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Pavement Ends
James Baughn

Not Your Town: Original site of New Madrid

Posted Wednesday, April 23, 2008, at 11:38 AM

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  • I never associated the name New "Madrid" with the city in Spain considering how it is pronounced. What a fascinating "what if" story. Thanks James.

    -- Posted by waterboy on Wed, Apr 23, 2008, at 1:47 PM
  • James,

    I absolutely enjoy your mixture of humor and history. Please keep writing these stories! A logical progression from earthquakes and swamps would be a story about the Little River Drainage District. There are some truly interesting facts about SeMissouri being drained! Thanks!

    R.D.

    -- Posted by John R Cash on Wed, Apr 23, 2008, at 8:36 PM
  • "American settlers who always had difficulty saying foreign placenames correctly." <-this aggravates me! haha I hate it when I call "Cairo" Ky-Row or "Vienna" Vee-eh-nuh (to name a couple) and am corrected by Southern Illinoisans.

    Anyhow... so should New Madrid be known as New New Madrid now? haha. Nice column.

    -- Posted by Joe Redhawk on Thu, Apr 24, 2008, at 5:46 PM
  • I enjoy these historical articles. The late 1700's was also the time when Louis Lorimier received land grants in (what is now) Cape and Bollinger Counties.

    Another "what if":

    About 20 years ago some "old timers" told me that one of the original sites for the Normal School (Southeast Missouri State University) was Oak Ridge. Imagine how that would have changed this area.

    -- Posted by B_O_B on Fri, May 16, 2008, at 11:52 AM
  • James,

    It's interesting how interconnected things can become. After reading your story, I wrote a piece about considering doing a bike tour of the New Madrid Earthquake zone.

    http://www.palmbeachbiketours.com/new-madrid-earthquake-ride-no-great-shakes/

    A Battle Creek, MI, bike tourist and historical Blogger, Jim Gorentz (AKA Spokesrider) saw it and started reading about Cape on my blog.

    While I was visiting Cape this week, he called to say he had ridden his bike down and wanted to meet. Here's the result of the day we spent wandering around Cape and Southern Ill.

    http://www.capecentralhigh.com/cape-photos/mr-mrs-spokesrider-visit-cape/

    When you drop a pebble in a puddle, there's no telling how far the ripples will go.

    -- Posted by ksteinhoff on Thu, Oct 28, 2010, at 7:05 PM