How the States got their shapes (Part 2: The Great "Planes", Trains and Automobiles

Have you ever wonder how some of our states are shaped the way they are, or why? Well, a one-time documentary series called "How the States got their shapes" on the History Channel tried to answer some of those questions about them.

This is Part 2 of this 7-part wiki page series about this documentary where I tell you what was talked about on some of those episodes, and I'll give my own opinion on it, or know what the episodes didn't tell you. In the episode "The great panes trains and automobiles", is where Brian talks about hos some of our states got their shapes from this constantly evolving ways to get around.

## The Great "Planes", Trains, and Automobiles

### Illinois and the Asian Carp

In the first part of the episode, Brain is in Illinois as he explains what was the first means of mass transportation in America, he says that America's rivers, and eventually some of its man-made canals were the country's first highways.

At first, I didn't know exactly know why Brian was in Illinois, but as it turned out, Illinois got its weird shape because of our old-fashioned ways of using water as a way to go from point a to point b. Illinois became a state in 1818, but before Illinois became a state, the people in Illinois decided that they wanted to move its northern border so that it meets Lake Michigan, and they wanted to do what New York was doing during that time, yes, build a canal. If the people of Illinois built a canal that connected Lake Michigan to the Illinois River, it'll help make Illinois a huge economic power (for the time, that is), and that's because the Illinois river is connected to a bigger river; the Mississippi River, and once the Erie Canal was built in 1825, this would help ship goods and people to the west, and this is where Illinois' biggest city; Chicago was founded as it can help ship goods and people not just to the west, but also south down the Mississippi. Just like a lot of states in the US, Illinois' shape was influenced by slavery, this is because Illinois was a long, stretching state and its rivers flow south, the canals in New York and Illinois will help Illinois stay connected to the north.

Illinois' canal made have helped Illinois' economy, but today it faces a problem, in the form of a.............., and yes I can say it, a "Fishy" situation, in the form of the "Asian Carp".

The Asian Carp are native to the Far East Pacific (hence their name), these are "somewhat" edible to some people, and there were Asian Carp farms in Louisiana, they got into the Mississippi River during its infamous flood stage in the 1990s and are making their way into the Illinois River.

When Brian and the filmcrew of this episode were at the mouth of the Illinois River (near the Illinois town of Bath, fitting if you ask me) talking to fishermen in the area who are trying to snag these fish, they were sailing almost like a mine field of these fish.

The Asian Carp have a reputation of jumping into hapless fisherman's boats as they can jump as high as 10 feet.

But, there's a lot of negatives regarding the Asian Carp, not only are they a nuisance that can jump into your boat, they are an invasive species that feast on mussels, snails, plankton, and even some plants, but they are also have a very nasty reputation of................."going forth and multiplying" so to say, and pushing their tasty rivals out, and what is worse is that these "jumpy" fish are trying to make their way into the Illinois Canal, and if they do they'll get into the Great Lakes, and can cause massive disasters ecologically and even economically.

### Basic Training

Brian stays in Illinois to talk a bit more about Chicago, and that is because Chicago is also the biggest rail hub in the country, but Brian also talks about other places in the US that also got their economy started from Railroads, like Baltimore.

If you ever played the board game Monopoly, you know that you can buy railroad companies for $200, one of them is called the "B & O Railroad", now it has nothing to do with body odor, but it has to do with Baltimore, it was in competition with New York City to transport goods and people to the west, but Baltimore didn't have a canal to do this, it relied on the railroad system to compete with New York, in 1830 the "Baltimore & Ohio" railroad opens, it had rail lines that ran from Baltimore to the Ohio River.

You can see how railroads shaped out nation just by looking at a picture of railroads in the nation. According to Mark Stein (who wrote the original book) the big reason why the western states have more straight lines is because of railroads, this is because rivers and mountains aren't as necessary as borders. Railroads also helped other cities such as Kansas City, St. Louis, and Atlanta to become economically rich.

In fact, 2 states owe a debt to railroads; Arizona and New Mexico. After the US gained Mexico's territories in the Mexican-American War, the south was competing with the north on trying to build a continental railroad which connects the west with the east, but the south had a problem, their path of their continental railroad was in an area that was still in Mexico. Southern diplomat "James Gadsden" went to Mexico to try to buy the land, and he did as he paid the Mexicans $10 Million. But it soon was realized, this was all for not, because the American Civil War followed, and the South was defeated, and with it their dreams to control a continental railroad were dashed. It wasn't until 1867 when the north completed the US' first continental railroad in Utah. But Gadsden's purchase remains an important part in America's territorial growth.

Railroads also created something we are all familiar with; Time Zones. Before times zones were introduced, cities had their own "time zone", and with the Railroad network constantly evolving, it came more and more of a problem. In 1883, this problem was solved with the introduction of time zones.

Currently, there are 6 time zones in the United States (only Russia has more). Like states, the borders of time zones are also zig-zagg-ing, the Mountain time zone has some of the most unusual borders as it spills out into Texas, Kansas, Nebraska, the Dakotas, and even Oregon. The reason for it is, economics.

One example that this episode uses is Indiana, most people in Indiana (such as office workers in the eastern part of the state) use Eastern time to sync with the major cities on the eastern seaboard. Farmers in Western Indiana, however, care more about sunlight then city lights. So, 18 counties in western Indiana are in the Central Time Zone.

Brian then heads back to the Hoover Dam on the Nevada/Arizona border, and that's because it also has something to do with the time zones. Arizona is in the Mountain time zone, and Nevada is in the Pacific time zone, and one of the people he talks to is also on the border of these time zones as he lives in the Mountain zone, and works in the Pacific zone.

### Driving to drink

For this part of the episode, Brian heads to Boston, and that is because he has heard of the bad reputation of Boston commuters.

This is because the north end of Boston has some of the oldest (if not \*the\* oldest) streets in the US, and unlike its rival; New York, Boston's streets aren't perfectly straight all the way through. They twist, turn and, bend in many strange and confusing ways, and in some parts of the city, the sense of direction is terrible.

This is where Brian tries to experiment on why Boston's streets are such a mess, after driving through the city for while, he hitches a ride in a taxi with a driver that has a lot of experience with Boston's streets, according to the taxi driver that was with Brian (and a lot of other of Boston's residents), some of the streets in Boston were for cattle (during the colonial and early American times) so they can let the cattle out to either sell them, or, uh, something. But, Brian dug deeper, and talked to a person who was the former director of Boston's department of transportation, and he said something that was to the contrary to what other Bostonians said to Brian, the city's older streets were "walking" streets (for Native Americans when they wanted to gather shellfish).

Then, why many Bostonians believe the "Cattle" story? Well, it's because America's first "Porterhouse Steak" was sold and eaten at the "Porterhouse Inn" in the town of Cambridge (not far from Boston).

Brian, then drives down the interstate, and even explains on how difficult (and time consuming) it was to travel from the East to the West, in the 19th century and at the time of the famous Lewis & Clark expedition, it took them 3 months to reach the west. Now, it can take just 3 days (non-stop) on the interstate highway system.

America's interstate highway system was the brainchild of President Eisenhower, when he was in the military when he went on a cross country mission, which took 2 months to complete. During World War 2, he was impressed by Germany's "autobahn" system, and that is what he wanted to do when he became President. Our interstate highway system is the largest highway system in the world, the number system also has some interesting facts, the highways going vertical (from north to south and vise versa) are odd numbered, and the horizontal highways (going from east to west and vise versa) are even numbered. The low numbers (from 1 to 50) are in the south and the west, and the high numbers (from 51 to 99) are in the north and the east. Texas is the state with the most interstates running through it, and the longest interstate is I-90 which goes from Boston to Seattle. So, the interstates help the country connect in ways that wouldn't happen before, but it also had a negative effect.

Like in the Disney movie; Cars. The one time travel town called "Radiator Springs" found itself left behind once the interstate highways were built, and the town went bust. Well, somewhere in western Illinois, there was something like that, a town known as "Fandon".

Fandon was (like Radiator Springs) a town for travelers, but when the Interstates were built, Fandon's economy went bust as business dried up, real estates in the town plummeted, and it became like a ghost town, the town even lost it's own zip code (talk about bad luck). In fact, a good part of western Illinois around Fandon opted to secede, this part of Illinois would be called "Forgotonia". When Brian came to visit Fandon, he met the "pseudo" mayor of Fandon; Neil Gamm (by the looks of the guy and the hat he was wearing, he was a Vietnam veteran), but because of a lack of support, Gamm gave up on trying to make Forgotonia independent.

Well, that'll do it for this part. In the next part (click here) we will talk about how some states (like West Virginia) was shaped by nature, and the wild weather of our nation. Until next time, this is JohnnyTOGS signing out.