Re: Question about Ellis Island

bobg@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
 (Robert Grumbine) writes:
> singhals  <singhals@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:
> 
> [snip]
> >
> >Mid-West.  To me, Midwest is everything between the 
> >Alleghany Mountains and the Rocky Mountains.  I've heard 
> >other definitions from people born in some of those states 
> >-- Texas in particular disapproves of it. (g)
> 
>   Likewise us non-Texans :-)

Which brings to mind the question as to why Texas is
known as the Southwest.  Texas is nearly in the center
of the east-west axis of the U.S.  California is as
far south as Texas and quite a bit more west but isn't
considered part of the Southwest.

>   One definition of some historical relevance is that the
> midwest is the states composed wholly or in part of the 
> old Northwest Territory -- Ohio, Michigan, Indiana, Illinois,
> Wisconsin, and Minnesota.  

I'd forgotten about the "Northwest".  When I first went
to live in Minnesota, it took me awhile to understand
from whence came all the Northwest's (as in Northwest
Airlines, Northwest Bank, etc.) when it was nowhere near
the northwestern-most part of the U.S.