Between the Crickets and Coyotes Caroline Hunter Wallis
Between the Crickets and Coyotes
This book is dedicated to my mother, father, and brother and to Ike Allen for everything.
Between the Crickets and Coyotes
Caroline Hunter Wallis
Between the Crickets and Coyotes is a project examining what America looks like today and how that physical reality contradicts the written and unwritten histories of land transfer across 500 years. These histories are expressed through the etymology of place names, the Native American nations whose land the United States occupies, and the racial and ethnic makeup of these towns and cities today. America’s diversity of name origins (Dutch, Iroquois, Spanish, Apache, English) can be used as a tool for revealing the violence and cultural erasure that are products of white settler-colonialism. The entirety of this book was written in occupied Lenapehoking, the unceded land of the Lenape peoples. I’ve never lived anywhere but the island of Manhattan, from the Lenni Lenape Manahatta. Growing up in New York City, I had a vision of the “rest” of America formed only through television and advertisements. New York can feel removed from the past, in a constant state of rebuilding, as evidenced by scaffolding and newborn skyscrapers. So the west, where America’s history of eliminating peoples in a continuous quest for gold, God, and glory is relatively recent and accessible, was a revelation to me. From that first road trip, a reckoning with my claim to America, Americanness, and the land I’ve lived had begun. Drives to the south, in its tangled denial of and reconciliation with its brutal history, and the midwest, filled with the flattest fields and an abundance diverse cities, filled in my vision. As a disclaimer: in many ways this undertaking is embedded within the logic of colonial geography by seeking to classify and delineate regions based on perceived ownership and quantified demographics. However, in a latecapitalist, late-settler colonialist state, the project of making clear who was here before us, who is here now, and how we got here can allow for reexamination of one’s place in the United States. Nearly all of the Native American names in this book are English transliterations because no known native languages of America had a written language prior to European colonization. My research of Native American is drawn primarily from the internet using Native-Land.ca, whose.land, and Wikipedia to source information on who lived where. Because these are crowdsourced sites they may not be wholly accurate, but then again, the history of Native American people written in books has never been wholly accurate either. Through the combination of research and my portraits of the objects and scenes that make up America’s quotidian experience I aim to create an incomplete, patchwork narrative that spans our country. Caroline Hunter Wallis
Altamont, NY Altamont was part of the large Manor of Rensselaerwyck, bought by Kiliaen van Rensselaer in 1629. The Manor was kept in the Rensselaer family until 1839 when it was divided by Stephen van Rensselaer III. At the time of his death van Rensselaer was the tenth-richest American in history because of his land holdings. In the 1700s the area surrounding Altamont was known as the Hellerburgh region. In 1890 Altamont was incorporated as a village. Altamont is from the Latin meaning high mountain. The Albany and Susquehanna Railroad Company ran a passenger train to the town from 1863 to 1963. Altamont became a summering destination in the early 20th century because of its lakefront hotels. The former train station is now the Altamont Free Library. Altamont has a population of 1,720 and is 97.6% White.
August 17, 2017 8:36pm EDT 42.697861, -74.025543
Atlanta, GA Atlanta is on Creek land. The Creek village of Standing Peachtree was near to present-day Atlanta. The Creek people were systematically removed from Georgia from 1802 to 1821. Atlanta was founded in 1836 as the terminating stop of the state-built Western and Atlantic Railroad. It was first named Terminus for this reason. It was later renamed Thrasherville after a local merchant. In 1842, the town was again renamed Marthasville after the Governor of Georgia’s daughter. In 1847, the chief engineer of the Georgia Railroad, J. Edgar Thompson, renamed the town Atlanta. Atlanta was the largest city in the Confederacy and in 1864 was burned down in the Battle of Atlanta. Atlanta has the third greatest population of LGBT people per capita, after San Francisco and Seattle. The city also served as the host city for 1996 Summer Olympic Games. Atlanta is also significant for its contributions to the musical genre of rap. The population of Atlanta is 486,260 and it is 51.4% Black and 41.3% White.
December 17, 2018 3:02pm EST 33.755315, -84.374192
Beacon, NY In 1683, Francis Rombout and Gulian Verplanck, merchant-fur traders from New York City, bought a large parcel of land from the Wappinger tribe, which included the land where Beacon is today. The Wappinger were an Eastern Algonquianspeaking tribe who lived in present-day Dutchess County New York and Eastern Connecticut. The Wappinger are considered extinct as a tribe today. In 1709, European settlers founded the villages of Matteawan and Fishkill Landing in the area. In 1913, Beacon was incorporated as a city, combining the two villages. Beacon was named after the historic signal fires that burned on the top of Fishkill Mountain to alert the Continental army of incoming British troops. In the 1800s Beacon became the Hat-Making Capital of the United States and contained 50 hat factories. In the late 1990s, one of the largest contemporary art museums in the world, Dia:Beacon, opened in the town.
April 13, 2018 2:46pm EDT 41.506235, -73.977342
Bronx, NY The Bronx was home to the Siwanoy band of Lenape who called the land Rananchqua and called what is now the Bronx River Aquehung. In 1639 Jonas Bronck bought the land north of Harlem from the Dutch West India Company. The river soon became known as Bronck’s river and the land as Bronck’s land. The poet William Bronk is a descendant of Jonas Bronck’s relative (either his younger brother or son) Pieter Bronck. The Bronx today has a population of 1,471,160 and is 53.5% Hispanic of any race and 30.1% nonHispanic Black. 46.29% of Bronx residents speak Spanish at home. In the 1970s the Bronx was riddled with burnt-out buildings, often the result of landlords committing arson to gain insurance money. The South Bronx in particular was associated with poverty, unemployment, and homelessness. Burnt-out, or even empty, buildings are no longer a common sight in the Bronx. However the poverty rate remains more than double the national average. Gentrification of neighborhoods in the South Bronx, particularly Mott Haven, has led to a new wave of housing instability for Bronx residents.
October 24, 2018 3:51pm EDT 40.854556, -73.863552
Butte, MT Butte was a hunting and fishing area for the Salish peoples, in particular the Bitterroot Salish, Upper Pend d’Oreille, and Kootenai. On early maps Butte is sometimes referred to as Butte City. Butte was built on mining. First gold, then silver, then eventually copper. The mining of large amounts of copper made Butte’s residents extraordinarily rich in the late nineteenth century, as copper wire is used to transfer electricity. Many early miners were Chinese, though Chinese residents were often left off census records for a variety of reasons, including that they Chinese residents were forced to pay an extra tax which led to them hiding from any officials knocking at the door. The Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 stopped Chinese immigration and led to an increase in racist behavior by white residents. Butte is 94.4% White. A quarter of the city’s residents claims Irish ancestry. It is the county seat of Silver Bow County.
August 8, 2018 1:13pm MDT 46.011428, -112.536243
Cave City, KY Cave City is on Chickasaw land. The Chickasaw were one of the “Five Civilized Nations� that took the Trail of Tears to Oklahoma Indian Territory. Today the Chickasaw Nation is a federally recognized tribe with a total population of 38,000 who mostly live in Oklahoma. The Chickasaw were, before colonization, a matriarchal society, with social status gained from the mother. Cave City was founded as a resort town for its proximity to Mammoth Cave and the city’s economy is based on the tourism industry. The sale of any liquor was banned in Cave City until 2005, when voters passed a referendum to allow alcohol to be served in restaurants. In 2014 the city voted to allow the sale of packaged alcohol. Cave City has a population of 2,240 and is 90.7% White and 7.1% Black.
September 1, 2018 10:06am CDT 37.129299, -85.961963
Cherry Valley, NY Upon settlement by the British, this land was Mohawk. In 1740, the village was named Lindesay’s Bush by John Lindesay, a Scottish naval officer, who was awarded a land grant of 9,200 acres by King George II. Reverend Samuel Dunlop, a friend of Lindesay, helped convince seven families from New Hampshire to move to the land grant and renamed the town Cherry Valley. During the American Revolution, Cherry Valley was the site of a massacre during which 47 residents of the town were killed by the British and Iroquois troops. In 1837, Samuel F.B. Morse developed the first working telegraphic machine in the town of Cherry Valley. Cherry Valley has long been an oasis for New York City writers and artists including Willa Cather, Allen Ginsburg, Candy Darling, and Harry Smith. The Teepee was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2011. The town of Cherry Valley is 99% White.
August 18, 2017 3:06pm EDT 42.807869, -74.684985
Cincinnati, OH Cincinnati was used as hunting grounds by both the Shawnee and Miami nations. Cincinnati was at first three settlements: Columbia, North Bend, and Losantiville, which were then combined to form the city. In 1790 the name was changed to Cincinnati by Arthur St. Clair, the governor of the Northwest Territory. It was named in honor of the Society of the Cincinnati, which in turn was named after Cincinnatus, a Roman general and dictator who retired to a simple farm life after saving Rome. The society aimed to benefit Revolutionary War veterans. St. Clair was the general in charge of the Northwest Indian War. On November 4, 1791, his army was defeated in battle by a Native American confederation led by Miami Chief Little Turtle and Shawnee chief Blue Jacket. 623 American soldiers and approximately 50 Native Americans were killed. It remains the largest defeat of American troops by a Native American confederation. Cincinnati today is 49.3% White and 44.8% Black.
September 1, 2018 3:27pm EDT 39.153217, -84.495190
Cleveland, SC The town of Cleveland is named after William Choice Cleveland of Greenville, South Carolina. Cleveland is on land that was used by either the Eastern Cherokee or the Shawnee people. The Saluda River which runs through Cleveland is named after the Saluda band of Shawnee people. The town was a stop on the Gold Digger’s Road which connected populated North Carolina to the parts of Georgia not yet settled by Europeans during the Georgia Gold Rush in the 1830s. Cleveland’s post office was opened in 1900 and is still in operation today. The town, also contains a BBQ restaurant, a gas station, a general store, and a Baptist Church. The population of Cleveland is 1,242 and 96.7% are white. The median age in Cleveland is 58.7.
December 16, 2018 4:38pm EST 35.070208, -82.516366
Covesville, VA The name Covesville derives from a geographic description of the area, located in a “cove� between the Boaz and Heards Mountains in the north and west and the Fan and Brush Mountains in the south and east. It was recognized as a community when the post office was opened in 1828. Covesville is home to Edgemont, a residence designed by Thomas Jefferson for his friend James Powell Cocke. Cocke had a Native American slave, named Isaac, who sued him for freedom in 1772. Isaac won the suit for false imprisonment and was awarded 200 dollars. Covesville was Monacan. The Monacan Indian Nation has approximately 2,000 members today. They were granted federal recognition status on January 30th 2018. Covesville First Baptist Church is a historically Black Church in Covesville.
December 15, 2018 3:10pm EST 37.922296, -78.681410
Crescent City, CA Crescent City was and is still home to the Yurok and Tolowa nations. The name for the city in the Tolowa language is Taa-’at-dvn and Kohpey in the Yurok language. In Wiyot, an extinct Algic language, the name is Daluwagh. The city was incorporated in 1854 and was named for the crescent-shaped stretch of sandy beach south of the city, likely by a town board. The city has a population of 7,643 which includes inmates of Pelican Bay State Prison, the only supermax state prison in California, as the prison is located within city limits. The city today is 66.1% White, 11.9% Black, 4.6% Native American and 30% Hispanic of any race. Crescent City is especially prone to tsunamis and sustained extensive damage from a tsunami caused by the March 11, 2011 earthquake off the coast of Sendai, Japan.
August 16, 2018 5:09pm PDT 41.750410, -124.211927
Cuba, NM Cuba comes from the Spanish, meaning tank or basin. It likely refers to the basin-like valley Cuba sits in. Cuba was first named Laguna in 1766 by the Spanish for its many small lakes. The name was changed in the 1870s. When the Spanish colonists reached the area of Cuba it was the land of the Ute people. Cuba is in Sandoval County. The county is home to 12 Indian Reservations and two joint use areas. It has the second highest number of Indian Reservation in a county, after San Diego county in California. The 12 reservations are: Cochiti Pueblo, Jemez Pueblo Jicarilla Apache Indian Reservation, Laguna Pueblo, Navajo Nation, San Felipe Pueblo San Felipe/Santa Ana joint use area, San Felipe/ Santo Domingo joint use area, San Ildefonso Pueblo, Sandia Pueblo, Santa Ana Pueblo, Santa Clara Pueblo, Santo Domingo Pueblo, and Zia Pueblo Cuba has a population of 731 and is 26.78% Native American - primarily Apache, Pueblo, and Navajo as well as 60.34% Hispanic of any race. The 2005 Capitol Christmas Tree was harvested near Cuba, from the Sante Fe National Forest.
May 23, 2017 5:26pm MDT 36.016311, -106.961956
Dodge City, KS Dodge City was named after Fort Dodge which was named after Grenville M. Dodge, a Union officer. Fort Dodge, founded in the 1865, was built to protect white settlers from Native Americans defending their land as the settlers moved west on the Sante Fe trail. It remained in operation until 1882 and Dodge City was a key resting point. The land was used by the Kiowa Nation, a nomadic group. In 1867, the Kiowa were forcibly moved to a reservation in southwestern Oklahoma. The phrase “get out of Dodge” comes from the television show “Gunsmoke”, where the heroes wanted the villains out of Dodge City. Dodge City today is 72.5% white and 57.5% Hispanic of any race. The primary industry is meat-packing and the town smells like the cow yards.
May 30, 2017 8:31pm CDT 37.754473, -100.032491
Earlimart, CA Earlimart was named by members of the town in 1909 because the area’s melons were always “early to market”. The central valley of California was home to the Yokuts until the 1860s, just 150 years ago. The town had been named Alila which is the Yokut word for “land of the flowers” or “valley of the flowers”. Today the town is 91% Hispanic. Nearby Allensworth State Park rests on the site of a town financed and governed by African Americans. The town, founded in 1909 was short lived, nearly all residents moved by 1916 following the death of founder Allen Allensworth. When the town of Allensworth was demolished in 1966 and arsenic was found in the water supply.
August 21, 2018 12:34pm PDT 35.891284, -119.275651
Elko, NV Elko was likely named by Charles Crocker, a superintendent of the Central Pacific Railroad. He enjoyed animal names and added the letter “o” to Elk to make the name Elko. There were herds of elk that roamed the region. Another theory of Elko’s name origin is that Elko is the word for “white woman” in Shoshoni, as spoken by the Shoshone-Newe people of eastern Nevada. Shoshoni has no word for white woman that sounds like Elko. The word for white man is in fact “taipo”, which could be related. The Shoshoni word for this place is Natakkoa. Elko was built as a railroad stop between Salt Lake City and Reno. At some point the railroad rerouted out of downtown and now there is a five-block parking area in the middle of town where the station used to be. Elko today is 83.16% White.
August 23, 2018 4:28pm PDT 40.831521, -115.762709
El Paso, TX The name El Paso is from Spanish, meaning “the pass”. When Spanish colonialists first reached the region the Manso, Suma, and Jumano nations all lived in the area. These nations do not exist today because, as with many indigenous peoples of Mexico, they were into Mestizo culture. El Paso sits on the Rio Grande which legally divides the Mexican city of Ciudad Juarez from the United States. The border between the two cities was in contention for nearly one hundred years after the course of the river radically shifted in 1864. The border dispute was formally settled in the Chamizal Treaty of 1964. In recent decades, the city has been the site of continued conflict around American immigration policy and enforcement. There are four bridges within city limits connecting the two countries.
May 29, 2017 11:24am MDT 31.756459, -106.485271
Eolia, KY The name Eolia is from Æolus, the Greek god of the winds. The town was likely founded in the 1910s during the coal boom. Eolia is near the Meadow Fork of the Cumberland River and sits in Letcher County, one of the most isolated areas of the state. Coal and timber are the main industries of the county and Eolia was first settled by Europeans as a mining camp. Letcher County is a dry county. The county was the setting for The Trail of the Lonesome Pine, a popular 1908 romance novel about feuding Appalachian clans. Eolia is on Eastern Cherokee land. The town sits at 1,696 ft above sea level. Letcher County is is 98.7% white.
December 22, 2018 4:38pm EST 37.066550, -82.800512
Fresno, CA Fresno comes from Spanish, meaning ash tree, for the plentiful ash trees along the San Joaquin River. The town was settled after the railroad extended west and Fresno Station was established. Fresno is primarily an agricultural economy. Many early residents were wool growers and sold their wool in Stockton. The land of Fresno was used by both the Yokut and Miwok nations at different times. The California Valley Miwok Tribe had 5 enrolled citizens recognized by the federal government as of August 2011, though 43 people reported being part of the tribe on the 2010 census. Fresno is 46.9% Hispanic of any race, 30% nonHispanic White, and 12% Asian. The largest Asian sub-population is Hmong people, who make up 4.9% of the total population of the city. The Fresno Buddhist Temple was founded in 1901 by Japanese immigrants. Much of the Japanese population was removed and placed in internment camps during World War II.
August 21, 2018 6:46pm PDT 36.796129, -119.789952
Harrogate, TN Harrogate is on Eastern Cherokee land. Harrogate is named after an English town in North Yorkshire of the same name. The town was named in the late 1800s, but was not incorporated until 1991. Harrogate sits below the Cumberland Gap, a mountain pass in the Appalachians that allows access to Kentucky and points west from the valleys of of Tennessee and Virginia. Cherokee and other native peoples used the Gap. It was crossed for the first time by a colonial settler, Daniel Boone, in 1775. Boone is known for leading the transAppalachian settlement of Kentucky. Entrepreneur Alexander Arthur believed Middlesboro, KY would grow into a large industrial city, the “Pittsburgh of the South.� In 1888, he founded the city of Harrogate, which he envisioned would someday be a suburb for Middlesboro’s elite. Arthur spent some two million dollars developing Harrogate, the jewel of which was the Four Seasons Hotel, a 700-room structure believed to have been the largest hotel in the U.S. at the time. The area near Harrogate was opposed to secession in the Civil War, unlike the rest of the confederacy. Harrogate is 95% white.
December 22, 2018 1:54pm EST 36.578652, -83.655567
Houstonia, MO The town of Houstonia was platted in 1871. Houstonia was named after General Thomas F Houston, an early resident of the town. This was Osage land before settler colonialism. The Osage refer to themselves as Wazhazhe which in their Dhegihan Siouan language means “Mid-waters”. The Osage relied on nomadic buffalo hunting. American Bison or Buffalo were brought to the brink of extinction through systematic killings by white settlers hoping to starve Native American nations and force them onto reservations. The Osage Nation were moved to western Oklahoma where they were made to raise livestock. The Osage nation bought Ted Turner’s 43,000 acre ranch in 2016. Houstonia has 220 residents, 97.7% of whom are White.
August 21, 2017 4:15pm CDT 38.899037, -93.356880
Hulen, KY Hulen is on Yuchi land. The Yuchi language is a linguistic isolate, not related to any other language. There were 7 known fluent speakers of Yuchi in 2007. Hulen’s name has been officially changed to Blackmont, however most maps and residents refer to the town as Hulen. The town no longer has a post office. Hulen is in Bell County which was formed from sections of Knox and Harlan Counties. Harlan County is famous for the Harlan County War, a series of strikes and outbreaks of violence between coal miners and organizers on one side and bosses on the other. The 1976 documentary Harlan County, USA followed one such coal mining strike. The famous labor song “Which Side Are You On?” was written about Harlan. Bell County is one of the poorest counties in America and is 96% White.
December 22, 2018 3:08pm EST 36.794937, -83.533430
Iselin, NJ Previously known as Perrytown and Unionville, Iselin received its current name after New York investment banker and philanthropist Adrian Georg Iselin established a finishing school there in the 1870s for girls from wealthy New York families. Iselin is 46.12% Asian, largely from South Asia, and India in particular. It is also 41.47% White. Iselin has a population of 18,695 people and is part of the New York City Metropolitan Statistical area. Most of New Jersey, including Iselin, is Lenape land. The neighboring town of Raritan was named after the Lenape village that once existed there. The Lenape people were called the Delaware nation by early European settlers. James Swann, the serial killer, known as the “D.C. Shotgun Stalker� was born in Iselin.
September 8, 2018 2:46pm EDT 40.573762, -74.324408
Jackson, MS Jackson was founded in 1821 and was named after General Andrew Jackson, who later became the 7th president of the United States. What is now the state of Mississippi, including Jackson, was primarily home to the Choctaw Nation. The Choctaw name for Jackson is Chisha Foka. In 1830 members of the Choctaw Nation, after having their homes burned and lands taken, agreed to move to Indian Territory in Oklahoma under pressure from the US government. Those who chose to remain gave up tribal citizenship and were made US citizens. In 1924 all Native American people were granted the right to vote in the United States regardless of tribal citizenship. Jackson is the capitol of Mississippi and has a population of 173,514. It is 79.4% Black and 18.4% White. Jackson ranks number 10 in the nation in concentration of African-American same-sex couples.
December 20, 2018 3:16pm CST 32.335375, -90.174616
Kansas City, MO The first European visitor to the Kansas City area was Étienne de Veniard, Sieur de Bourgmont who, while running from the French government, lived with the Missouria Nation and married a Native American woman, eventually having children with her. Missouria is the French transliteration of the Illinois-language, and now common, name for the Niúachi peoples. Bourgmont wrote a book with the title “Exact Description of Louisiana, of Its Harbors, Lands and Rivers, and Names of the Indian Tribes That Occupy It, and the Commerce and Advantages to Be Derived Therefrom for the Establishment of a Colony.” This book established many of the geographic names of Missouri. The name Kansas dervies from Bourgmont’s French transliteration, Cansez, for the name of the Native American nation, Kansa or Kaw. The town of Kansas was incorporated in 1850. Shortly thereafter the Kansas Territory was established. There was confusion between the two and Kansas became known as Kansas City to help distinguish between them. Kansas City has a population of 459,787, 54.9% of whom are non-Hispanic White. 29.9% of residents are Black or African American and 10% are Hispanic. Kansas City has one of the largest Somali populations of any city in the country.
August 21, 2017 6:55pm CDT 46.011428, -112.536243
Kremmling, CO Kremmling was named for Danish settler Rudolph “Kare� Kremmling, who founded the town in 1881 and owned a general store. Kremmling is located where three rivers meet: Muddy Creek, the Blue River and the Colorado River. This was important to the economic founding of the town. The Cheyenne and Apache people who lived here were forcibly moved to reservations after the Colorado War. The number of Native Americans killed during this war is unknown. There are 1,444 people living in Kremmling. 93% of them are white. During World War II the town was the location of a prisoner of war camp where 400 German prisoners cut ice that was shipped by rail to other locations.
August 27, 2018 2:41pm MDT 39.986302, -106.435508
Las Cruces, NM Las Cruces is Spanish for “the crosses” and is a phrase often used to refer to cemeteries. It may also be an English mistranslation of the Spanish for “crossing” or “crossroads”, however “cruce” is masculine in Spanish and the name would therefore be Los Cruces. There are many legends surrounding the origin of the name, all involving the death of a party of Spanish colonists. Present-day Las Cruces was part of New Spain. It was claimed by the Republic of Texas from 1821 until 1848. The US army platted and named Las Cruces in 1849 following the Mexican American War. A railroad was built through the town in the 1860s and the first train ran in 1881. The town was incorporated in 1907. The construction of the White Sands Missile Ranch and Test Facility caused the population to grow significantly in the 1960s. In 1990, the Las Cruces Bowling Alley Massacre occurred in Las Cruces. The perpetrators were not caught and the case remains unsolved. The land where Las Cruces sits today is Manso land. The Manso people were a group of seminomadic hunter-gatherers. Today the Manso are a part of the combined Piro-Manso-Tiwa (PMT) tribe which has 206 members. The population of Las Cruces is 97,618 and it is 34.3 non-Hispanic White and 56.8 percent Hispanic.
May 28, 2017 8:17pm MDT 32.297714, -106.770658
Marblehead, MA When British colonists came to New England this land was settled by the Naumkeag tribe of the Pawtucket confederation and was named Massbequash, related to Massachusetts. Smallpox epidemics in 1616 and 1633 killed most of the Naumkeag. The surviving descendants of the Naumkeag sold their 3,700 acres of land to English settlers on September 16, 1684. This deed is preserved today in Abbot Hall, in Marblehead. The name Marblehead was changeable in the early days of the town. Sometimes the town was referred to as ‘Marvell Head’ or ‘Marble Harbour’. It was permanently named Marblehead by settlers who mistook the granite rocks on its shore for marble. Today the town is 97.6% white.
November 4, 2018 9:19am EST 42.502062, -70.852648
Maynardville, TN Maynardville was named Liberty by the first European settlers. In 1856 the name was changed to Maynardville after Horace Maynard, a Knoxville-area attorney, who defended the creation of Union County on which Liberty was platted. Union County was so named to reflect the area’s support for the preservation of the Union during the Civil War. Maynardville is the birthplace of country musician Roy Acuff, known as the "King of Country Music.” Maynardville was home to the Cherokee or ᎠᏂᏴᏫᏯ (Aniyvwiyaʔi). The Cherokee language ᏣᎳᎩ ᎦᏬᏂᎯᏍᏗ (Tsalagi Gawonihisdi) is the only Native American language that has a non-Roman syllabary. The syllabary was invented in 1809 by Sequoyah, who was born in Tuskegee, south of presentday Knoxville. As news of Sequoyah’s syllabary spread during the 1800s, other groups began using syllabics to write their languages. In 2016 scholars concluded that Sequoyah’s work led to the creation of 21 scripts used for 65 languages. Maynardville is 98.4% White.
December 22, 2018 12:28pm EST 36.177107, -83.901469
Moab, UT The biblical name Moab refers to the eastern side of Jordan River. Mormon settlers in the 1890s attempted to change the name to Uvadalia or Vina because the biblical people of Moab are said to be incestuous and idolatrous. Until the 1880s Moab was used for its natural crossing of the Colorado River on the Spanish trade route between Sante Fe and Los Angeles. In 1883 the railroad was built 40 miles north of Moab. The Ute lived in Moab before being moved to the Uintah and Ouray Reservation as the railroad was being completed. In 2016, Utah congressman Rob Bishop introduced legislation to take 100,000 acres of oil and gas rich land from the Ute, the first Indian land grab in 100 years. Moab’s primary industry is tourism, as it is located near Arches and Canyonlands National Parks. Due to its otherworldly appearance, Moab has been used as a shooting location for dozens of films and television shows. For four months in 1943 a camp outside Moab was used to isolate interned Japanese Americans who incited rebellions at other camps. Today Moab has a population of 5,046 and is 90% White, 5.6% Native American and 6.4% Hispanic of any race.
August 27, 2018 7:10am MDT 38.772860, -109.586046
Mona, UT Mona was named Clover Creek in 1852 by Mormon settlers. It was renamed Willow Creek within the same year. Both names were to honor the abundance of wild clover and willows that grew by the mouth of the river. A plaque in the town tells that Mona was abandoned for 6 years (1853-1859) due to “Indian Troubles”. Mona was briefly named Starr after Albert W. Starr and his son William A. Starr who bought the land from the US government in 1880. Mona today is 98.24% white. The closest reservation is the Uintah and Ouray Reservation, the largest reservation for the sovereign nation of the Ute. Utah is named after the Ute.
August 25, 2018 3:31 pm MDT 39.795976, -111.867666
Moreland, GA The community of present-day Moreland was built around the Mt. Sion Methodist Church. The church was built in 1843 to serve farmers who had moved to the area during the Georgia Land Lottery of 1827. In 1855 the railroad built a wood and water station in the town and named it Puckett Station. This shifted the community’s center further south. The town was officially incorporated and renamed Moreland when a full train station was constructed in 1888. The land near Moreland was used to grow cotton and a variety of fruits, including peaches. Slave labor was used on these farms until they converted to a sharecropper system after the civil war. Moreland is on Muscogee Creek land. The writer Erskine Caldwell was born and raised in Moreland. Moreland has a population of 399 and is 85% White and 14% Black.
December 17, 2018 4:54pm EST 33.290690, -84.769273
Murdo, SD The town of Murdo was founded in 1906 by the Chicago, Milwaukee, St. Paul and Pacific Railroad, who needed a station between Rapid City and Mitchell. The town was apportioned through an auction lot sale, with plots going for a couple hundred dollars. The town was named for Murdo MacKenzie, a wealthy Scotsman who ran the Matador Land and Cattle Company. In 1893, when the company’s Texas ranch got too full, Matador leased half a million acres from the Standing Rock Sioux and Matador’s cowboys brought their steers to graze on the reservation. MacKenzie was close with president Theodore Roosevelt. The 2016 Dakota Access Pipeline protests happened on the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation, named Íŋyaŋ Woslál Háŋ in Lakota, which stretches from North Dakota to South Dakota and whose border today is 150 miles from Murdo. Crossing through Murdo marks the change from Central to Mountain time. Murdo itself is on Central time. Murdo is a city of 488 people, 93.9% of whom are White.
August 5, 2018 8:05am CDT 43.886263, -100.716593
Newport, RI Newport was founded by William Coddington, who left Massachusetts after religious persecution. It was a very successful trading hub which prospered in the triangular trade of rum, molasses, and slaves between New England, the Caribbean, and West Africa. The Narragansett Nation’s name for the island is Aquidneck Island. There are approximately 2000 members of the Naragansett today. Beginning in 1650, Newport was a haven for Jewish people in America, along with New York City and Savannah, Georgia. In the 1890s Newport became a summer resort for New York robber barons, who built opulent homes in the Italian Renaissance style Newport today is 82.5% white.
May 29, 2018 2:40pm EDT 41.491336, -71.313712
Pea Ridge, WV The name Pea Ridge likely comes from a ridge of coal found in the region. Coal mining has been the primary economy of the region, though the coal industry has shrunk dramatically in the past two decades. Pea Ridge is a suburb of Huntington in Cabell County. The county had the highest rate of opioid overdoses within West Virginia in 2017. The area near Pea Ridge was used by both the Shawnee and Cherokee as hunting grounds. Today there are 7,584 people enrolled in three federally-recognized Shawnee tribes. All Shawnee tribes are headquartered in Oklahoma, where the Shawnee were moved in the 19th century, primarily in the 1830s. Pea Ridge has a population of 6,363 people and 94.6% are White.
December 23, 2018 8:33am EST 38.419637, -82.321732
Pensacola, FL At the time of first European contact, Pensacola was home to the Pensacola people. The name of the people was first recorded by Spanish colonists as Pansacola or Panzacola. After 1794, the Pensacola people assimilated into other Native American groups. Pensacola has been claimed by five nations since first European settlement: the Spanish Empire, the French Empire, the British Empire, the Confederate States of America, and the United States of America. The city has been referred to as “The Cradle of Naval Aviation�. The first Naval Air Base in America was located in Pensacola and is still operational. Neil Armstrong received his aviation training there. Pensacola is the westernmost city in Florida. Pensacola has not supported a Democratic candidate for President since John F. Kennedy. Pensacola has a population of 51,923 and is 66.3% White and 28% Black.
December 18, 2018 3:45pm EST 30.403959, -87.219020
Pineville, KY Pineville is on Eastern Cherokee land. The town is sometimes called the Gem City of the Cumberlands, due to its scenic location on a small strip of land between the Cumberland River and Pine Mountain. Pineville was one of the first colonial settlements in Kentucky and was first named Cumberland Ford in 1781. It was renamed in 1870 by J.J. Gibson for the pines of the local forests. Historically, Pineville’s economy has been based on the coal industry. On Memorial Day weekend the town holds the Kentucky Mountain Laurel Festival, named for the Mountain Laurel flower which grows wild on Pine Mountain. Pineville has a population of 1,732 and is 93% White and 4% Black.
December 22, 2018 2:50pm EST 36.747021, -83.688827
Pittsburgh, PA Pittsburgh was settled by the French and named Fort Duquesne before the British gained control of the area. In 1758, Pittsburgh was named by John Forbes, a British general who served in the French and Indian War, in honor of fellow Brit William Pitt, the 1st Earl of Chatham. Forbes, being a Scotsman, likely pronounced Pittsburgh similar to Edinburgh. The city’s name was federally recognized as “Pittsburg” from 1891 to 1911, though the “h” was kept on local documents. Pittsburgh was inhabited by Shawnee peoples when the French arrived, though it is possible that the Osage and Iroquois peoples also settled or used the land of Pittsburgh. The area near Pittsburgh is known as Dionde:gâ in the Seneca language.
September 2, 2018 10:12am EDT 40.431189, -80.007022
Portland, OR The name Portland derives from its use as a port city. When Lewis and Clark reached Portland in 1805 they documented the Chinookan peoples living in the area. Portland was the land of the Multnomah and the Clackamas bands of the Chinook people. The name ″Chinook″ comes from a Chehalis word Tsinúk, which was their name for the people of a particular Chinook village. The Chinook Indian Nation was federally recognized in 2001 and has 2700 enrolled today. Portland has a population of 583,776 and is 72.2% non-Hispanic white, 6.3% Black, 9.4% Hispanic, and 7.1% Asian. The Oregon Territory banned settlement by Black Americans in 1849. The last laws preventing black citizens from entering Oregon were repealed in 1926. The Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 affected immigration to Oregon as well. Portland has been cited as the least religious city in America with 42% claiming no religious affiliation.
August 15, 2018 4:09pm PDT 45.519043, -122.705112
Rensselaerville, NY The land of Rensselaerville was bought by the Dutch Van Rensselaer family in 1629 and was a part of the Manor of Rensselaerwyck which spanned what are now Albany and Rensselaer counties. The hamlet of Rensselaerville wasn’t developed until the late 1800s. Rensselaerville was used as a summering site for wealthy families living along the Hudson. That tradition continues today with the American artist Richard Prince and the founder of Gilda’s Club, Joanna Bull, maintaining residences in the town. News anchor Andy Rooney and billionaire philanthropist William Polk Carey also lived in the town. Rensselaerville was the land of the Mohican (sometimes spelled Mahican) peoples. The Stockbridge-Munsee Band of Mohican Indians were pushed to Wisconsin, where they remain today with a population of 1,565. Rensselaerville has a population of 1,915 people, 96% of whom are White.
September 23, 2017 7:07pm EDT 42.477609, -74.107160
Rustburg, VA Present-day Rustburg is on the land of several Siouan-speaking peoples, including the Monacan Nation. Today the Monacan Indian Nation is based in Amherst County, VA and has 2,000 enrolled members. Rustburg was named after Jeremiah Rust, a landowner who donated 50 acres to build the village in 1780.The land was known as Rust Meadows until it was incorporated in 1784. The town is adjacent to Lynchburg, which was the only major city in Virginia that was not recaptured by the Union before the end of the Civil War. Lynchburg was named after its founder, John Lynch. Rustburg is the county seat of Campbell county. In 1981, the Campbell County Courthouse was listed on the National Register of Historic Places. The town has a population of 1,431 and is 74.8% White and 23.6% Black.
December 15, 2018 5:02pm EST 37.254154, -79.186594
San Rafael, CA The name San Rafael is Spanish for Saint Raphael, the patron saint of travelers and medical workers. San Rafael was the site of the Awani-wi, Ewu, Shotomko-cha villages of the Coast Miwok people. Miwok inhabitance of California was documented in 1579 by Sir Francis Drake. Later documentation of Miwok language and culture came from Spanish and Russian voyages. The Spanish Mission San Rafael Arcångel was founded in 1817 as a hospital to treat sick Native Americans, especially Miwok. San Rafael became a part of Mexico when Mexico gained independence from Spain in 1822. The mission wasn’t turned over to the Mexican government until 1833 and was abandoned in 1844 after all Native American patients left. San Rafael is has a population of 57,713 and is 70.6% White, 1.2% Native American, 6.1% Asian, and 30% Hispanic of any race.
August 17, 2018 6:42pm PDT 38.021098, -122.555329
Santa Fe, NM Santa Fe in the Tewa language is Oghá P’o’oge, which translates to White Shell Water Place, and the Navajo name for the site is Yootó. Santa Fe’s earliest known settlement was in 900 CE by Pueblo peoples who built permanent housing where Sante Fe is today. The city was founded by Spanish colonists in 1610 and was named Santa Fe de Nuevo Mexico (Holy Faith of New Mexico) by Juan de Oñate. Colonial governor Pedro de Peralta renamed the area La Villa Real de la Santa Fe de San Francisco de Asís, which translates to the Royal Town of the Holy Faith of Saint Francis of Assisi. The Sante Fe river which flows through the town was recognized as the most endangered river in the United States in 2007. Sante Fe has a population of 67,947 people. 48.7% are Hispanic and 46.2% are non-Hispanic White.
August 29, 2018 11:10am MDT 35.689140, -105.940524
Selma, AL The French were the first to document the region and recorded present-day Selma as Écor Bienville. Later, the English named it the Moore’s Bluff settlement. The city was incorporated in 1820 and was named Selma by William R. King, who became the vice president to Franklin Pierce. King owned a large plantation named Chestnut Hill and his family was one of the largest slave-owning families in the state, owning at least 500 collectively. In the 1800s Selma was a trading center and market town for cotton. The city was the site of the 1960s Selma Voting Rights Movement and was the starting point for the Selma to Montgomery marches of 1965. The first march came about partially as a response to the murder of Jimmie Lee Jackson by state trooper James Bonard Fowler. The first march began with “Bloody Sunday” when unarmed marchers were attacked with clubs and tear gas by police at the end of the Edmund Pettus Bridge. Selma is on Muscogee Creek land. Selma has a population of 20,756 and is 80.3% Black and 18% White.
December 18, 2018 11:05am CST 32.405264, -87.031469
Sheridan, WY Sheridan is located in the ancestral homeland of the Crow people. The town was the site of several battles between US forces and the Sioux, Crow, and Cheyenne nations. In 1882, civil war veteran John D. Loucks plotted the town of Sheridan on a sheet of wrapping paper. He named the town Sheridan after the Union officer he served under, General Philip Sheridan. He then hired a surveyor from Big Horn for his application to register the plat at the town of Cheyenne’s land office. The Burlington & Missouri Railroad was built in 1892 with a stop in Sheridan. In 1894 the town was approved and incorporated. Loucks served as the first postmaster and mayor of Sheridan. In 1897 the Rocky Mountain Telephone Company ran a telephone system through the town. Queen Elizabeth II visited Sheridan in 1984 and stayed with Wyoming U.S. Senator Malcolm Wallop on his ranch. Wallop was a longtime friend of the queen’s godson’s wife, Lady Porchester. She was in Sheridan when the Brighton hotel bombing targeting Margaret Thatcher occurred. The population of Sheridan is 17,444 and it is 94.9% White.
August 6, 2018 5:10pm MDT 44.798907, -106.955773
Sonoma, CA Present-day Sonoma was at the confluence of many Native American lands, though it has been mapped primarily as the territory of the Coast Miwok. To the east were the Suisenes and Patwin peoples and to the north were the Southern Pomo and Wappo. A federation of Coast Miwok and Southern Pomo peoples are a federally recognized tribe, under the name the Graton Rancheria community. Sonoma is the Coast Miwok word for “valley of the moon.” Spanish missionaries recorded the name of the Coast Miwok people as Sonomas or Sonomi in records from the 1810s. Sonoma’s Mission San Francisco Solano was the last and northernmost mission built by the Spanish and was founded in 1823. Sonoma has been claimed by five countries since 1542: England, Spain, Russia, Mexico, and America. The population of Sonoma is 10,648 and is 86.8% White and 15% Hispanic of any race. The Sonoma Valley is 46.3% White, 49.1% Hispanic of any race, and 2.7% Native American.
March 16, 2017 1:55pm PDT 38.247030, -122.417676
Springfield, Il The Springfield area was used by speakers of the Miami-Illinois language, including the Peoria tribe of the Illinois Confederation. Many of these tribes were driven out to the territories of Kansas and Oklahoma on the Potawatomi Trail of Death. The town was originally named Calhoun in 1821, after senator and 7th vice president John C. Calhoun, one of the most vocal supporters of slavery before the Civil War. When Calhoun fell out of favor there in the 1830s, the town was renamed Springfield. There are at least 36 townships with the name Springfield in the United States. It is also the name of the town in the Simpsons. Springfield became the third and final capital of Illinois in 1839, partly due to the campaigning of Abraham Lincoln. Lincoln moved to Springfield to begin his political career as a state assembly member and then a congressman from Illinois. The Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum is located there. The city’s motto is “Home of President Abraham Lincoln.” In 1908, a race riot led to the lynching of several black residents by whites, and a series of continued incidents of racist intimidation. In 2007, senator Barack Obama announced his presidential candidacy in Springfield. Springfield has 116,250 people. 75.8% of the population is White and is 18.5% Black or African American.
August 22, 2017 5:19pm EDT 39.795281, -89.647919
Sterling, NY Sterling was named after Revolutionary War general Lord William Alexander Stirling, which was misspelled as Sterling at the time. The town was formed out of land from the town of Cato in 1812. Cato is named after the Roman statesman Cato the Elder. Sterling is on the land of the Onondaga nation, one of the five constituent nations of the Iroquois confederacy. The name for the Onondaga people in Tuscarora is Gana’dagwëni:io’geh. The Onondaga fought with the British and were therefore forced to cede their lands after the Revolutionary War. Sterling was a port city in the Great Lakes trade boom of the early 19th century. Today, Sterling is home to a very popular Renaissance Festival which takes place annually. Sterling has a population of 3,040 and 98.5% of residents are White.
June 16, 2018 1:08pm EST 43.348216, -76.629113
Trumbull, CT Trumbull is on the land of the Paugussett people. Their state-recognized reservation is located in Trumbull and the Golden Hill Paugussett Indian Nation currently has 100 enrolled members. In 1725 residents of the town of Stratford sought to establish an independent village under the name Nickol’s Farms. The Colony chose the name Unity for the new village. In 1744 Unity and neighboring Long Hill joined to form North Stratford. In 1797 the town again sought independence from Stratford and was renamed after John Trumbull. Trumbull was the only governor of an English colony who took up the Patriot cause and was therefore the only English statesman to become a governor of an American state. Trumbull’s name was originally spelled Trumble and it’s unclear how or why the spelling was changed. Trumbull College at Yale is also named after John Trumbull. Trumbull has a population of 36,018 and is 94% White.
November 3, 2018 11:39am EDT 41.248261, -73.222099
Tyler, AL The town of Tyler was likely named after president John Tyler. Tyler is an unincorporated community and does not have listed census data. However Tyler is located within Dallas County which is 69.4% Black and 29.1% White. Dallas County was formed out of lands ceded by the Muscogee Creek in the Treaty of Fort Jackson in 1814. The town is comprised of cotton fields and was the site of several slave-owning plantations in the antebellum period. After the civil war many of the former slaves stayed on as sharecroppers or tenant farmers. Tyler is located in the Black Belt region of the south, referred to as such for its deep-colored, fertile soil. The nickname has also come to refer to the area’s racial makeup. In recent years the Black Belt has become an important political voting block in the South, voting consistently for Democratic and left-leaning officials.
December 18, 2018 9:02am CST 32.316258, -86.884276
Virginia City, NV Virginia City became a boomtown during the gold rush of the 1848 when two prospectors discovered the Comstock Lode, a large supply of silver ore. In the early days of its settlement, Virginia City was called Gold Hill. In the 1870s Virginia City had a population of 25,000; today its population is 855. The population collapsed after the Comstock Lode was fully mined in 1880. The town is on Washoe land. The Washoe consider the center of their land to be Lake Tahoe, named Da.aw in Washoe. The name Washoe in an English transliteration of the Washoe word wa¡ťiw, meaning people from here. The Washoe people were likely not contacted by Europeans until the gold rush. Virginia City is in Storey County which is 92.1% White. 20.9% of the total population have German ancestry and 20.1% are of Italian ancestry. In 2006, Storey County became the only county in Nevada to vote in favor of a ballot initiative to legalize, tax, and regulate marijuana.
August 22, 2018 5:26pm PDT 39.307441, -119.651277
Wall, SD Wall was platted in 1907 when the railroad reached the town site. It was formally incorporated as a city in 1908. The Lakota name for Wall is Makȟóšiča Aglágla Otȟuŋwahe. The Lakota are one of three Sioux tribes of the American plains. The Lakota language, Lakȟótiyapi, is part of the Siouan language family. Lakȟótiyapi has 2,000 speakers today. Wall is 88.9% White and 7% Native American and has a population of 766. Wall is located 8 miles north of Badlands National Park. Wall is well known for the Wall Drug Store, a tourist destination known for serving 5¢ coffee and for its billboards which can be found as far as 350 miles away from the town.
August 5, 2018 1:51pm MDT 43.992778, -102.240647
Whitefish, MT Whitefish is on the land of the Pend d’Oreilles people, who also refer to themselves as Ql̓ispé, or Kalispel, and historically spoke the Salish language. The Salish name for Whitefish is epɫx̣ʷy̓u, meaning “has white fish.” Pend d’Oreilles people were given their French name by French Canadian fur traders in reference to their earrings. The region didn’t experience much European settlement until 1904, when the Great Northern Railway was built through the town and the Flathead Tunnel, still the second-longest tunnel in America, was constructed a few miles to the West. An early industry in the region was logging and Whitefish was known as Stumptown because the stumps of recently felled trees remained in the streets throughout the downtown. The town is located near Glacier National Park. Whitefish is 96% white. The region, including the neighboring Idaho panhandle, has become home to a number of extremist white nationalist and neoNazi groups. In 2010, the neo-Nazi and white nationalist Richard Spencer moved to Whitefish. After a dispute between his family and a Jewish realtor in the area, Nazi trolls began threatening a small group of locals who had challenged Spencer.
August 10, 2018 9:08am MDT 48.429189, -114.281116
Willow Canyon, AZ Willow Canyon is located close to Mount Lemmon, the highest peak of the Santa Catalina Mountains. The Catalinas were named in 1697 in honor of St. Catherine by Italian priest Eusebio Francisco Kino, who was born in the Holy Roman Empire. This range was the land of the Tohono O’odham. Traditional Tohono O’odham lands stretched from present-day central Arizona in the United States to to northern Sonora in Mexico. The mountains are named Babad Do’ag in O’odham. The O’odham language is the 10th most spoken indigenous language in the United States. The capital of the Tohono O’odham Nation is Sells, Arizona. The Nation bought 650 acres of land in 2009 near Why, Arizona for the Hia C-eḍ Oʼodham, who are seeking federal recognition as an independent Native American tribe. Willow Canyon has a population of 3,023.
May 28, 2017 3:32pm MST 32.377928, -110.686042
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20
Altamont, NY
Atlanta, GA
Beacon, NY
Bronx, NY
Butte, MT
Cave City, KY
Cherry Valley, NY
Cincinnati, OH
Cleveland, SC
Covesville, VA
Crescent City, CA
Cuba, NM
Dodge City, KS
Earlimart, CA
Elko, NV
El Paso, TX
Eolia, KY
Fresno, CA
Harrogate, TN
Houstonia, MO
Rustburg, VA
Rensselaerville, NY
Portland, OR
Pittsburgh, PA
Pineville, KY
Pensacola, FL
Pea Ridge, WV
Newport, RI
Murdo, SD
Moreland, GA
Mona, UT
Moab, UT
Maynardville, TN
Marblehead, MA
Las Cruces, NM
Kremmling, CO
Kansas City, MO
Jackson, MS
Iselin, NJ
Hulen, KY
40
39
38
37
36
35
34
33
32
31
30
29
28
27
26
25
24
23
22
21
Willow Canyon, AZ
Whitefish, MT
Wall, SD
Virginia City, NV
Tyler, AL
Trumbull, CT
Sterling, NY
Springfield, IL
Sonoma, CA
Sheridan, WY
Selma, AL
Santa Fe, NM
San Rafael, CA
53
52
51
50
49
48
47
46
45
44
43
42
41
45 41
11
50
14
18
38
15
53
30
52
29
5
16
26
12
25
42
44 51 32
13
24 20
23
46
35
43 49
6
31
3621 19 28
8
2
17
9
34
37
40
10
47
1 7 39 4 22
3 48
27 33
The title of this book was taken from a line spoken by Austin in the play True West by Sam Shepard. Edition of 40 + 3 AP Printed in the United States of America First Edition Š 2019 Caroline Hunter Wallis All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced without prior written permission from the copyright holder. carolinehunterwallis.com