Stein, Mark - How the States Got their Shapes

[Jim Franklin]

With a bachlors in History and Masters and doctoral work in Geography, I was especially pleased when one of my students offered to loan me this book.
It describes in considerable detail how Congress and international treaties determined and legislatively set the boundaries of each of the 50 states.

[Ryan Scott]

I'd love to read it some time; I'm quite interested in geography. I'm currently reading Maphead, by record Jeopardy champ, Ken Jennings; I think you'd love it, Jim. I'll post a review when I've finished.

[Susan Unger]

I will watch the tv show on the History Channel from time to time.

[Gina Stevenson]

Yes, there are only a couple of states whose boundaries are mostly already there due to being surrounded by a lot of water, rather than more land ... thinking now re Michigan's mitten (lower peninsula) and Maine, way in the NE corner ... oops,forgot Florida, too.

[Jim Franklin]

There is a part of Washington state called Point Roberts that is not even connected to the main part of the state and is not an island. It is a very small peninsula that juts down from Canada west of Bellingham that was unknown that it was below the 49th latitude at the time that latitude was set as the boundary. Michigan was given the UP as a settlement for giving up Toledo to Ohio. Before that settlement was made there was a skirmish between Michigan and Ohio settlers called the "Toledo War," displeasing the Wisconsin settlers. Of course the US-Mexican War was fought over whether the Rio Grande or the Nueces River was the southern Boundary of Texas. The Pennemite War was fought by settlers of western Pennsylvania and Connecticut on the basis that the colonial grants were sometimes from the Atlantic to the Pacific. There have been many skirmishes over boundary claims, particularly over mineral rights or access to lakes or rivers. The one that irks Idahoans is that the eastern boundary did not follow the Continental Divide all the way to the Canadian border which would have given all the area around Missoula up to Glacier Park as part of the original proposal for Idaho. But some former Congressman from Ohio that was appointed to a judgeship in the area that was part of the Idaho Territory that now are the states of Montana and Wyoming pulled some political shennanigans that took away about a third of what should have been Idaho.

Class dismissed.