Hoohoo, West Virginia Screenshot via Google Maps Every American state has a town or two to make a traveller smile or shudder.

Who could resist stopping in Lovely, Kentucky or Happyland, Oklahoma? Who would want to run out of petrol in Greasy, Oklahoma or Goose Pimple Junction, Virginia? In Tennessee you can drive from Lick Skillet to Sweet Lips in less than an hour. A rose by any other name would smell as sweet, but if Truth or Consequences, New Mexico were still known by its original name of Hot Springs, would it have the same appeal?

On the other hand, one feels for the residents of a little town north of Baltimore that took the surname of its postmaster, David Boring. Central Illinois seems the natural place to find the town of Normal. And doubtless many a would-be princess has passed through Toad Suck, Arkansas.

But no state crams more weird and wonderful names into less space than West Virginia. For some of them, thank topography: the low-lying "bottom" land next to a creek gave its name to Fraziers Bottom, Green Bottom and Charleston's Big Bottom Missionary Baptist Church, just as salt licks inspired Elk Lick, Katy Lick and Lick Fork.

For others, thank weather--Cyclone, Hurricane, Tornado and Whirlwind--or industry: the American Eagle Colliery gave its name to Ameagle, just as Wyco began as a mine and coal camp for the Wyoming Coal Company. And for others, thank food: Cucumber, Kale and the lasting tribute given by a resident to his favourite dessert, Pie.

Meander on mountain roads south from Nitro--named after the gunpowder it produced during the first world war--and you will pass through Crab Orchard and Slab Fork before hitting War and Cucumber just north of the Virginia border. Amble north-east from War and you'll hit Hoohoo, Odd and True. The latter got its name when an early Summers County settler wanted to establish a post office in his town, and presented a petition of facts ending with this statement: "Now this is true". The name stuck. Farther north you'll find Brohard and Gassaway, Big Ugly and Oral Lake, Scrabble and, if you're lucky, Lost City.

What lies behind it all? Appalachia was settled by the Scotch-Irish, and it is tempting to credit sheer blarney and love of storytelling. But there is a simpler explanation: West Virginia abounds in odd place names because it abounds in place names. The populations of West Virginia and Nebraska are nearly identical, but West Virginia has almost 200 more post offices.

Topographically, the state--the only one completely within a mountain range, the Appalachians--resembles a crumpled piece of aluminium foil. Its towns tend to be relatively isolated and small, which means not just more towns to name, but also fewer people to please with each one.

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