Some places just aren't where you thought they were - especially from New Orleans.
RogerB
Posts: 8,852 ✭✭✭✭✭
The mints had to know distances to various cities and towns so they could calculate the correct shipping expense for coins. This letter shows several examples with the railway distances. Notice the unusual spellings of some towns. Also, one town does not appear on any map, so what happens to coins sent there? But, it's in Mississippi so that might explain why it's "Miss-ipp-ing."
Have any of these towns moved since 1884? Have fun.
3
Comments
According to Wikipedia the state of Mississippi is only 340 miles long, so if it was anywhere it was in the extreme north end of Mississippi on a winding railroad track. Or it was in Tennessee and they got the state wrong. Maybe it got absorbed into Memphis?
That is intriguing..... obviously they would have benefited from Google Maps etc.,
Cheers, RickO
Maybe "Porterville?"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Porterville,_Mississippi
These are supposed to be train miles, and the south had a notoriously poor railroad system.
What did they use for measuring distances "back in the day"?
BST transactions: dbldie55, jayPem, 78saen, UltraHighRelief, nibanny, liefgold, FallGuy, lkeigwin, mbogoman, Sandman70gt, keets, joeykoins, ianrussell (@GC), EagleEye, ThePennyLady, GRANDAM, Ilikecolor, Gluggo, okiedude, Voyageur, LJenkins11, fastfreddie, ms70, pursuitofliberty, ZoidMeister,Coin Finder, GotTheBug, edwardjulio, Coinnmore, Nickpatton, Namvet69,...
The Post Office and railroads had distances between places and stations. Express companies charged based on those distances or on estimates for long travel.
The "official" distance between New Orleans and Tampa, FL was 842 miles (in 1882). Today, it is only 657 miles via I-10, and 480 miles by air.
Yes, the railroad tracks run through Porterville.
Ahhhh...a bustling Mississippi metropolis.
Might have had a bank at one time that served the region.
If you look at the other entries on that list you will see that the clerk tends to cross his "T's" to the right of the actual upright, and that his o's, r's and e's match for Porterville.
Yep. The alternate cursive "T" (see the word "Mint" - looks like half a cursive "W") was once common in both internal and final letter positions.