SOUTHEAST TIDBITS - DID YOU KNOW.....
ALABAMA - HUNTSVILLE, Once a small cotton town, became known as America's Space Capital when scientists there developed the rocket that orbited America's first satellite in the late 1950s.
ARKANSAS - PARAGOULD (pop 21,082) is named for two railroad magnates, Jay Gould and J.W. Paramore, whose rail lines crossed in northeast Arkansas.
FLORIDA - THE HIGHEST POINT IN FLORIDA is Britton Hill, which, at 345 feet, is the lowest high point in the nation.
GEORGIA - THE LIONS CLUB IN McRAE (pop. 3,007) built its own 1-1/2 scale version of the Statue of Liberty using, among other things, a stump for her head and Styrofoam for her upraised arm.
KENTUCKY - THE DON F. PRATT Memorial museum in Hopkinsville (pop 31,200) is dedicated to Brig. Gen. Don F. Pratt, killed in action during the D-Day invasion of Normandy in World War II.
LOUISIANA - IN 1682 EXPLORER Robert Cavalier erected a cross at the mouth of the Mississippi River upond descending it from the Great Lakes, thereby claiming the territory for Louis XIV of France, for whom Louisiana is named.
MISSISSIPPI - THE FIRST FREE PUBLIC school in the state, Franklin Academy, was founded in Columbus (pop 22,600) in 1821.
NORTH CAROLINA - THE TOWN OF Cornelius (pop 5,278) was founded in 1893 and named for Joseph Benjamin Cornelius, who suppled money to open the town's cotton mill.
SOUTH CAROLINA - FOUNTAIN INN (pop 4,388) takes its name from the old inn with a fountain once popular with travelers. Artist Art Fraham, who brought life to the man on the Quaker Oats oatmeal box and the Coppertone Suntan Lotion girl, lived there for 20 years.
TENNESSEE - THE COURTHOUSE IN Lynchburg (pop. 5,200) was built in 1883. It's brick walls are 20 inches thick and held together with sand and lime.
VIRGINIA - IN 1797 WILLIAM BLACK donated 38 acres of land to settler. A year later, the town of Blacksburg was incorporated with little more then two dozen families. Today, its population is 34,900.
WEST VIRGINIA - WEST VIRGINIA has its own state day, June 20, celebrating its becoming a state in 1863. "West Virginia Day" became a legal holiday in 1927.
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