I was born in Danville, California, which is located in Contra Costa County. Contra Costa is Spanish for "Other Coast" in reference to its location opposite San Francisco. It's a pretty lame name, but did you know that it almost came to be known as "Diablo County" (https://museumsrv.org/post-1425/)? The name was in reference to Mount Diablo, but naming a place after beelzebub was frowned upon in the 19th Century, so they went with Contra Costa. Sad!
On the other side of the country, Broward County, Florida, located north of Miami, is named after Napoleon Bonaparte Broward (Yes that was his real name) who served as Governor from 1905 to 1909. It was initially planned to name the new county as "Everglades County" (https://www.sun-sentinel.com/local/broward/sfl-everglades-vs-napoleons-legacy-20140915-story.html), as the famous wetlands took up ⅔ of the county's area. But a state legislator decided it was appropriate to name it after the Governor whose main platform was draining those wetlands, perhaps to remind all its residents who it was that made the place habitable.
Are there any others?
Quote from: kernals12 on January 01, 2021, 09:57:12 AM
I was born in Danville, California, which is located in Contra Costa County. Contra Costa is Spanish for "Other Coast" in reference to its location opposite San Francisco. It's a pretty lame name, but did you know that it almost came to be known as "Diablo County" (https://museumsrv.org/post-1425/)? The name was in reference to Mount Diablo, but naming a place after beelzebub was frowned upon in the 19th Century, so they went with Contra Costa. Sad!
On the other side of the country, Broward County, Florida, located north of Miami, is named after Napoleon Bonaparte Broward (Yes that was his real name) who served as Governor from 1905 to 1909. It was initially planned to name the new county as "Everglades County" (https://www.sun-sentinel.com/local/broward/sfl-everglades-vs-napoleons-legacy-20140915-story.html), as the famous wetlands took up ⅔ of the county's area. But a state legislator decided it was appropriate to name it after the Governor whose main platform was draining those wetlands, perhaps to remind all its residents who it was that made the place habitable.
Are there any others?
Yes, see what happened in Florida in the time when they had just ended the most recent Seminole War and then proceeded to open armed occupation in 1842. Apparently there was a supposedly influential state legislator by the name of Leigh Read around this time in the history of the Sunshine State, so they apparently tried to rename what would soon be known as Orange County after him. This didn't work out for some bizarre reason, so the name Mosquito County was kept just a little longer until the orange fruit won out.
Shortly after WWII, Miami in what was still known as Dade County had grown so much by then that they tried to clamp down and just consolidate with the county, keeping the name Miami for the consolidated city-county but dropping the name Dade, which supposedly wouldn't sit well with some who did not want some important military history wiped out by so-called "˜progress'.
Lastly, but just as important, we have the curious case of what happened in the wake of a seemingly successful city-county consolidation here in NEFL, when, in 1968, Jacksonville came to take up the rest of the county that had not already been incorporated up to that point, although what may not have worked out is that some of the areas that were already incorporated in Duval County seem to have felt rather neglected at the time, and began to push for what apparently would have been a Ocean County here in Florida. You may be able to guess why they wanted to call it that, well, I'll just mention that the three Duval County beaches of Atlantic Beach, Jacksonville Beach, and Neptune Beach are probably what would have made up this proposed Ocean County. This ultimately didn't happen, as Neptune Beach would give the City of Jacksonville and Duval County a mayor, who made as many improvements as he could make in his two terms in office.
When the democratic rights of former Confederates were restored in West Virginia, they came within a few votes in the legislature of renaming Grant and Lincoln counties to Lee and Davis.
A century later Kanawha County was involved in what was known as the "text book controversy". Kanawha, the largest county in the state and the site of the capitol, is also really large geographically, containing, at the time, a highly populated and productive coal producing area quite far from Charleston. The school board, dominated by Charleston elites, adopted a set of text books that contained pornographic writings, revisionist history, and other issues. Led to a school boycott, an illegal miners' strike, and some bombings and other violence. Local politician Warren McGraw proposed reducing Kanawha to just the more "progressive" area, mostly the I-64 corridor, and making a new "McGraw County", ostensibly named for one of his ancestors, but actually about himself. Didn't happen.
Quote from: SP Cook on January 03, 2021, 12:28:06 PM
When the democratic rights of former Confederates were restored in West Virginia, they came within a few votes in the legislature of renaming Grant and Lincoln counties to Lee and Davis.
A century later Kanawha County was involved in what was known as the "text book controversy". Kanawha, the largest county in the state and the site of the capitol, is also really large geographically, containing, at the time, a highly populated and productive coal producing area quite far from Charleston. The school board, dominated by Charleston elites, adopted a set of text books that contained pornographic writings, revisionist history, and other issues. Led to a school boycott, an illegal miners' strike, and some bombings and other violence. Local politician Warren McGraw proposed reducing Kanawha to just the more "progressive" area, mostly the I-64 corridor, and making a new "McGraw County", ostensibly named for one of his ancestors, but actually about himself. Didn't happen.
Heh. No bias here.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kanawha_County_textbook_controversy
If you were truly elite, what would you be doing in Charleston, West Virginia?
QuoteFliers were distributed around the county which purported to demonstrate the lewdness of the books, but were actually quotations from completely different books[...] When parents could not find these passages in their children's own textbooks, they accused the teachers of hiding the real books from them.
Idiots from the 1970s are exactly the same as idiots from the 2020s, apparently.
Quote from: Scott5114 on January 03, 2021, 04:52:28 PM
If you were truly elite, what would you be doing in Charleston, West Virginia?
Jay Rockefeller (of the elite Rockefellers) somehow ended up there. I guess he found something he liked.
Quote from: The Nature Boy on January 03, 2021, 05:11:23 PM
Quote from: Scott5114 on January 03, 2021, 04:52:28 PM
If you were truly elite, what would you be doing in Charleston, West Virginia?
Jay Rockefeller (of the elite Rockefellers) somehow ended up there. I guess he found something he liked.
Coal
The bigger question is how Winthrop Rockefeller wound up in Arkansas.
Quote from: Scott5114 on January 03, 2021, 04:52:28 PM
If you were truly elite, what would you be doing in Charleston, West Virginia?
QuoteFliers were distributed around the county which purported to demonstrate the lewdness of the books, but were actually quotations from completely different books[...] When parents could not find these passages in their children's own textbooks, they accused the teachers of hiding the real books from them.
Idiots from the 1970s are exactly the same as idiots from the 2020s, apparently.
There was a healthy dose of racism when it came to objecting to the new curriculum (e.g., opposition to reading The Autobiography of Malcom X and studying Appalachian and Black speech as equal dialects...that just couldn't be tolerated...).
Oh, well, yeah, racist idiocy is racist idiocy, but I was particularly struck by the particular strain of idiocy represented by "X person makes Y claim, I cannot find proof of this, so obviously X can't be lying to me, it must be Z's fault for hiding the truth!" Especially when X in this case is a goddamn flier.
It's only a flier (note spelling) if you make a paper airplane with it.
Quote from: Rothman on January 03, 2021, 04:36:42 PM
Quote from: SP Cook on January 03, 2021, 12:28:06 PM
When the democratic rights of former Confederates were restored in West Virginia, they came within a few votes in the legislature of renaming Grant and Lincoln counties to Lee and Davis.
A century later Kanawha County was involved in what was known as the "text book controversy". Kanawha, the largest county in the state and the site of the capitol, is also really large geographically, containing, at the time, a highly populated and productive coal producing area quite far from Charleston. The school board, dominated by Charleston elites, adopted a set of text books that contained pornographic writings, revisionist history, and other issues. Led to a school boycott, an illegal miners' strike, and some bombings and other violence. Local politician Warren McGraw proposed reducing Kanawha to just the more "progressive" area, mostly the I-64 corridor, and making a new "McGraw County", ostensibly named for one of his ancestors, but actually about himself. Didn't happen.
Heh. No bias here.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kanawha_County_textbook_controversy
Having known SP on two boards, his comment about the "illegal miners' strike" is that he's a corporate shill who has advocated for every inch of West Virginia to be mined into oblivion, while at the same time there is no one on earth he despises more than the people he expects to do all that mining.
EDIT: Please do not use disparaging words. --sso
Quote from: 1 on January 03, 2021, 09:10:37 PM
It's only a flier (note spelling) if you make a paper airplane with it.
sic, I guess.
What about counties that were split, one half got a new name and the other half retained the same name? Does that count?
Quote from: ethanhopkin14 on January 04, 2021, 02:44:48 PM
What about counties that were split, one half got a new name and the other half retained the same name? Does that count?
No