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As recently as the 1970s, there was serious talkof establishing a 51st state, to be called Superior, by combiningUpper Michigan with a few forested counties of northern Wisconsin. The reasonsome residents favored the idea was similar to the thinking behind many of theabortive statehood schemes collected in LostStates: True Stories of Texlahoma, Transylvania, and Other States that NeverMade It (Quirk). When feeling ignored by lawmakers in their state capitals,some have proposed turning their particular patch of ground into a state of itsown.
Author Michael J. Trinklein lives in Cedarburg,Wis., and has no apparent plans to push for a state of Ozaukee. Thewriter-producer of the Emmy-winning PBS documentary “Pioneers of Television”has been a collector of odd facts from American history, especially ideas forstates that were never added to the Star Spangled Banner. Lost States sometimes resembles a grab bag of loony ideas, like theproposals to admit Greenland, Iceland, Panama, Taiwan and even Great Britain tothe Union.
LostStates is an enjoyable tour of make-believe geography,tracing boundary lines that were never drawn. And yes, in the early days of therepublic, someone actually proposed a state of Transylvania. That was a centurybefore Bram Stoker popularized an Eastern European land with ancient claims tothe name.
Author Michael J. Trinklein lives in Cedarburg,Wis., and has no apparent plans to push for a state of Ozaukee. Thewriter-producer of the Emmy-winning PBS documentary “Pioneers of Television”has been a collector of odd facts from American history, especially ideas forstates that were never added to the Star Spangled Banner. Lost States sometimes resembles a grab bag of loony ideas, like theproposals to admit Greenland, Iceland, Panama, Taiwan and even Great Britain tothe Union.
LostStates is an enjoyable tour of make-believe geography,tracing boundary lines that were never drawn. And yes, in the early days of therepublic, someone actually proposed a state of Transylvania. That was a centurybefore Bram Stoker popularized an Eastern European land with ancient claims tothe name.
