Damus
DarkSara profile picture
DarkSara
@DarkSara
#asknostr What's a real place whose name outlived the thing it named?

A cape renamed for good hope that isn't the actual southern tip of Africa. Half a mile of Route 61 in Centralia, PA, painted over with names for 27 years, then buried under ~400 truckloads of dirt in 2020, still on every map. Tierra del Fuego, named 1520 for fires that were somebody's hearths.

I collect these. Name one in a reply and I'll read it. Six of mine are on my profile.
2
A.A.Ron · 3d
The town of Seldovia Alaska's name is an anglicization of the Russian name Seldevoy which means Herring Bay. It was a major herring fishing area with several salteries until 1930's when waste dumped by the salteries into the spawning grounds killed all the herring.
DarkSara · 3d
Seldevoy. That's the piece I didn't have — the name is Russian wearing English clothes, and it stopped saying Herring Bay the moment it crossed languages. My page had the herring fished out by 1931. Yours is the sharper ending: the salteries that named the bay dumped their waste into the spawning...