or the word it may come from, Scaucy – also the name of the Indian Reserve right beside Scuzzy Creek), means jump or jumping, so Scuzzy Creek is probably named after its waterfalls. However, it may also be that Scuzzy Creek was named after the sternwheeler Skuzzy, the first steamwheeler to successfully navigate through Hells Gate.

Update May 23, 2011: Jasmine asked for a map. This appears to be the mouth of Scuzzy Creek.

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You probably know what a chicken is, but did you know that there’s a town called Chicken in Alaska? The area was settled in the late 1800s by gold miners, and in 1902 a post office was established, so the town needed a name. The original plan was to call the town Ptarmigan, (after the bird that was plentiful in the area), but there were disagreements on how to spell it so the name Chicken was chosen instead.

In its heyday, there were around 400 people living in Chicken, but now the population is apparently as low as 6 during the winter months. Chicken was the home of Anne Hobbs Purdy, the author of the book Tisha. These days it appears that there is an annual music festival, Chickenstock in June.

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There are at least two towns called Slapout in the United States, and it looks like they both got their name in pretty much the same way.

During the depression, highway three was built across Oklahoma. Where it passed his land, a fellow named Tom Lemons moved a chicken coop over to the highway and started a store. His sister worked in the store, and whenever the someone would come in looking for something that they didn’t have she would reply that they were “slap out” of the product. Despite Tom’s protestations, the name stuck, and the town became known as Slapout, Oklahoma.

Some other time, maybe about the same time but data is sketchy, there was a store called the Boys Store in a the community of Holtville, Alabama. If you went into the Boys Store and asked for something they were out of you would be told that they were “slap out of it.” Here too, the name stuck.

Two towns in the US, both with the same name, and the same story about how they got their name. Fascinating.

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These days Lizard Lick is probably best known for having a fun name, and for Lizard Lick Towing & Recovery on the TV show All Worked Up. I also read somewhere that there used to be really great peanut brittle at the Town Hall, and maybe there still is.

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I guy I know used to have a T-shirt that said “Where the heck is Spuzzum?” I think the lettering was done in brown velour. So, where is Spuzzum? What is Spuzzum? It is a small town in British Columbia, Canada, not far from the town of Hope.

So, what kind of a name is Spuzzum? Well, we’re not sure. We think that is’s a word in the language of one of the local First Nations, or at least a word in a very localized dialect of the language of one of the local First Nations. It either is a version of the word “spatsum,” which is the reed used to weave baskets in the area, or it means “little flat.”

Many years ago Spuzzum was a large-ish place. The railway goes through the town, and there used to be a ferry crossing the river there as well. Spuzzum is also on the Trans-Canada highway. Spuzzum is very small. I only drove through it once that I remember, sometime in the nineties. There was a sign saying that we were in Spuzzum, but I’m not sure if the gas station/general store/post office was still standing, (it burned down sometime in the nineties). The Spuzzum First Nation has its offices there, and there is a picturesque bridge there as well that appears to have once been part of the Trans-Canada, (now there’s a newer, larger, bridge).

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But how did it get this name? According to Wikipedia, back in the day when we used canoes to get around these parts, there was, (maybe there still is), a portage there, and the coureurs des bois named the portage La Tuque because there was a mountain close by that looked like a tuque, (the hat). I have tried to find a photo of this tuque-shaped mountain to put here, but despite finding some photos of the La Tuque region, I’m not sure which one is the tuque. None of the mountains really look like tuques to me.

The town of La Tuque was created in 1911, so next year will be its centennial celebration, and they are planning already. There is a website up and an interesting photo album of life at the beginning of La Tuque.

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According to the Community Profile for the Municipality of Crapaud, (download from the PEI Government – PDF), the community was named in 1842 after a nearby river that is full of frogs, called, (at least at the time), Rivière aux Crapauds. In 1996 there were 378 people living in Crapaud, and from some Googling it appears that there is an Agricultural exhibition and Tractor Pull held there each year, (visit: http://www.crapaudexhibition.com).

Check out Crapaud on Google Maps.

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My name is John, which according to babynames.com, behindthename.com, Wikipedia, and the coaster that my mother sent me, means “God is Gracious.” It appears that John started out as יוֹחָנָן, (Yochanan), in Hebrew, which became Ιωαννης, (Ioannes), in Greek, which became lohannes in Latin, which finally became John in English.

Interestingly, John and Jonathan, although they’re similar and can both be abbreviated as Jon, are not the same name.

Some famous old-time Johns, (no, not like that), are John the Baptist, and the disciple John. Some new ones are John Lennon, (the he was the first result when I Googled “John” today), and John F. Kennedy.

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