10-4 Magazine - For Today's Trucker

MAY 2006 TRUCKER TALK
WHERE ARE YOU FROM?
By Writers and Owner Operators Rod & Kim Grimm

I’ve always thought that some of the towns we’ve been to or heard about have interesting names. Going online it’s easy to find out more about some of these places with unusual or downright hysterical names. Let’s take a little trip around the country to some places you’ve heard of and to some that you probably haven’t.

Last summer at the Walcott Trucker’s Jamboree, I was talking with “uncle” Darrell Hicks and we got on the subject of town names. He then told me he knew a town where all the rules are made: Ruleville, Mississippi. Who would’ve thought that a small town in Mississippi makes all the rules! I’m sure they’d do a better job than those making the rules in Washington. My thanks go out to “Uncle Darrell” for supplying the picture that I’d have no other way of getting.

Talking with a Canadian driver in Westley, California one morning, he told me about a town in Alberta called Killam. I wish I’d gotten his name to give him credit for this tip but I do know that he drives a beautiful blue Kenworth. Chatting with him he told me about a sign when you come into Killam. Drive Safely – Avoid Accidents – Killam! I’d never have a chance to get there, our wheelbase is too long and we don’t run Canada. Getting on the internet, I contacted Barb Cookson at the city office and she was kind enough to send some photos. It just proves how nice our neighbors to the north are – and that we aren’t the only ones with towns with different names.

If you run I-80 then you know where Puckerbrush, Nevada is. I’ve always thought it was a very fitting name for this place. The population has boomed. I can remember the day when the population was only 10! As you can see by the sign that has nearly tripled! It’s a very country place, with the TA truckstop being the only business in town. And there really is puckerbrush for as far as you can see. The names of some of these towns just make sense.

Many drivers like hot coffee, but how about being from Hot Coffee? In the early 1800’s those traveling to Ellisville or Mobile stopped at a local inn. Resting for the night, in the morning the owner, Levi Davis, always had a huge pot of coffee and his wife baked ginger cakes to go with it. A sign was made of a big coffee pot with the words “Hot Coffee” on it. The inn was soon referred to as “Hot Coffee” and, eventually, the surrounding area became Hot Coffee, Mississippi.

Then I found Ding Dong, Texas. How appropriate – it’s located in Bell County. On the outskirts of town is the 777 Estates subdivision, listing a Ding Dong address, but only about 22 people live in Ding Dong proper. Lucky them!

Nestled in the Pennsylvania Amish country is home to the most stolen sign in America. This town started out as Cross Keys, named after the log tavern at the crossroads of two north-south east-west dirt roads. It was renamed Entercourse, so the story goes, because it was at the beginning of a long race course. In 1814, Entercourse evolved into what it is so famously known as today, Intercourse. According to information on the web, a postal historian by the name of Arthur B. Gregg claims that the USPS (I think it might have been the Pony Express back then) easily accepted the change to Intercourse since it meant a commercial or trading site. Located just west of Lancaster at the Junction of highways 340 and 772, Intercourse is a thriving Amish community. If you ever get a chance to visit this area, don’t miss it. The wonderful shops, beautiful quilts, fabulous wood furniture and delicious food! Look out for the horses pulling buggies and enjoy a step back in time. The friendly, helpful people of these communities live such a slower paced life, one that I can’t imagine. But it’s nice to have places like that where we can go and visit for awhile. We would like to thank Abigail Wenger from the Lancaster Chamber of Commerce for going out of her way to get us a picture of the famous Intercourse, Pennsylvania sign!

From the Amish country let’s take a short ride to Mystic, Connecticut. A visit to their seaport is truly mystic – another step back in time. This place has the only wood Whaling Ship left in existence. All the old Clipper ships you see in pictures are gone. They were pulled on shore and burned to salvage the iron from them to build new ships. This is where you go to see the Museum of America and the Sea.

Have you ever dropped down Hwy. 17 in Washington? At the junction of Hwy. 17 and 2 is a place called Dry Falls. Once a falls bigger than Niagara, now it is exactly what the name says – dry. But oh what a sight. And if you use your imagination, you can just imagine all the water that used to go over that ledge of rock.

Searching the internet, I found so many towns that would make you chuckle if someone told you they were from there. Like Why, Arizona, just outside of Tucson. If you don’t live in Why, then you could live in Why Not, North Carolina. Where do you live? Ware, Maryland. Remember Batman? Batman and Robin lived in Gotham City, but Bat Cave is in North Carolina. Uncle Sam isn’t in Washington DC – it’s Uncle Sam, Louisiana. Bet they haven’t had much snow in Christmas, Florida. Did Cabbage Patch Kids come from Cabbage Patch, California? Welcome, North Carolina sounds like a nice place to be from. Birthdays are probably more fun in Surprise, New York. They just gave up and called it No Name, Colorado. A town in Tennessee gave up too, and called their town Nameless. How about Experiment, Arkansas? If the experiment doesn’t work out, maybe you could move to Accident, Maryland. I wonder what it would be like to live in Normal, Illinois. February 14th finds millions wanting to be from Valentine, Nebraska. If you’re not very interesting, you could look into moving to Dull, Tennessee. Some people can say they’re from Only, Tennessee. Not what you want somebody to do, but where are you from – Suck Egg, Tennessee. I wonder if everyone in Bucksnort, Tennessee has a horse. What happened to name the town Fishkill, New York? Is everyone smart in Braintree, Massachusetts?

Okay, I think you get the idea. If you have the time and want to get a good laugh, go online and search for weird city names. There are several sites you can check out. On one site it says that 17 states have a Climax. If you’re really bored at a shipper some day, get out your map and see how many funny places you can find. Don’t just stop at the name; look up how some of these places got that unusual name, and then check out the history of some of these places. I was seeing a pattern of taverns and inns playing a part in naming many towns. Any way you look at it, we are quite a country with something to see wherever we go – no matter what the towns are named. We should be glad that some people decided to keep old things and make museums so we don’t forget what others had to use and how they had to live all those years ago. These things also help us to learn how the places we live today came to be and got their name.

I hope that no one takes offense in any of these towns with the play on words I used for some of them. And I hope you had as much fun reading about them as I did researching them. The next time someone asks where you’re from, just be glad you aren’t from Nimrod, Minnesota. The person asking might think you are insulting them. And if you are from Nimrod, I’m sorry.