Alphabetical America, Part Three Quiz

Helena got its start as a mining town when gold was discovered in the Idaho Territory (of which present-day Montana was a part) in the early 1860s. With the great influx of people seeking their chance at finding wealth, the Territory of Montana was created on May 26th, 1864. In July of that same year, a group of prospectors discovered a gold strike and established a camp that they named 'Last Chance Gulch'. The population grew quickly, and in the fall, the community decided to rename the growing town to Helena. As the story goes, the name came from a town in Minnesota, and hearing of that origin, a group from Arkansas insisted that it be named Helena (pronounced differently) after a town in their home state.

Helena was dubbed the capital of the Territory in 1875, and by the late 1880s, so many people had struck it rich, that Helena had the most millionaires per capita in the world. When Montana became a full-fledged state in 1889, Helena was confirmed as the state capital.

Soon after the Kansas-Nebraska Act resulted in the formation of the Territory of Nebraska in 1854, settlers arrived in the Salt Creek area and established a village which they named Lancaster (1856). The village did not grow quickly, even after the Homestead Act brought more settlers to the area in 1862, and it did not help when tensions rose with the Sioux a couple of years later, driving a lot of the newcomers away.

When Nebraska was granted statehood in 1867, Lancaster was just a village of 30 inhabitants, but government surveyors chose the little village as the site of the new state capital, moving from the prior territorial seat of government in Omaha. A plan was made to develop the site, and Lancaster's name was changed to Lincoln, in honour of the recently assassinated president.

From that point, Lincoln began to grow as businesses were established and the capitol building was erected. In 1870 the first railway line reached Lincoln, and it would not be long before Lincoln was a rail hub to multiple destinations.

The name 'Honolulu' translates from the Hawaiian language as 'sheltered harbour', and it was at this harbour that the first British ship arrived in 1794. There was a small village there, and repeated visits by British explorers and traders to the harbour made it a focal point on the islands. In 1809, Kamehameha the Great conquered O'ahu and established his capital at Honolulu, helping to build it up from a village to a city. Kamehameha I would move his court back to back to Kailua-Kona a few years later, but his grandson Kamehameha III returned in 1850, making it the new capital of the Hawaiian Kingdom.

Years of turmoil would see the governing power of the Hawaiian Islands change hands, as the monarchy was overthrown in 1893 and the United States annexed the islands in 1898. Eventually, Hawai'i would become the 50th state to join the union, on August 21st, 1959, with Honolulu remaining the capital city of the new state.

The City and Borough of Juneau was established as a mining camp a number of years after Alaska had been acquired from Russia in 1867. In fact, it was in 1880 that two prospectors, named Joe Juneau and Richard Harris, marked out a town site for the influx of miners coming to capitalize on the gold deposits that the two found in the area. It was the first new settlement in an American Alaska.

The miners voted to name the town after Joe Juneau in late 1881, after it briefly held the names of Rockwell and Harrisburg. And after the U.S. government decreed in 1900 that the capital of the Territory of Alaska be moved from Sitka to Juneau, it finally came to pass in 1906. Juneau remained the capital with the admission of Alaska into the Union on January 3rd, 1959 (the 49th U.S. state).

Juneau is the second-largest city in the United States by area (behind Sitka), covering a space bigger than the entire state of Delaware.

Jackson, Mississippi had its beginnings as a city with the creation of Mississippi as the 20th U.S. state in 1817. The government endeavoured to find a centrally-located site to construct a capital, but found it difficult to do on the swamp at the center of the state. So, the site of an old trading post (LeFleur's Bluff) on the Natchez Trace trade route at the Pearl River was chosen in 1821. The name was changed to Jackson in honour of General Andrew Jackson for leading the American forces against the British in the Battle of New Orleans (the last battle of the War of 1812).

Things proceeded well for Jackson for a few decades as roadways and rail lines connected the newfound city to other regions... and then Mississippi seceded from the United States in 1861. During the Civil War, Jackson was occupied by Union forces on two occasions. The first was in mid-May of 1863 when General Sherman's army drove Confederate forces out of the city and destroyed various manufacturing facilities before moving on to attack Vicksburg. The Confederates reclaimed Jackson and built up its defenses before attempting to go to Vicksburg's aid, but it was too late, and the Union forces laid siege to Jackson before burning nearly the whole city to the ground (July, 1863).

Jackson was rebuilt during the Reconstruction era, and it maintained its status as Mississippi's state capital.

The name of 'Little Rock' comes from a rock formation on the south bank of the Arkansas River that was commonly used by travelers as a landmark. French explorer Jean-Baptiste Bénard de la Harpe noted it in his records as 'la petite roche' in 1722. Nearly a hundred years later (1814), a Colonel Edmund Hogan built a ferry (and a home) at the site, and by 1820 the area was surveyed for a town as settlers came to the area. The first residents of the town thought to name it 'Arkopolis', but the suggestion didn't take. Little Rock was selected as the capital of the newly-formed (1819) Arkansas Territory in 1821, and by 1835 the town was upgraded in status and incorporated as a city. The following year on June 15th, Arkansas became the 25th U.S. state, and Little Rock was confirmed as the state capital.

During the Civil War, Arkansas was among the Confederate states, and Union forces occupied Little Rock in 1863, forcing the Arkansas government to relocate to Hot Springs.

As a point of interest, Little Rock happens to be the birthplace of General Douglas MacArthur (January 26th, 1880), and the city is the home of the MacArthur Museum of Arkansas Military History, housed in the historic Tower Building of the Little Rock Arsenal (also where he was born).

When the Missouri Territory was created (by renaming the portion of the Louisiana Territory that did not become the state of Louisiana) in 1812, St. Louis was the largest city within its borders and was made the capital. Just slightly less than a decade later, in 1821, Missouri achieved statehood, and the decision was made by the government to create a city that would be the new capital. Thus, on the site of the tiny 'Lohman's Landing' on the Missouri River, midway between Kansas City and St. Louis, Jefferson (named for President Thomas Jefferson) was established.

Originally just called 'Jefferson', the name morphed into Jefferson City, and became official. The city layout was planned by Daniel Morgan Boone (son of *the* Daniel Boone), and was incorporated as a city in 1825. In 1826, the government took up residence in the new city.

During the Civil War, Missouri was split between Union and Confederate sympathies. A convention was held in Jefferson City to determine their stance, and the vote went to staying within the Union. The governor, however, didn't like that result, and he drummed up a 50,000-strong volunteer militia and left to join the Confederate army. In response, Union forces occupied Jefferson City for the duration of the war.

Indiana became the 19th state to join the Union on December 11th, 1816, with Corydon serving as the temporary capital until the 'real' capital was established, as provisioned by the government. Federal land was granted along with a parcel of land obtained through the "New Purchase" as part of the Treaty of St. Mary's (1818) with the Delaware Indian tribe. Centrally located, Indianapolis was founded in 1821 and was incorporated as a city in 1825, at which time it took over officially as the capital.

When the first federally-funded National Road connected to Indianapolis in 1827 (begun in Cumberland, Maryland in 1811), it helped to greatly increase the city's growth. It would be another twenty years before rail service would reach Indianapolis. During the Civil War, Indianapolis became a prime logistical hub for the Union war effort, which caused the city population to more than double during the 1860s. By 1890, the city's population had reached 100,000.

The origins of Lansing, Michigan are almost comical, and at the very least, odd. While Michigan was still a territory, the area that would become Lansing was the last part of the territory to be surveyed, as 'Township 4 North Range 2 West' in 1827. It was all dense forest along the Grand River.

The first settlers came to the region because of a land sale scam, as two brothers sold non-existent plots of land to people from Lansing, New York. Arriving in 1836, many of them chose to stay, and carve out an existence in this remote area of central Michigan. Things would change drastically in 1847.

When Michigan joined the Union in 1837, one of the stipulations of the state constitution was to relocate the capital from Detroit to a more central location by the year 1847 (as a response to the city once having been captured by the British during the War of 1812). Many existing towns and cities put forward their claims, but all of the bickering led to the selection of the Township of Lansing, out of exasperation. A wooden capitol building was quickly constructed, and Lansing became the capital. It would not be incorporated as a city until 1859.

The area where Hartford lies today was originally explored by the Dutch in the early 1600s, and they established a trading fort and a small military outpost. In 1636, however, Puritan colonists moved into the area from the Massachusetts Bay Colony and established a settlement by the name of Newtown, which they soon changed to Hartford (after the city of Hertford in England). This was the beginning of the Connecticut River Colony, which would eventually join with Saybrook Colony in 1644 and New Haven Colony in 1662 to form the Connecticut Colony and be officially recognized by Royal Charter in 1662.

After the Declaration of Independence and the Revolutionary War, Connecticut became the fifth state to ratify the U.S. Constitution on January 9th, 1788, with Hartford continuing on as the capital. In the years that followed, Hartford took advantage of the Industrial Revolution and became a center of industry and commerce.