I love maps.
I can look at any map, even if I have never been to that location, with interest, noting the strange place and street names. The names of lakes and rivers and mountains. The topography. I'll even happily pore over subway maps.
I love maps so much that I have in the past already blogged about them--a similar blog about local place names on my old blog at Yahoo 360, and a blog about the White Mountains area last summer.
So, here I go again.
I get to see a fairly wide variety of maps at my job.
People come in to frame maps often--some as a souvenir of a place they travelled to or grew up in. Some as part of their job(the more utilitarian topographical map, sometimes), and often old, valuable maps. One of the older maps we have framed(could only touch the thing with cotton gloves and very carefully)was a map in German from the late 1700's. It wasn't even called Germany or Deutschland then.
I remember one enormous(after it was fully unfolded) map of all of Italy, showing all it's roads and highways and being amazed at the windy, twisty roads. They obviously were ancient paths that followed the mountains, but on the map they looked so much like convoluted intestines! I think I would be terrified to drive on those roads.
On Saturday, someone brought in a map of the area I live in, to have it framed. After we decided how to frame it, and the customer gave us a deposit and left, I spent another 15 minutes at least, looking over the map. I don't know why, but it intrigues me to look at the places that are familiar and have travelled through in a different way--spread out and illustrated in a map. Many of the road's names and place names go back to the earliest days when this place was settled and reflect a rural, historic character.
Names like ...
*Hog House Road
*Beaver River Road
*Skunk Hill Road
*Cucumber Hill Road
*Foddering Farm Road
*Nooseneck Hill Road (kind of creepy)
*Quaker Lane
*Sweet Sawmill Road
*Old Coach Road
Others have the names of long gone citizens who at one time were worthy of having a road named after them(they probably created or owned the land the road went through):
*Widow Sweet's Road
*Pardon Joslin Road
*Henry Brown Road
*Commodore Oliver Hazard Perry Memorial Highway (there's a mouthful--usually called only Rte. 1)
There are the Native American (Narragansett Tribe)place and road names:
*Quonochontaug(better known as "Quonnie" Beach)
*Escoheag
*Saugatucket Road
*Usquepaugh Road
*Wawaloam Road
*Ninigret Pond
*Yawgoo Pond
Then there are the just plain strange names:
*Biscuit City Road
*King's Factory Road
*Punchbowl Trail
*Jingle Valley Road
*Money Swamp Pond(there MUST be some story behind that one)
Some road names I would never want to have printed on my address label:
Some road names I would never want to have printed on my address label:
*Devil's Foot Road
*Purgatory Road
*Hell Hollow Road
....and the worst one(still have never learned the story behind this one!)...
... *Small Pox Trail!
My favorite street name in this area, however(and it makes me smile any time anyone tells me they live there) is Easy Street.
A short curved, connecting lane in the village of Peace Dale. Doesn't that sound like a great place to live?
Anyone else have some interesting place or street names from where they live?
15 comments:
Tina, I love maps too. LOVE. Have a few framed in my house and looking for more...
I went back and read your White Mountains map link, and have to comment about that, because we spent the better part of yesterday pouring over the Franconia Notch (framed) map here at my house.
We're going next week and trying to figure out which trails to tackle. (Initially we were doing Franconia Ridge, but my back probably can't handle it).
I think I love looking at the maps and planning the trip more than I like the actual hike. :-)
Tina...I once knew someone who refused to buy a house his wife loved (in Tennessee) because it was on Henpecked Lane.
I love looking at maps too as long as I am not in a car and lost. I am one of the few people without GPS.
Keep those wonderful blog post coming. Have a great week. ♥Rosemary
An absolutely wonderful post about maps. I never thought about the fact that people will frame maps.;)) Very interesting.
I guess being a lover of maps you must love the tale of the Waldseemuller map:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waldseem%C3%BCller_map
I saw a program about it once and it utterly fascinated me.))
xo
Today, streets and avenues in Guatemala are number-organized. However, in the past, streets had names of the most interesting kind: Calle de los Lamentos (Lament Street), Callejón de los Olvidos (Forgetfulness Alley). Many would have their names as result of someone special that lived in that street, or something special that happens there. There would be, for instance, the "Calle de los Pasos" (Station of the Cross street) or "Avenida del Calvario" (Calvary Avenue) which would mean that during Lent, was the chosen street for Churches to take out their processions for every Friday of the season.
As I mention, the country now uses numbers for streets and avenues, but a couple of years back they decided to put up plaques in those that used to have a special name in the past, which meant that pretty much downtown Guatemala had a plaque in every corner. Antigua Guatemala, on the other hand, former capital city of the country, still uses the old names, and the orientation of it e.g. Calle Oriente # 5, (Eastern Street # 5) or Calle del Arco de Santa Catalina #8 (Arch Street of St. Catalina -is Catalina Katherine in English?- #8). I kind of like it! It's very...historical? shall I say?
I *love* maps as well. When being on a roadtrip I love to plan our route for the day. And looking at maps and globes makes me wondering what it all looks like in real!
Most quarters in NL do have streets that belong to a category, e.g. children book writers or admirals etc. so that one knows where about a certain street would be situated. Most older quarters do have somewhat oldfashioned streetnames and so you would know that it should be in the older parts of a town instead of a newer part. Very handy I think.
Erin,
Me too, me too!I love just the planning part, looking at the map maybe as much as the actual being there part of a trip--I know EXACTLY what you mean.
Wow..Franconis Ridge--that would be a killer hike(the climb down would really be bad for your back). So far we have only done easy ones-Mt. Willard, Black Cap--but they had rewarding vistas when we got to the top. Whatever you do, I hope you'll have fun there(and the back getting better each day).
~~Rosemary,
Henpecked Lane!!! I don't really blame the guy from turning that address down.
No GPS for me, either...
~~Zuzana,
WE frame the maps so they are protected from light(special museum quality glass and all archival materials)and it is one of the more popular things to frame, it seems.
I have never even heard of Waldseemuller map, but will surely follow the link to learn about it after this.
~~Claudia,
Those are such beautiful names for streets--like something out of a Gabriel Garcia Marquez novel!
~Cessie,
So, another "cartophile" here. :-)
I have never heard of any streets named after children's book authors before--how fanciful!
I live in a neighborhood where all the streets are named after native woodland plants and trees.
I meant to tell you too that The Falling Waters Trail is on the way up to Franconia Ridge. We did just that four years ago. It is really worth it if you like waterfalls. On the other side of the notch is the Basin-Cascades Trail that is easier and just as pretty - it goes up to Kinsman Falls. We may hike *that* side of the Notch instead, because the ridge might be too tough for me, plus crowded. We are staying in Lincoln for 3 days so we can meander around... :-)
I'm getting excited just to be in the mountains.
I totally heart maps, but I'm not great at geography...
Thanks for your visit earlier ... I now understand why you like the pop vs. soda map! You should check out this blog -- you might like it:
http://cartophilia.com/blog/
And I know what you mean about looking at maps ... they are kind of interesting. And the town and road names can be interesting. The best one near me right now is Cullen Lane (I'm convinced the Cullen Family from Twilight live on it somewhere...well, I pretend at least!). thanks for the visit!
How funny! We passsed Easy Street on the way to the concert in the park we went to in Alamo, California, and I had just the same thought. Oh, I wish I lived on Easy Street. (Truer words have seldom been spoken!) I love the name Widow Sweet's Road for some reason. It feels like a story to me. Maybe I'll write one!
I've always admired people like you who can read maps. As far as I am concerned I am unable to read ANY map! Is it because I hate geography as much as maths? Years ago, I was travelling with some friends from Geneva to Italy. Rome was our destination. The driver made a great mistake. He trusted me with the map. I was the...co-driver. I gave him very clear directions.... All of a sudden , we saw a signpost which said: "Monte Carlo 60 km!" The driver was too exhausted to go back, so in the end we had a great night out in Monte Carlo! Naturally I was severely told off!
Stumbled across your blog for the first time, and i much enjoyed your map blog. I love maps too. Even topographical maps, maps made into art - like the imaginary map by an artist i can't remember of NYC with regions like Fuhgeddabouditistan" -and maps of hotsprings...but really, names are what get me.
Heres a link to "list-poems" i wrote about street names in Liverpool and rivers in N.Carolina (wish I could see them on the maps!)
scroll down the page to August 18, 2006......i know, why would anyone want
to bother doing something so seemingly complicated.....
cheers,
Tom
oops!
forgot the link!
http://tomclohessy.blogspot.com/search?updated-min=2006-01-01T00%3A00%3A00-08%3A00&updated-max=2007-01-01T00%3A00%3A00-08%3A00&max-results=50
Love this, Tina! This was so much fun to read. And thanks for sharing those actual names with us, because they do really give a sense of history of where you live.
For my job, we are working in Idaho on lands issues. A lot of the place names there still have old names that are deragotory toward Native Americans or others. Hopefully, some of the folks involveld in one project can have some influence in getting them changed.
My weirdest place name story has got to be the street on which my in-laws used to live in Kentucky: Penile Road. Seems it was named after a place in the Bible called PENIEL, but someone needed a spell-checker. Can U imagine??
~Only,
We were "almost" going to do that Falling Waters trail last time, and I'll have to do it the next time we get up there(might be in October). Again, I want to wish you the best time while on your little mountain get-away.
~Mel,
I always loved geogrpahy at school, myself.
~Jenners,
I can't wait to check out your link(but may have to wait since I really should get offline as there is a thunderstorm off in the distance here now). My daughter, who is a Twilight fan, would love that there was a Cullen Lane..! :-)
~Judy,
So you have an Easy Street near you, too.
If you DO ever write a story about the Widow Sweet, I can imagine it being a dark gothic one..(only because that road is kind of dark and spooky in the woods),
~Now Anastasia,
I didn't say I could "correctly" read maps and never get lost!! ;-)
I think your not having been able to read the map that time you were going to Rome may have made everything a better and much more fun time for everyone(I am sure they talk about it and you to this day).
~Tom,
Thanks for the comment and I like the idea of "imaginary" maps, too. Now I'll have to check out one more
link(once the electric storm is gone)--it is funny, but I have a street-name/song title blog up my sleeve and your link has something to do with place names, too. I'll be sure to check your link out.
~sallymandy,
I am trying just to imagine what the place names might be that are derogotory to Native Americans(and what an interesting job you must have). And Penile Road..Good Heavens!! Ha..ha...(wonder if it was ever changed)
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