Denverites and fort collins are lying to themselves if they think they have more in common with the rest of the mountain west than they have in common with Kansas City.
That’s a slur on Denver that I won’t countenance, and I’ve only ever been through its airport. Omaha is a city that cannot justify its existence. Denver at the very least has outdoor activities nearby.
I would consider the Rockies as their own distinct cultural and geographical region, tbh. Most of Montana that I’ve ever seen wasn’t in the mountains but that could just be a matter of perspective.
But no one in Fort Collins to Denver to CO Springs to Pueblo (almost the entire population of the state) would ever say they’re in the Midwest. Those cities basically start the West.
Many in Utah think they’re Midwest too. It’s wild. (In my case their answers to me indicated they didn’t know where the Midwest is, not that they identified with it)
Interesting to me that Ohio and Michigan two states that I thought were firmly Midwestern identify less as Midwestern than what I always thought of as the Great Plains states of North Dakota, South Dakota, Nebraska, and Kansas.
I don’t know if it’s providence, algorithm, or confirmation bias, but I just ran into a four-day-old Namexplain video on this exact subject.
TLDR: it used to be the westernmost part of the country, called Northwest Territory, but then we got some more land farther west and changed the name, but then we got more land further further west and didn’t.
“It is called the Midwest because of the location of those states in the 1800s before the U.S. expanded to the Pacific Coast. These states were part of the Northwest Ordinance. This term became obsolete once the U.S. expanded westward, resulting in these states becoming the Midwest.”
Another site defines it as West of the Mississippi River, but between North and South. So I guess it qualifies.
Add comment