Why Did They Call The Place That? Quiz

Answer: old water

The tiny town of Wedowee in eastern Alabama near the Georgia border had a population of roughly 823 in 2011. The name in the Creek language meant something like "old water".

(Ironically, considering the source of its name, according to the 2010 U.S. Census, the overall population consisted of roughly 69% White; 30% Black; with JUST BARELY over 1/10th of 1% NATIVE AMERICAN, and with a very small percentage of other races represented.)

Answer: Meridian

After the removal of the native Choctaw tribe of original Americans, European settlers engaged in receiving "free" land and they built the city of Meridian in the formerly Indian inhabited lands.

Wow! How fair of them. That was a great concept; just run off the original owners, and then give away their land!

Meridian was one of several names originally debated over for the town. Sometimes called "Sowashee" (meaning "mad river"), and with a proposal to call it "Ragsdale City" after Alabama lawyer Lewis Ragsdale, the name Meridian finally won out, largely due to the influence of the railroad personnel who had settled in the area.

Answer: a bean; originating from the Muscogee language

The Muscogee/Creek Indian nation used the word 'tellico' to denote a type of bean. Agriculturally, corn (maize) and beans became staples in the diet of many eastern tribes. The Muscogee were eventually displaced by their near-relatives, the Cherokee, who were in turn displaced by European settlers that arrived in the region. The Five Civilized Tribes under George Washington's "civilization plan" consisted first of the Muscogee (or Creek), and later the Cherokee, Chickasaw, Choctaw, and the Seminole were added to the roster.

Tellico Plains, Tennessee lies on the Tellico River where the taller Appalachian Mountains converge with the lower Ridge-and-Valley Appalachians in a relative flat-land or "plains" type location.

Answer: Boca Raton

Boca Raton lies near the Miami/Biscayne Bay area of southern Florida. The name Boca Raton comes from the Spanish language. Alternately, it can mean "the mouth of the rat (or mouse)" or an "inlet that has rough rocks on the bottom".

In Spanish "boca" means "mouth" and "raton" translates as "mouse" or "rat".

In a strictly nautical sense, however, "boca" can mean "inlet" while "ratones" often referred to rough rocks or stones that covered the bottom of a bay or port against which ships cables could be scraped and damaged.

Answer: a physician

Durham, North Carolina was named after a doctor; North Carolina native, Dr. Bartlett Leonidas Snipes Durham. It seems that he donated some four acres of land to the railroad to be used for a depot, and they named it Durham's Station in his honor. Later, the surrounding town became known as "Durhamville", and this was later shortened to simply "Durham".

Answer: England

Tangier, Virginia is located on a set of islands in the Lower Eastern Shore area of the Chesapeake Bay. The population of the area refused to join the rest of Virginia when that state seceded from the Union as the inhabitants resisted the idea of slavery as being an acceptable norm.

John Smith, who was instrumental in establishing the colony of Virginia, first called the islands the Russell Isles. There is no single "island" of Tangier. Rather, it is made up of small islets and three ridges. A unique feature of the islands is that Tangier residents' manner of speech resembles that of Elizabethan English.

Answer: the daughter of a railroad president

Cordele, Georgia was named after Cordelia Hawkins, the daughter of the president of the Savannah, Americus and Montgomery rail lines, Colonel Samuel Hawkins. The Georgia Southern and Florida railroad formed a junction in the town, and it began to grow rapidly after it was incorporated as a city in 1888.

Answer: True

Opelika's rapid growth during the mid-1800s was largely due to what else but the ubiquitous railroads! During the Civil War years, Opelika suffered as much of the rest of the south, but its boom years began again shortly after the war was over. This time, however, there was a twist - lawlessness and wild and wooly times were in store for the town. In fact, many towns in the wild west could have been rivaled by its bands of ruffians.

Modern Opelika had a 2011 population of nearly 30,000 residents, and "Golf Digest" once rated the town as one of the finest areas for golf in the United States.

Answer: from a tree that stood on the bank of the St. Francis River

Marked Tree, Arkansas had been named for a particular tree that stood on the banks of the St. Francis River. The tree had been slashed to mark a section of the river where Indians could simply walk about for 120 yards across land to reach the Little River in order to avoid paddling for twelve strenuous miles upstream.

While these two rivers are located only about a quarter of a mile apart, they flow in completely opposite directions.

Answer: from a man who was once acting-governor of Louisiana

The town of Thibodaux was named in honor of Henry Schuyler Thibodaux, a man who at one time served briefly as acting governor of the state of Louisiana. He was serving as the President of the State Senate in 1824, but when Governor Thomas B. Robertson resigned his position in order to become a judge, Thibodaux became the acting governor.