Lost States Revisited

Back in 2008 I was excited to tell you about a little book about states the might-have-been. Michael Trinklein's Lost States: Real Quests for American Statehood was a small but amusing soft-cover collection of maps and stories about almost-ran states like Franklin, Lincoln and Jefferson (why should Washington get all the love?). Alas, that book is now out of print (sure to become a collector's item). Fear not cartophiles, the author has a new edition of the book, expanded with new maps and new stories, in a beautiful hard cover from Quirk Books.*

Lost States: True Stories of Texlahoma, Transylvania, and Other States That Never Made it



The cover unfolds into a map poster!

Among the stories told - the proposed State of Navajo:



While the intent was to give the people of the Navajo Nation greater representation, one of the biggest drawbacks would be the elimination of the Four Corners!

Some folks have different ideas on how to divide the Minnesota Territory:



Wiser heads prevailed. (What a barren wasteland West Dakota might have been...)

When rivers change their course, it sometimes takes decades for nations to sort out their borders, creating opportunity:



These stories and maps and more can be found in Lost States. I would love to scan and post more of these maps, but I'm sure Mr. Trinklein and his publisher would object... fortunately, they have started a new Lost States Blog to promote the book, reproducing more of the maps.



More videos from Lost States.

*Full disclosure, the publisher sent a review copy to me, but I would have most certainly purchased a copy if they had not.