Ever wonder why most of the small rural towns are all about 6-7 miles away from each other?

[NNN0LHI]

They were roughly a days ride from each other.

That is roughly what it took to ride to the next town by horse and buggy back when these small towns came into existence. Half a day to get there and another half a day to get back home.

Don

[Little Star]

1. That was interesting. Thanks Don. n/t

[NNN0LHI]

3. Here is the difference

Mr. Tesha isn't dragging a buggy with wooden wheels which weighed a ton and was full of furs or grain into town to sell or barter and then after unloading that filling it up with a months worth or more of dry goods to haul back home with him on his walk like these horses were.

And their were no flat paved roads or sidewalks with regular crews repairing them back then either. They were washed out and rut filled strips of mud.

And I am not saying this trip couldn't have been done faster either. It could be. Just couldn't be done without stressing the horses. And horses were valuable. Horse was maybe the most valuable thing a farmer owned? They weren't about to overwork one if not necessary.

Don

[saras]

4. In much of the USA (midwest and west) it's the township grid the railroads are laid out on

A township is a six by six mile chunk of land. The entire railroad expansion was laid out on grids like this, with land given to the railroad, or set aside for other purposes, every six miles

http://www.coxrail.com/land-grants.htm

[NNN0LHI]

5. Most of the towns around here were established communities long before the railroad came

Not booming cities or anything. Just small outposts. They were small border towns located along the Kankakee river. Mostly populated by French Canadians. My great grandfather was a French Canadian fur trapper who married a Native American woman. The only other means of transportation besides horse and buggies during that time were small boats on the Kankakee River in this area. The trains eventually put the boats out of business. These towns had not yet become incorporated but many of these towns were established communities well before the trains.

The 6 mile spacing between towns around here was established decades before the trains ever came. And many of these small towns do not have a railroad tracks going through them to this day.

The first trains began arriving around here in the 1850's.

Thanks for that information.

Don

[saras]

10. I'm trying to figure out where "here" is - back East, I presume.

Perhaps the railroad system was chosen because it was already seen to be sensible. They could have just as well chosen a four, or ten, or sixteen, mile grid instead.

My state's old maps are filled with "towns" that were laid out on the grid, but may not have actually been built (or they were trading posts for a decade and faded out). But you can't escape the grid here, even in the mountains where the trains didn't go. It was just the system they used to divvy up land out West. Trains or not, the township grid is everywhere.

I knew the Kankakee is in the song "City of New Orleans", but I had to look up where it was. Yep, you got developed before trains.

Six miles is a REALLY short horse ride. I think six miles is a human walking distance. Even a little kid can walk six miles and still have time to get something done that day.

[NNN0LHI]

11. Sorry about that. I forgot our profile info from DU 2 didn't follow us here to DU3

"Here", is the former French colony known as Illinois.

Here is a link to an interesting timeline:

http://www.history-timelines.org.uk/american-timelines/13-illinois-history-timeline.htm

And I agree that someone could walk six miles in one day. But there were no motels to check into for the night when you got there in those days.

Don

[tularetom]

6. Not here they aren't

I live down the hill from Yosemite. It's about 11 miles to the nearest place that can be called a "town" and almost 30 to any city with actual medical, commercial or educational facilities.

I used to walk the dog to the kwik-e-mart on the highway to get the sunday paper. Took me more than 5 hours to get there and back.

[LWolf]

7. I am 7 miles from town.

My "town" has grown into a small city; the population sign entering town says 25,000. I think that's from the big real estate bubble; based on enrollment numbers in the local school district we've lost a lot of people.

The next "town" to the north, just a small wide spot on the highway, is about 6 miles. The next town to the south...about 7 miles, and another, our largest city, another 7 miles south of that.

I'd never thought about it before, but that makes sense.

I don't really know how long it takes to travel by buggy. I know I can ride my horse 7 miles in about 90 minutes or so without any strain; walk the first and last mile, trot out the five miles between....

I can ride my horse from my house to the town to the south, about 9 miles direct, almost entirely on public land, with the last few miles on a rural highway. I don't like to ride on the side of a rural highway, so I rarely do; since I'm not trotting most of the way, that ride takes me about 2.5 hours one way.

[NNN0LHI]

8. Many of these towns around here still have populations of 1500 or less

Some consist of none or maybe one place of business. Usually a tavern. Maybe a handful of houses. The towns don't even put their own sign out declaring they are there. State just puts up a little green sign marking the town. If you blink you miss the town.

Back then they were using Indian trails for roads. One a bit north of me that I grew up near is still called Sauk Trail. The trails back then weren't much better than riding a buggy over the countryside. No bridges over streams or rivers. No snow removal. No nothing. The trails back then weren't of much more use than keeping you going in the generally correct direction. Pretty rough ride I betcha. Nothing like we are used to now.

Don

[LWolf]

9. Especially rough for buggies.

Maybe not so much just ON a horse. I've spent my life going up and down, through gullies, crossing water, over downed trees, over rock, through sand, etc.; you don't trot through all of that, but a horse can patiently pick it's way through quite a bit. I try to stay on trails when on public land, since going off trail can cave in burrows and otherwise disrupt wildlife. Sometimes, when deer trails end up going under branches way too low for a horse to duck under, we are off-trail.

Where I live now is a semi-rural area being overtaken by suburban sprawl. Ranching and timber land. There are still large areas of small ranches, interspersed with large tracts of blm and national forests; the 7 miles between towns and cities still travel through mostly open land.