This little exercise came about after I read an article on the old Northwest Territory in the U.S., which basically consisted of all the land west of Pennsylvania, northwest of the Ohio River, and east of the Mississippi River. As the country expanded westward, this geographic area gradually became known as the “Midwest” (or the East North Central States region) but not before the older name left its mark on the local culture. Organizations like Northwestern Mutual Life (Milwaukee) and Northwestern University (Chicago) still refer back to to the days when these places were located on the fringe of the country, not at its center.
It occurred to me that researching such place names would be a good way to see if there was still a residual “shadow” of the old Northwest territory so I downloaded a sample list of company headquarters with the phrase “Northwest” or “Northwestern” in their names and plotted them on a map. Alas, this attempt failed to find anything significant (there was too much competition with the Pacific Northwest in name usage). However, I did look up some other regional terms with more positive results.
The geographic patterns for most of these terms are fairly distinct but there are also some areas of overlap. It was especially interesting to see regions that had local businesses in three or more categories. The old Northwest territory fits this mold with a combination of Midwest, Great Lakes, and Prairie.
Interesting, too, how “mountain” is solidly represented in both mountain regions – Rockies and Appalachian. Most of us folks west of the Ohio valley only think of the Rockies when referring to the “mountain” region. Cool stuff, Mike!
-p-
Pam … I noticed the ‘mountain’ concentrations as well. Very cool. Thanks for checking in.