Remembering Luther Latham, A Man Worthy of a Highway

Mathiston, Mississippi
August 6, 2016

memorial: something (such as a monument or ceremony) that honors a person who has died or serves as a reminder of an event in which many people died.
(Source: Merriam-Webster's Learner's Dictionary)

On my way home to Texas from Kentucky, I was traveling along the Natchez Trace Parkway and making small detours to find Natchez Trace monuments placed by the Mississippi Society of the Daughters of the American Revolution in the early 20th century. I found one placed in Mathiston along US Route 82, but what caught my eye was the marble sign next to it. It simply read:

Luther Latham

Memorial Highway

Senator

Webster County

1928 — 1931

Goodbye to Greensberg

Choice Valley, San Luis Obispo County, California
November 22, 2001 and December 22, 2007

You will not find Greensberg, California on a map. You will not find it on the Internet.  You will not find it on the land. A few of us may remember it if we traveled through Palo Prieto Pass in the far eastern slice of San Luis Obispo County. What we remember is the Greensberg General Store: a desolate building with a mysterious past, a building once part of the land, a building now just a memory.

I traveled through Cholame dozens and dozens of times I drove between Kettleman City and Paso Robles. This route is the fastest way from Lompoc to the San Joaquin Valley and the Sierra Nevada beyond it. My first time was in April 1981 on my way to Fresno to explore my soon-to-be university. I traveled through Cholame many more times on my visits back to Lompoc from Fresno and then Mariposa and Truckee.

There's not much to slow you down in this part of San Luis Obispo County along Highway 41, but in all my travels through Cholame, I did stop a few times to sample what Cholame had to offer. There was that time I had to stretch my legs, a couple of times to check out the Japanese memorial to James Dean who died in an auto accident only a few miles away, and the time I had the most delicious coconut cream pie at Jack Ranch Cafe. There was, however, one offering near Cholame that I did not avail myself. It would entice me every time I passed it – Bitterwater Road.

The Legend of Sleeping Bear

Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore, Michigan
May 27, 2010

The Ojibwe or Chippewa are people of the forest and respect the fearsome animals who call the forest home, especially the black bear. On the eastern shore of Lake Michigan lies a series of sand dunes on a high bluff overlooking two islands. The Ojibwe believe the islands and the one dune peering towards the islands were created by the Great Spirit. And that brings us to our story, the legend of Sleeping Bear (as told by me).

A mother bear and her two cubs were walking along the western shore of Lake Michigan in what is now Wisconsin. The mother bear could see into the distance all around them the flames and smoke of an enormous forest fire coming their way. The fire and flames and smoke crept closer and closer to the bear and her cubs, and they had nowhere to flee. The mother bear gathered her two cubs and swam into the lake to escape the terrifying flames. The fire would not go away, and the family was forced to swim eastward hoping to soon find dry land and safety across the lake.

Wheres Pikes Apostrophe?

Pikes Peak, Colorado
April 30, 2001

Pikes Peak postcard from the 1930s

There are nearly two dozen places in the United States that are officially named Devils Punchbowl. You will not, however, find a single apostrophe in any of those names. Although placenamers may have thought the devil possessed these places, the United States Board on Geographic Names has determined otherwise. Since 1890, the Board on Geographic Names has discouraged the possessiveness of places by not allowing the genitive apostrophe and the “s”. In fact, the Board has actually removed the apostrophe from geographic names for natural features although they allowed the “s” to remain. Five natural features have been able to keep their apostrophe thanks to official decisions of the Board:  Martha’s Vineyard in Massachusetts, Ike’s Point in New Jersey, John E’s Pond in Rhode Island, Carlos Elmer’s Joshua View in Arizona, and Clark’s Mountain in Oregon.

The Devils Punchbowl

Dianas Punchbowl
aka Devils Punchbowl
Nye County, Nevada

Los Angeles County, California   May 29, 2000
Nye County, Nevada   May 24, 2009
Montgomery County, Indiana   July 3, 2011

The Devil has quite a number of punchbowls in the United States. Over 20 places in more than a dozen states have been called the Devil's Punchbowl or Punch Bowl. The Devils Punchbowl is also found in other English-speaking countries including Canada, New Zealand, Ireland, England, and Wales. Since the devil is known in other languages, his punchbowls are also found elsewhere in the world. In Ecuador at the Rio Verde it is called La Ponchera del Diablo.

We are not talking about a large bowl from which a beverage such as punch is served. Rather, these punchbowls are unique geologic or topographic features which to an explorer's eye may look like a bowl-like depression. These features include basins, springs, lakes, and waterfalls. The devil's ownership to the punchbowls has been usurped by man, but the devil's presence at one time or another engulfed these places. The anxiety of a placenamer who came upon one of these punchbowls may have spawned a fright that only the devil can bring. A legend telling of the devil haunting, causing mischief, or bargaining for a soul at the punchbowl may have evoked anxiety and fright in the placenamer. Or it may have just been a shiver down the back of the placenamer as the punchbowl brought visions of the devil's dwelling.