How the States Got Their Shapes

How the States Got Their Shapes by Mark Stein. I read this book several months ago, and have been meaning to mention it here....

Each of the 51 chapters (it also includes the District of Columbia) discusses some history of each state, focusing primarily on the decisions that were made by kings, settlers and Congress when drawing borders around states.

This book answers some burning questions:

• Why West Virginia has a finger creeping up the side of Pennsylvania


• Why Michigan has an upper peninsula that isn't attached to Michigan


• Why some Hawaiian islands are not Hawaii


• Why Texas and California are so out sized, especially when so many Midwestern states are nearly identical in size


• Was Delaware really necessary?

Stein tells the stories of these states with humor. My favorite is the sad story of Maryland, and how they LOST every single border dispute over history (just look at it... a very unnaturally shaped state.):



As a resident of Ohio, I was particularly interested in the story of Connecticut and their claim to lands in the West. Like many of the original thirteen colonies, they claimed land stretching all the way to the Pacific. In most cases, it wasn't that they truly expected to govern that land, but they wanted the right to sell the acreage to settlers. Eventually they were obliged to relinquish they claim to half of Pennsylvania, and much of the territory in Ohio, Indiana and Illinois as Congress organized that area as part of the Northwest Ordinance:



However, Connecticut reserved the right to sell the land in what is now northeast Ohio. It was their "Western Reserve." I had often wondered where the Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland got their name.



My only criticism is the author's arrangement of the chapters. He chose to put the states in alphabetical order, which is fine if you are not reading the whole thing straight through, but want to find and refer to specific states. I would have preferred that he arranged them by regions. So many of the states have common histories of their borders (such as the 49th parallel and the Mason-Dixon Line). If arranged thematically, many of the chapters would not have needed to be so repetitive. Still, this book is a must for map and geography buffs.

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Power Grid

My latest boardgame aquisition is Power Grid. As eurogames go, this one is middle-range in complexity. Success requires analysis and planning. I have played this game for several years, and a few weeks ago, I actually won for the first time! So I decided it was time I owned a copy.

The object of this game is to supply the most cities with power. To accomplish this goal players purchase power plants and the raw materials needed to run the plants. These materials include coal, oil, garbage, and uranium, but also includes wind and solar-powered plants. The winner of the game will create the most efficient network of plants powering the most cities. The base game comes with a map of the United States on one side:



and a map of Germany on the other:



Official game expansions include Italy, France and the Benelux countries:



However, many enterprising Power Grid fans have created their own maps, allowing them to play in Scandinavia:








...and Connecticut



As it often happens, I found something cool while looking for something else. GameInk.net is offering Power Grid (and other boardgame) themed T-shirts:



Power plant #44 in the game deck is one of the most desirable in the set, as it powers up to five cities, but because it uses solar and wind power, you do not need to purchase resources to burn.

"Money isn't everything, but it is a tie-breaker in Power Grid"

Game board images from BoardGameGeek.com

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