4,000 MIles and 90 Counties Across Texas

During two weeks in late February and early March, 2009, I put more than four thousand miles on this car, rented at the Dallas/Fort Worth, Texas airport. On that trip, which took me on a very zig-zag route around the state, I completed visiting my final 90 of the 254 counties in the Lone Star State, and also completed several counties in Oklahoma.

I've heard other county counters brag about collecting 20 or more counties a day in wide open areas like this. Personally, I averaged seven counties a day, going from dawn to dusk, but stopping often along the way. Still, I felt like I was cheating myself my rushing through so many towns and rural areas without seeing all they have to offer. To me, there are only two kinds of places on earth, those I have never visited, and those I have visited but hope to return to someday to explore more thoroughly.

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In these two photos I have stopped to take a few pictures at the Glasscock/Reagan county line on Texas Ranch Road 33.

With 254 counties, Texas has by far the largest number of counties of any state in the United States. The second highest number is 159 counties in Georgia. Tiny Delaware has the smallest county count with only three. The average state is subdivided into 66 counties.

Finishing Arizona in La Paz County

This dramatic view is the first glimpse I had of La Paz County, Arizona, March 28, 2009. It was my final Arizona county, and the 2,916th county overall, in my quest to visit each of the 3,142 counties or their equivilents in the United States. The view is from Mohave County, looking across Bill Williams River into La Paz County, along Arizona Highway 95, near Parker Dam.

La Paz County is one of the newest counties in the United States. It was established in 1983, being formed from the northern half of Yuma County. La Paz is the first and only new county created in Arizona since the territory gained statehood in 1912. Soon after the formation of La Paz County, Arizona laws were changed to make splitting other existing counties much more difficult.

I had first visited Yuna County way back in 1968, while living in Albuquerque, New Mexico, but I had not been in the part of the county that broke off to be come La Paz. The county is named for an old settlement - now a ghost town - along the Colorado River. Parker, Arizona, just across the Colorado River from California, is the county seat.

Completing the 100 Counties of North Carolina

When I entered Stokes County, North Carolina on February 5, 2009 it marked the completion of my visits to each one of the 100 counties in North Carolina - made during countless trips over more than 50 years of traveling throughout the Tarheel State. With this, I have now visited every county in 28 of the United States, and more than 89% of the total counties in all fifty states. Stokes County was #2,898 in my quest to visit each of the 3,141 counties or county equivilents in the United States at least once in my lifetime.

North Carolina easily rates as one of my favorite states. Stretching from the Outer Banks on the Atlantic coast to the mile-high peaks of the Appalachian Mountains, the state contains a rich diversity of topography and climate that few other states can match.

This sign sits beside the driveway of a private residence. It is on old U.S. Hwy. 52, between Rural Hall and King, North Carolina.

A Historical Sign that Changed my Life

When a person sets out to visit each of the 3,141 counties or their equivilents in the United States he never knows what life changing discoveries he may make along the way.

This simple interpretative sign at Tannehill Historical State Park in Alabama, was a catalyst that made a deep and lasting impact on my life. When I first read it in December, 2004, I would never have imagined the quest for knowledge on which it would lead me.

I had read countless other such signs during my travels, but for some unknown reason this one particular one on that particular day resonated deeply with me - especially the simple description of actions taken by Union troops from Iowa who were here during the latter days of the War Between the States:

"... they torched all the adjacent factory buildings, slave cabins, a large gristmill and tannery and a storehouse for food and supplies. In the fire Tannehill’s workforce of over 500 slaves and white mechanics were scattered and displaced."

Whoa, I thought! The Yankees burned the slave cabins along with those of the white workers? Hundreds of people were left with no shelter, no food, and nowhere to go?

Although I grew up in the South, all my life I had been told that the Union troops marched south to free the slaves. If that were so, then why did the Northerners burn the slaves out, leaving them destitute, homeless and hungry. Elsewhere on the grounds of the Tannehill Historical State Park I saw a large patch of woods, marked as the site of scores of slave cabins which the Yankees had ransacked, plundered and then destroyed - cabins that would have been equal to those my own Irish and Cherokee ancestors lived in during the same era in Alabama and Georgia.

I began to make the connection to other discoveries I had made during my travels, such as a monument to black Confederate soldiers in Mississippi and an antebellum plantation in Louisiana owned by a family of black slaveholders. I had dismissed these things as flukes, but now I was beginning to see a patteren which contradicted most of what I had always assumed I knew about the War Between the States.

It occurred to me that somebody was lying about what really happened during the so called Civil War, and I determined to find out the truth.

Since that fateful day in December, 2004, I have spent thousands of hours studying about the Confederacy, the causes of secession, and the War Between the States. As I have read scores of books, I have continued to visit hundreds of historical sites, now looking for clues to the real story, unvarnished by political correctness. To say that the things I have learned have been an eyeopener is an understatement.

Okay, I don't have room to get up on my soapbox and tell it all here in this one post. Much more time and space would be required to do that. I am now now recording many of my discoveries on a blog. I hope you'll check it out: http://confederatedigest.com/.

The Road to Quoz, with William Least Heat-Moon

On one of my many road trips - several years ago - I took along with me a taped version of William Least Heat-Moon's book, Blue Highways, which I had checked out of the public library. It was so good I later bought and read the book. Heat-Moon is an outstanding writer and his book is a classic every traveler will relish - telling of his adventures on the "blue highways," or the state and county routes and back roads of America.

It didn't surprise me when I read an interview with Heat-Moon in which he said:

"I understand the slants and angles in America. I’ve been in every county in the United States — more than 3,000 of them. If you put your finger on a map of the United States, I have been within at least 25 miles of that place, except there are places in the Nevada desert I haven’t been yet. And a trip there is coming up."

William Least Heat-Moon has a new now titled Road to Quoz - an American Mosey.

Here's a link to the full article from the Columbia (Missouri) Tribune: http://www.columbiatribune.com/2009/Jan/20090104Ovat010.asp

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The photo above is one I took on the Talladega Scenic Drive in Alabama.