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    How the States Got Their Shapes
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    How the States Got Their Shapes
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    How the States Got Their Shapes
    Ebook414 pages4 hours

    How the States Got Their Shapes

    By Mr. Mark Stein

    3.5/5

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    About this ebook

    New York Times Bestseller

    "Give me the splendid irregularities any day. God bless the panhandles and notches, the West Virginias and Oklahomas." -- Wall Street Journal

    Why does Oklahoma have that panhandle? Did someone make a mistake?

    We are so familiar with the map of the United States that our state borders seem as much a part of nature as mountains and rivers. Even the oddities—the entire state of Maryland(!)—have become so ingrained that our map might as well be a giant jigsaw puzzle designed by Divine Providence. How the States Got Their Shapes is the first book to tackle why our state lines are where they are. Here are the stories behind the stories, right down to the tiny northward jog at the eastern end of Tennessee and the teeny-tiny (and little known) parts of Delaware that are not attached to Delaware but to New Jersey.

    Packed with fun oddities and trivia, this entertaining guide also reveals the major fault lines of American history, from ideological intrigues and religious intolerance to major territorial acquisitions. Adding the fresh lens of local geographic disputes, military skirmishes, and land grabs, Mark Stein shows how the seemingly haphazard puzzle pieces of our nation fit together perfectly.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherHarperCollins
    Release dateApr 7, 2009
    ISBN9780061899867
    Author

    Mr. Mark Stein

    Mark Stein is a playwright and screenwriter. His plays have been performed off-Broadway and at theaters throughout the country. His films include Housesitter, with Steve Martin and Goldie Hawn. He has taught writing and drama at American University and Catholic University and lives in Washington, D.C.

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    Reviews for How the States Got Their Shapes

    3.5/5

    30 ratings28 reviews

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    • 3/5
      This book is organized by state, with the result that it is a good reference book or interesting to read an individual state, but becomes tedious if you read too many at once.Colonial, territorial, and state boundary disputes were quite numerous, some of which resulted in armed confrontations. There were also many instances of shoddy surveying, many of which remain today's state lines. Often geographical considerations (mountain chains, rivers, lakes) shaped the boundaries. Sometime politics dictates boundaries, as when Texas released its claims north of 36 degrees 30 minutes to comply with the Missouri Compromise. Stein covers all of these. It's certainly worth a read; just not all at once.
    • 4/5
      I followed the advice of other reviewers and read the overview, then skipped around reading about states that interested me. That way was fairly interesting and not repetitious. Proud to learn the the country needed California more than the other way around. California uber alles!
    • 4/5
      I picked up this book because I got hooked in the TV series on History Channel.The only problem I have with this book is that it was presented alphabetically by state. When reading the book cover-to-cover (as opposed to flipping through it for reference), there is a lot of repeat information. I think it would have made a lot more sense to cover this information in chronological order as the territories were granted statehood.Aside from that issue, I enjoyed this book. I love history and geography, but I will admit that these subjects can be dry. Stein has a really easy way of conveying this information. I will never look at the map of the USA the same way again.
    • 3/5
      Amusing and interesting. It was sometimes frustrating that the states were in alphabetical order for discussion; logically, one state's borders are the borders of other states and to have to repeat the discussion three or four times was silly. It was very disturbing to understand the role of slavery in the creation of the states, especially how it reared its ugly head from the earliest moments of expansion beyond the original thirteen states. On the other hand, it was fascinating to understand the forward planning of the first presidents for the future of a country that would span a continent.
    • 4/5
      Fun. I was disconcerted to find that author Mark Stein was a screenwriter rather than a historian or geographer, but I suspect the relevant chunks were ghostwritten by the staff of The History Channel.
      Mostly geography trivia. For example:
      *By royal charter, Connecticut originally went all the way to the Pacific Ocean, as did most of the other original colonies. On independence, the other states sold or donated their land to the Federal government, but Connecticut “reserved” a portion, in what is now Ohio, until 1800. Hence, Case Western Reserve University.
      *The little notch in the northern border of Connecticut was to accommodate Massachusetts, which had several settlements in the area; similarly (but not quite as obviously) the Connecticut border angles slightly to include a range of hills on the Connecticut side.
      *The Oklahoma Panhandle exists because the Missouri Compromise prohibited slavery north of 36°30’. When Texas entered the Union, it got around the problem by simply lopping off a little of its territory.
      *Congress attempted to make new states roughly equal in size. Texas is as big as it is because it entered the Union as an independent country. California was left large (there were suggestions that the eastern border be at the crest of the Sierras) because there was a serious fear that it would declare independence (it was briefly independent, as The Bear Flag Republic, before annexation).
      *The Missouri “boot heel” is the result of an influential local landowner who wanted his holdings to be part of Missouri rather than Arkansas. Can’t say I blame him.
      *The circular arc between Delaware and Pennsylvania is drawn 12 miles from a point on the roof of the courthouse in New Castle; it was intended to provide a buffer between the Quakers in Pennsylvania and the Dutch Reformed in Delaware.
      I was also surprised by the number of interstate and interterritory disputes. Notable ones were:
      *The Toledo War, between Michigan and Ohio; the original border between Michigan and Indiana and Ohio was to go due east from the southernmost point on Lake Michigan to Lake Erie. However, this would have deprived Indiana of a lake port and put the already existing lake port of Toledo in Michigan. The border of Indiana was moved ten miles north; the Ohio border was then angled from the original southern point on Lake Michigan to touch Lake Erie just north of Toledo (it will help to look at a map here). Michigan took offense and sent state militia to occupy the area; Ohio militia responded (apparently no one was interested in Indiana). Michigan was mollified by being awarded the Upper Peninsula and Isle Royale.
      *As already mentioned the original charter for Connecticut had it extending all the way to the Pacific, which obviously included land already granted to New York and Pennsylvania. Connecticut sold land to settlers, and Pennsylvania sold the same land. The resulting conflict was called the Pennamite War, and would probably have been more serious if the Revolutionary War hadn’t started almost simultaneously.
      *Part of the northern border of Georgia was originally surveyed 12 miles too far north. This didn’t bother anybody as long as the land in question was part of the Cherokee Nation, but after the Trail of Tears both Georgia and North Carolina claimed the land – and tried to collect taxes in it. Both sides deployed militia (author Stein claims “two bloody battles”, but Wikipedia argues for a single casualty). The dispute was settled in favor of North Carolina, but the aforementioned Wikipedia article notes that Georgia reasserted its claim in 1971, resulting in North Carolina “militia” deployment.
      I was also under the impression that all state boundaries were fixed after admission to the Union, but discovered there were much later transfers and exchanges of territory. In addition to the armed conflicts mentioned:
      *The District of Columbia was originally a square; however, in 1846 residents on the south side of the Potomac successfully petitioned Congress to be returned to Virginia (according to Stein, because free blacks could live in DC without a permit).
      *In 1855, Massachusetts ceded a small piece of its southwest corner (including the town of Boston Corners) to New York, because the Taconic Mountains blocked easy access to the area from the Massachusetts side.
      *Part of the southern border of South Dakota was originally the Niobrara River; in 1882 a strip land north of the Niobrara but south of 43° latitude was transferred to Nebraska.
      *New York and New Jersey had a long conflict over the Hudson estuary, resulting in a rather strange 1833 agreement that Arthur Kill and Kill Van Kull would be the boundary for all land above the low water mark, but the midline of the Hudson would be the boundary below the low water mark. Thus, if you stood on Staten Island you were in New York but if you waded offshore in any direction you were in New Jersey. So matters stood until 1993; at that point New Jersey noted that Ellis Island had been considerably enlarged from its 1833 size by using dredge spoil, and all the “new” land belonged to New Jersey. The Supreme Court concurred in 1998; thus the island is divided between the states.
      *In 1819, the border between the Louisiana Purchase and Spanish territory was defined as the Red River until it reached 100° longitude. However, the river branches some ways downstream from 100°; predictably both sides claimed the branch that favored them was the “main” branch. What with Mexican independence, then Texas independence, and giving Oklahoma to the Indians, it didn’t make much difference to anybody, but in 1890 Congress decided that the southern fork was the main branch and thus a small part of Texas was transferred to Oklahoma (then still a territory).
      *The Rhode Island – Massachusetts border was disputed until 1862, with Rhode Island claiming land around Fall River and Massachusetts claiming East Providence; an agreeable exchange ensued.< br>*In 1901, Tennessee ceded a narrow strip of land to Virginia – including the town of Bristol – because of an error in the original (1802) survey. Stein notes that there are a number of small scale irregularities in the Virginia-Tennessee and Tennessee-Kentucky borders, because the state lines were adjusted to accommodate property owners who had registered land in one state or another based on where they believed the boundary to be. (Stein doesn’t mentioned it, but there’s a similar situation one the border between Belgium and the Netherlands around the town of Baarle. Surveyors gave up trying to establish a line and the border was based on which country individual property owners wanted to be in).
      As mentioned, a fun and light read. I do note that a small amount of additional research (admittedly, on Wikipedia, with the usual caveat) seems to falsify some of Stein’s claims. Stein also makes an obvious error when describing guano (in connection with outlying Hawaiian islands) as “bat poop”; it can be, but not on those; it’s seabird poop. Good for kids who complain that geography isn’t good for anything.
    • 3/5
      A nice book about how the states ended up with borders they have and how the came about. I think that this book would have been better that instead of alphabetical order maybe how the states came in their order of statehood would have been better.
    • 4/5
      Very interesting book about politics, geography, and history. I learned several things that I had never considered before, including why California and Texas are the size they are, when most other western states are roughly the same size.
    • 3/5
      This is basically a trivia or reference book, with each state, in alphabetical order, getting five or six pages describing the origins of its borders. If you try to read it at one shot, you might become annoyed by the repetition as text describing shared borders often gets repeated in each effected state. There are also frequent references pointing you to other sections of the book.I took my time, reading it over the course of six months, taking in a chapter or two between other books or just before bedtime. You might want to place your copy next to the toilet.Anyhow, for history buffs, this is loaded with lots of cool information, including mention of events of which I was previously unaware, like the Pennamite Wars. There is also lots of boring information, as too often the obstruction caused by big obvious rivers make up the borders, but even there the book reinforces how important rivers and waterways were to American growth, a fact that might be lost on our modern automotive society.While some mention is made of indigenous people, I do feel like the impact of our borders on Native American territories and treaties could have been given more attention.
    • 2/5
      This is not a book to sit down and read through. A good map with latitude and longitude and major rivers will explain about 80-85% of the borders. The remaining borders are interesting but since most states border other states, you end up reading about the same surveying expeditions over and over. I will give the author credit that he is aware of this and tries to mix things up and add diversity, but as whole it becomes repetitive. I would suggest reading the Introduction and then flipping though and reading about individual states of interest.
    • 5/5


      In conjunction with Lost States: True Stories of Texlahoma, Transylvania, and Other States That Never Made It, I also heartily recommend How the States Got Their Shapes by Mark Stein. It details the crazy journeys our wonderful 50 states took in order to end-up in the shapes that we know and love today. For example, did you know that Washington (before it got the D.C. moniker) was supposed to be a square city, made up of equal parcels of land donated by both Maryland and Virginia? Well, the city wasn’t growing that fast and Virginia was eventually able to reclaim their gift. I bet D.C. really regrets that now! Also, you were probably not aware that Illinois owes its possession of “Chicago” to slavery, in particular, New England hatred of slavery. Illinois businessmen sold the federal government on the idea that by giving Illinois a toehold on Lake Michigan they would be able to connect the goods of New England to the markets of the midwestern states, all without having to go through the South-controlled Mississippi River. All of these stories and more are presented in How the States Got Their Shapes in short little stories that do an excellent job of illuminating this very important, though much overlooked, portion of United States history.
    • 3/5
      As a geography buff, I had to have this book when I saw it at the library sale. And it does live up to its title, providing the details of how each state ended up in the shape its in. As it goes on, however, it becomes less and less fun. There are two big reasons for this. First, because the Western border of State A is the Eastern border of State B, there is lots of repetition throughout the book. If you're just using it as a reference, that isn't too big a problem, but when you're trying to read it for pleasure, it's definitely a drawback. The author tries to vary things up a bit and sometimes he references the other state for part of the story, but that doesn't really make it less redundant. Second, for a book dealing with the minutiae of state borders, the maps are terrible. They lack any sort of real detail. When the author tells me that because the Mississippi River has shifted course, parts of Tennessee are on the Arkansas side, I would like to see it--and not have to consult an Atlas, a map, or Google Earth.The author strives through the book to provide an overall context for the states' borders, and realizing that states were deliberately sized to stack on top of each other three or four high to cover the distance from the 37th to the 49th parallel is something I either didn't know or had forgotten, but it explains a lot. In some cases, however, the author's attempt to draw some meaning from the state borders falls short. He does, however, prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that most of the surveyors hired to draw state lines were unable to succeed in their task--or if they drew a straight line, it didn't adhere completely to the direction it was supposed to be going in. At least one error creeps in as well, when the author says the size of Alabama and Mississippi differs by less than 1%. Actually, it is more like 6%.So, the bottom line is, if you're a geography buff, you won't be able to put it down despite its shortcomings. Others, steer clear.
    • 4/5
      A sometimes tedious, sometimes fascinating reference of how each of the 50 states ended up with their geographical shapes. The tedium is from my own shortcomings; I enjoy history when it's interesting. Some of this is pretty dry. Not the author's fault; he does a very good job of telling each state's geographical morphogenesis as clearly and concisely as possible. I got the idea there were several common reasons for most of the state's borders. Early agreements with the countries we purchased (or conquered) land from played a large part. Rivers and mountains and other natural features had their role. Congress played a large role, especially when divvying up the western states, trying (and usually succeeding) in giving them approximately equal land areas. And quite often the states' shapes, especially those odd little nubbins that poke out of, or into, this state or that are the product of human pecaddiloes. A political feud, a surveying error (lots of these, actually). The author has a nice format here, beginning each chapter with a map of the state in question, and a few questions about the oddities in the state's shape. And then he proceeds to answer the questions, using more maps when needed. I don't see myself re-reading the book, but it'll be handy to have around the next time I need to settle a bar bet about how Missouri got its bootheel. Surprising how often that comes up.
    • 4/5
      Considering it's a book about a pretty dry topic, it actually held my attention...but if you aren't interested in American History, don't bother reading this because it will bore you.

      It's interesting to read about a time when Congress agreed that all states should be created equal (except for those pesky colonial states that already had their borders at the time of the Revolution).
    • 4/5
      Interesting, full of maps and makes you wonder how we ever become one nation, under God, indivisible with liberty and justice for all.
    • 3/5
      This book is precisely what the title says it is: a description of how each of the fifty US states (plus the District of Columbia) ended up with the borders -- and hence the shapes -- that they now have.I took one look at this and thought to myself, "OK, this has to be more interesting than it sounds!" And it is, just... not very much. I did learn some interesting things, such as the fact that every single one of Maryland's borders is due to an error, and the reason why California is so big. (Congress would have preferred to break it up into smaller states, but weren't willing to make any demands, for fear that it would tell the US to get stuffed and declare itself a separate country.)Most of these explanations, though, are a lot more dull and prosaic, and the same ideas tend to crop up over and over: Straight-line borders come from treaties with France or Spain, or from Congress slicing up territories to create states of roughly equal size. Borders were often shifted to grant a state access to valuable waterways, or to prevent the creation of small pockets of land cut off from the rest of their states by rivers or mountains. Sometimes a state would want to keep a particularly desirable piece of land, but would cede a different piece to its neighbor in return, creating little dents or protrusions. And borders were often disputed due to bad surveying, or to ambiguous or contradictory land charters. Now, I find it kind of nice to know all that, in general, but all the fiddly specifics... Well, I'm sure they were of absorbing importance to the people involved at the time, but I have to admit, I had a lot of trouble forcing myself to care. Even significant stuff like the way that the creation of new states was affected by and influenced the debate over slavery is more interesting in the abstract than in detail. Nor does the book make any real effort to bring the history to life with stories or commentary; it's just happy to report the basic facts.I think you really just have to be much more of a geography nerd than I am to appreciate this stuff. It's not a bad book, by any means, but I think you have to come into it with a prior interest in the subject to get much out of it.I also think that it suffers a bit from repetition. Most borders get discussed twice, once for each state involved. A certain amount of that is probably inevitable, but I think it might have helped a lot if the states were organized geographically, rather than alphabetically. That way, the discussion of each state's borders could have flowed naturally into a discussion of its neighbors'. Although maybe I'm missing the point there. Maybe the idea is that you should just look up the sections on the states you're particularly interested in, and I wasn't expected to actually read the whole thing.
    • 3/5
      This is a very fascinating book for anyone interested in the subject at hand, namely, the states and how their borders became what they are. In fact, this would easily be a four star book at least, if not five, for its thoroughness on the subject, except for one issue that I need to agree with reviews I've read on. The book is very repetitive. The layout being what it is, going through all the states (and the District of Columbia) alphabetically, and dealing with each of their borders individually, does guarantee that every border gets thoroughly covered and nothing gets accidentally forgotten or excluded, but it also means that virtually every border gets mentioned at least twice (and often even more than that), since two neighboring states obviously share the same border, causing the border to be described in the section for both states. To cut down on the repetitiveness would require an awful lot of skipping around in the book. Though, to the author's credit, he does make great use of "for more detail, see..." phrasing, rather than repeat the same stories over and over. So, at least they are only touched on when they get repeated, instead of being always given in full detail. Still, it gets a bit dull by the end. If I had it to do over again, I'd go through the book slowly, a section or two at a time, rather than reading it cover to cover, so my brain wasn't bombarded with the same thing over and over for hours. So, if you're interested in this book, that's what I highly recommend you doing as well.
    • 4/5
      I picked up this book because I got hooked in the TV series on History Channel.The only problem I have with this book is that it was presented alphabetically by state. When reading the book cover-to-cover (as opposed to flipping through it for reference), there is a lot of repeat information. I think it would have made a lot more sense to cover this information in chronological order as the territories were granted statehood.Aside from that issue, I enjoyed this book. I love history and geography, but I will admit that these subjects can be dry. Stein has a really easy way of conveying this information. I will never look at the map of the USA the same way again.
    • 5/5
      Being a semi-reference book which does exactly what it sets out to do and does it very pleasantly, plainly, and thoroughly. It is one of the relatively rare books which I was sorry to see end. The book is organized by state and thence by directional border and each chapter is prefaced by a few questions about the state's borders which a schoolchild might think to ask when seeing the boundaries for the first time. If one wanted to pick a nit or two, the state-by-state format leads to a little repetition, and the maps (numerous and invaluable) are a little monochromatic to be read easily in low light.
    • 5/5
      The title IS a summary of the book, which is an ideal read if you're a history and geography geek like me. It's 304-pages of maps, historical notes, and outright warfare between states. I've always wondered why many East Coast states remained small; yes, they may have been colonies originally, but why not combine eventually? That question and many others are addressed. Sometimes it can get confusing because of the sheer amount of terms, but Stein set aside a special section at the front called DON'T SKIP THIS that shows the territories and treaties so you know your Adams-Onis from your Mason-Dixon.The biggest surprise/shock was how intelligently Congress handled the divisions of territories during the 19th century. Many of their decisions early on were based on the need to balance slave and non-slave states, as reflected in policies such as the Missouri Compromise. However, even after the Civil War, they did they utmost to keep things balanced. If there was a body of water nearby, they let nearby states have access, however small. They tried to break apart western states along even divisions of degrees. Considering the buffoons we elect to office, I was pleasantly surprised at their foresight throughout a century of turmoil. And it never ceases to impress me how accurately they surveyed lines with their current technology.If you're a United Stated geography/history geek, get this book. Watch the TV series based on it. I'm sure it will pay off in a Trivial Pursuit game at some point in the future.
    • 4/5
      Each chapter of this book is devoted to each state, including Washington DC.The shapes of our states are far from random. Except, well, maybe Hawaii. Or so I thought, until I read this book (there are various atolls, and such, that are included in Hawaii’s “borders”). The author says in his introduction:“Asking why a state has the borders it does unlocks a history of human struggles — far more history than this book can contain, though this book does aspire to unearth the keys.”So, really, this book isn’t just about geography, but American history. Each state’s chapter begins with a series of questions, such as this one about California (where I was born):“How come California is so big? And since it is so big, how come it doesn’t include that long peninsula [Baja California; part of Mexico] that continues from its southern end? Why are the straight lines of its northern and eastern borders located where they are? And why does its eastern border bend?”Mr. Stein begins his response with: “If Congress followed a policy that all states should be created equal, why did it create California? Answer: It didn’t. California created itself. The land that became California came into the possession of the United States in 1848 with the end of the Mexican War. Before Congress could go through the process of dividing it into territories, a man named James Marshall spotted something shiny by the sawmill of his employer, John Sutter. It was gold.”Mr. Stein goes on to explain that, suddenly, California had to deal with a high population, an economy, and “a very high crime rate“. Therefore, Californians drew up their own state constitution and their own borders.Even seemingly dull state borders, such as the square-shaped Colorado, where I live now, has interesting history behind them. Well, Mr. Stein makes it all interesting. In another writer’s hand, this could have been a dull book. But it’s not.The states are not discussed by chronological order (i.e. when it attained statehood), but by alphabetical order. Chapters are often in part cross-referenced to each other; so by the time I got to the last state, Wyoming, only two pages were devoted to it. Oh, well, I’m not sure many Wyomingites would protest; the population is so low there. Seriously, though, this book was a fascinating read for me. If you are a bit geekish like I am (and an American; I’m not sure those outside of America would be as interested), I’m sure you’d enjoy this book!
    • 5/5
      This book is a map geek’s delight. And it is a history buff’s delight. And, really, it is just a plain, old delight. State by state, Mark Stein delivers exactly what the title of the book promises – an explanation of the history and stories behind the states’ shapes. Even something as boring as Wyoming (all straight lines) or Hawaii (islands – how tough can that be) have more story than you may have guessed. Small quibble – in some instances, you hear the same story on different states (they share borders after all), but that’s just being picky to be picky. It is a fun book, and you will accidentally learn something without it being painful.
    • 3/5
      Since each state gets its own little chapter and since the chapters are arranged alphabetically, there is a large degree of overlap, which makes for much repetition later in the book if you sit down to read this cover to cover. However, it's great for dipping into here and there, and the first section - called DON'T SKIP THIS - has a brief overview of how the US got its own shape and thus the broad shapes of the states. There was a companion show on the History Channel which was fascinating in its own right. It was organized more by time period and by section of the country, so there was less overlap. Both book and TV show are recommended.
    • 4/5
      What a wonderful little book! Clearly and consistently explains how the individual states arrived at their current shapes, with all the interesting little twists and turns along the way.If you've ever looked at a map of the United States and wondered, "Why does Wyoming take a bite out of Utah?" or "How come West Virginia creeps up the side of Pennsylvania?" this book has your answers.Written in a very simple, elegant style. Sure, there's quite a lot of repetition, but that's due to the subject matter. It goes with the territory, so to speak!
    • 4/5
      Intriguing look at why the states of the United States are shaped as they are. The book is organized alphabetical order by state name, which leads to a good deal of repetition and referencing -- the book would have been excellent had it been organized by region. Worth the read, and likely better if it is read in bits.
    • 4/5
      It would have been better as a bathroom book - dip into it and read only a few pages at a time - than it was to read straight through. I think, also, that it would have been better arranged geographically or - even better - chronologically, so that each side of a border could be discussed together. As it is there was way too much repetition and referring to other 'chapters'. But I did learn quite a bit and several interesting things - the 3x7 degrees was fascinating, as was the arguments over Vermont, New Hampshire, New Jersey...and especially the mis-surveyed lines that regularly affected official borders.
    • 4/5
      A fun little romp through American history, concentrating on the title of the book. The division into chapters for each state has the unfortunate effect of causing the author to repeat a few interesting discussions on the plan for adding states several times over; this could have been better accomplished by having a broad historical overview first, with chapters for each group of states. However, there's something interesting about every state, even the square ones.
    • 4/5
      Much more fascinating than it sounds, this book will draw you into topics you never knew existed. For instance, if the plan was to make all of the states the same size, then why aren't they? Some sections get to be a little repetitive, but I think that's inevitable. The author does try to find unique and interesting features for every state, and doe a very good job of achieving it.
    • 2/5
      Although the description on the back cover implies that this will be a fun and interesting read, it quickly becomes tedious and repetitive. Only a few states (or "chapters") are interesting, and it is fun to read about your own state. But Stein repeatedly references geographical points not shown on the many maps that accompany the writing, which becomes frustrating. Very disappointing.