This is true? - Geographic oddities that defy conventional wisdom

[kphoger]

Reminds me of when my wife and I went to a comedy theater not so long ago in downtown SLC.  The "dry bar" comedy would have been out of place in Denver.

That comedy theater has soaked up so much of my time on YouTube...

[Rothman]

Reminds me of when my wife and I went to a comedy theater not so long ago in downtown SLC.  The "dry bar" comedy would have been out of place in Denver.

That comedy theater has soaked up so much of my time on YouTube...

I take it you're also into Studio C...

[kphoger]

Reminds me of when my wife and I went to a comedy theater not so long ago in downtown SLC.  The "dry bar" comedy would have been out of place in Denver.

That comedy theater has soaked up so much of my time on YouTube...

I take it you're also into Studio C...

I should clarify:  it used to soak up so much of my time.  Then I divorced my smartphone.

[thenetwork]

Speaking of SLC...

There are only 5-7 locations on Earth where Lake Effect Precipitation occurs, 2 of which in North America:

The Salt Lake City area and the Great Lakes Region.

[US 89]

Utahns may like to think so, but no.  As long as Temple Square and the LDS-owned businesses dominate SLC downtown, SLC and Denver will always be distinctively different. 

When's the last time you actually went to downtown SLC? The only times LDS anything has dominated downtown for the past several years is their conference weekends and maybe December nights with the Temple Square Christmas lights. But that's it. City Creek doesn't count as there is nothing Mormon about it other than where the money it makes ultimately goes. There's a restaurant and nightlife/bar scene downtown that wasn't really there as recently as 5-10 years ago. Is it as big or as diverse as you'd find in Denver? Of course not - but nobody is trying to claim that.

In my experience of growing up in the Salt Lake City metro area and more recently returning there several times a year to visit my parents and family, if you're one of the ~70% of Salt Lake City residents who aren't Mormon, you generally want to make a point of how un-Mormon you are.

[US 89]

Speaking of SLC...

There are only 5-7 locations on Earth where Lake Effect Precipitation occurs, 2 of which in North America:

The Salt Lake City area and the Great Lakes Region.

I'll never forget the time my cousin's traveling soccer team had a game in Salt Lake one November weekend where the lake-effect hose turned on and just wouldn't stop. We tried to shovel the field but the snow was coming down faster than we could clear it...and then after a few hours they gave up and only shoveled the lines (and even then that was a futile effort). In the end we had around 2 feet at my house in a 48-hour period. There's been some big storms since then but I don't think that much snow has fallen from a single storm there since.

[Rothman]

When's the last time you actually went to downtown SLC?

Just a few months ago.  My father's family moved to Utah when he was a teenager, his family's still in the area, my wife's from a large family fron Sandy...

Your other points actually lead to SLC being much more wacky than Denver, with non-Mormons desperately trying to turn Utah normal and Mormons just being themselves.  All that effects the feel of the city (and state, for that matter). Salt Lake County's still half Mormon...

Denver has none of that dynamic and it physically shows.

[webny99]

To the original point of SLC and Denver being a mirror of each other...
I thought this was much more of a point about geography than it was a point about culture.

They are quite literally mirrored in that sense, since the Rockies are east from SLC and west from Denver, and as noted, both metro areas are oriented N/S on I-15 and I-25 respectively.

[Rothman]

To the original point of SLC and Denver being a mirror of each other...
I thought this was much more of a point about geography than it was a point about culture.

They are quite literally mirrored in that sense, since the Rockies are east from SLC and west from Denver, and as noted, both metro areas are oriented N/S on I-15 and I-25 respectively.

Given the discussion, this geographic similarity was obviously not the only consideration.

I find more in common between Columbus, OH and Indianapolis, IN than between Denver and SLC.

[skluth]

The Coachella Festival just ended. I wonder how many attendees realize that the Coachella site is (barely) below sea level.

[Dirt Roads]

The Newell Toll Bridge goes east from West Virginia to cross into Ohio.  (Cross-posted from the Newell Toll Bridge thread).

[hbelkins]

The Newell Toll Bridge goes east from West Virginia to cross into Ohio.  (Cross-posted from the Newell Toll Bridge thread).

More like northeast.

https://goo.gl/maps/bcT3wwJhGKjgpanx8

[Road Hog]

Speaking of WV ...

The northern tip of the state (40' 38'' 19.60) basically bisects NYC in terms of latitude. It's also farther north than a ton of capitals of Union states existent during the Civil War, including Indianapolis, Springfield, Harrisburg, Columbus, Trenton, Annapolis, Dover and Jefferson City.

That explains a lot why WV sided with the Union in 1863 – but doesn't explain other things today.

[Rothman]

Speaking of WV ...

The northern tip of the state (40' 38'' 19.60) basically bisects NYC in terms of latitude. It's also farther north than a ton of capitals of Union states existent during the Civil War, including Indianapolis, Springfield, Harrisburg, Columbus, Trenton, Annapolis, Dover and Jefferson City.

That explains a lot why WV sided with the Union in 1863 – but doesn't explain other things today.

I don't think the northern spike has much to do with why WV split from VA.

[SP Cook]

That explains a lot why WV sided with the Union in 1863 – but doesn't explain other things today.

I don't think the northern spike has much to do with why WV split from VA.

The "northern spike"  which most people today call the "northern panhandle"  is the one and only cause of the creation of WV. 

The vast majority of persons what became the rest of WV were not asked their opinion on the matter and were not allowed to vote in the election held on the matter.  The only real call for separation from Virginia was from the Wheeling area, which had a culture that was, and remains, totally different from the rest of what became the two states. 

[Rothman]

That explains a lot why WV sided with the Union in 1863 – but doesn't explain other things today.

I don't think the northern spike has much to do with why WV split from VA.

The "northern spike"  which most people today call the "northern panhandle"  is the one and only cause of the creation of WV. 

The vast majority of persons what became the rest of WV were not asked their opinion on the matter and were not allowed to vote in the election held on the matter.  The only real call for separation from Virginia was from the Wheeling area, which had a culture that was, and remains, totally different from the rest of what became the two states.

You still sound bitter over this.

[SP Cook]

You still sound bitter over this.

Thank you.  I try.

[Rothman]

You still sound bitter over this.

Thank you.  I try.

Looked a little more into this.  Very interesting how things shook out in the actual vote to create WV, especially considering how some pro-Confederate eligible voters shot themselves in the foot by abstaining from the vote on statehood.  But, in the end, only about 2,000 of the 18,000 votes to create WV came from the Northern Panhandle.

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:October_24,_1861_county_vote_for_West_Virginia_statehood.jpg#mw-jump-to-license

[vdeane]

You still sound bitter over this.

Thank you.  I try.

Looked a little more into this.  Very interesting how things shook out in the actual vote to create WV, especially considering how some pro-Confederate eligible voters shot themselves in the foot by abstaining from the vote on statehood.  But, in the end, only about 2,000 of the 18,000 votes to create WV came from the Northern Panhandle.

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:October_24,_1861_county_vote_for_West_Virginia_statehood.jpg#mw-jump-to-license

I have never understood how anyone ever thought they could accomplish anything by boycotting an election.  Clearly they were never taught "if you don't vote, don't complain".

[hotdogPi]

How did that vote even pass? It was way below 50%.

[hbelkins]

You still sound bitter over this.

Thank you.  I try.

That section of West Virginia north of the Mason-Dixon line has more in common with NE Ohio or western Pennsylvania than it does with the rest of West Virginia.

Tieing into the sports market thread, I was traveling in the area and drove through a McDonald's near Toronto, Ohio, which is right across the river from West Virginia. The plastic "keeper" cup I got my drink in had Steelers stuff on it, not Browns stuff.

[elsmere241]

That section of West Virginia north of the Mason-Dixon line has more in common with NE Ohio or western Pennsylvania than it does with the rest of West Virginia.

It's a relic of Virginia and Pennsylvania agreeing on a boundary, and then Virginia later giving up everything north of the Ohio.

Interestingly, an idea was kicked around in the 1770s to separate that area from Virginia and form a province (as colonies were called by then) called Vandalia.

[Evan_Th]

How did that vote even pass? It was way below 50%.

I'm guessing the "total number of voters" on that diagram is the total number of registered voters, not the total number of people who actually voted in the referendum.

Also, keep in mind this's the vote on whether to make West Virginia a separate state.  The referendum was being held by the "Restored Government of Virginia," which was already sitting in Wheeling as a pro-Union government claiming jurisdiction over the whole state of Virginia, under the theory that the Richmond government had implicitly abdicated their authority by voting for secession.  So, it was possible for a Unionist to vote against the referendum.  (Though it was unlikely; separate statehood for western Virginia was a longstanding popular cause.)

Once West Virginia did separate, the Restored Government of Virginia moved first to Union-occupied Alexandria, and then eventually to Richmond at the end of the war.

[SP Cook]

This is correct.  Understand that all of the western parts of all of the original states are based on "grants"  written by English kings who (leaving out the fact that the land wasn't theirs to grant) had little clue as to the geography.  As the area settled, PA advocated for the M-D line to be extended all the way to the Ohio, VA advocated for the Monongalia and Ohio rivers to be the border, which would have included all of what is now south western PA in VA.  A few locals wanted to be their own state which they called "Westsylvania"  but that is a common theme in that era and nobody took that seriously. 

Eventually they compromised and PA got all of what became Pittsburgh, but VA got all the frontage on the Ohio and what became Wheeling, which was the original end of the National Road and thus a bigger prize under the technology of the day.  WV school children are taught that the surveyors were told to extend the M-D line to the Ohio but ran into some Indians and thus turned 90 degrees and went north till they found the Ohio, but this is a fable.

Later as the Civil War ramped up, a bunch of self-appointed people, about 2/3rd of them from Wheeling and environs decided they were really the government of VA and from that all this happened.

As to the vote, really no one "boycotted"  it.  There were three camps.  Those for it lived where they are seen on the map above voted as they did.  Those with very small returns were under Union occupation and thus the majority was not allowed to vote.  Those with no returns at all were still recognizing the actual government in Richmond and thus held no election because there was none to hold. 

These people were disenfranchised until WV wrote a new constitution in 1872 which prohibits political tests.

Presidential politics also played into this.  Lincoln had every chance of losing in 1864.  Among the things they thus did was rush Nevada and its 3 electoral votes to statehood decades before it was ready.  And make WV a state.  Lincoln's advisors were sure they could win WV as drawn and by prohibiting voting in most of the state due to the political test, but were afraid they would lose Virginia, which had a then whopping 15 electoral votes, if they allowed the other places under their control to vote as well.

[Rothman]

As to the vote, really no one "boycotted"  it... Those with no returns at all were still recognizing the actual government in Richmond and thus held no election because there was none to hold. 

Heh.  The actual Confederate government?