Columbine High School is the perfect example. Everyone says Littleton, Colorado. Columbine High is not actually in the incorporated City of Littleton. It is in the Columbine area of unincorporated Jefferson County. Littleton is basically the postal address and the recognizable nearby city, so “Littleton” became the national shorthand.

Same thing with Flight 93. Everyone says the plane crashed in Shanksville, Pennsylvania. It actually crashed in Stonycreek Township, outside Shanksville. Shanksville was simply the tiny nearby town that gave reporters a usable dateline. “United 93 crashed in rural Stonycreek Township, Somerset County” apparently did not have the same staying power.

Although “Shanksville” becoming the permanent name for the Todd Beamer plane is almost suspiciously perfect. You hear Shanksville and subconsciously picture Todd Beamer and company shanking terrorists in the aisle. Obviously that is not where the name came from. The town existed first. But history occasionally produces nomenclature with the subtlety of a 1990s action movie.

There are tons of these.

The Waco siege was not really in Waco. The Branch Davidian compound was out in rural McLennan County near Elk/Axtell, miles northeast of Waco. But nobody was going to spend thirty years saying “the Elk-area siege.”

Woodstock is perhaps the champion. The Woodstock festival did not even happen in Woodstock. It happened in Bethel, New York, roughly sixty miles away. The name survived because “Woodstock” had already become the brand.

And Three Mile Island gets casually described through Harrisburg even though the plant is outside Harrisburg and associated administratively with other local jurisdictions.

The underlying rule is simple: American place-names have several competing layers. Incorporated municipality. Township. Census-designated place. County. Postal city. Nearest town anybody has heard of. Media dateline. They often do not match.

Then repetition hardens one of them into history.

There may also be a softer psychological component. “Littleton” sounds like the most innocent possible American suburb. Little town. Colorado. School. Mountains somewhere in the distance. It fits the way Columbine was initially understood nationally: unimaginable violence intruding into supposedly safe suburban America. That does not mean journalists collectively sat around deciding to choose the more poignant name. The school literally had a Littleton mailing address. But once the name was available, it certainly did not hurt the narrative resonance.

Likewise, Shanksville sounds infinitely more like the location of Flight 93 than “Stonycreek Township” ever could imho.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5905837&forum_id=2#50148436)

The further west you go into the US you encounter these places that no one cared about enough to actually try to make people believe is a real town or city or whatever, so it’s like “Mudbutt County” which means a bunch of unincorporated Land and a fat sheriff who drives around and pulls over random Scumbags.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5905837&forum_id=2#50148717)

But the national news overwhelmingly settled on Newtown as the Location of the School.

“Newtown, Connecticut” became the place-name attached to the event, even though Sandy Hook was the more specific location. And you can understand why the name stuck. Newtown sounds almost unnervingly generic and innocent: a small American town, a school, families, suburbia. It fit the way the story was presented nationally imho.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5905837&forum_id=2#50148960)

Columbine hs is in Columbine CO. Littleton post office, sure. But MSM knew what they were doing.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5905837&forum_id=2#50148943)

__

The act set up a two-tier local government system, with powers divided between the newly formed Greater London Council (GLC), 32 new London borough councils and the existing City of London. The provisions of the act came into effect on 1 April 1965,[1] the new councils having been elected as "shadow authorities" in 1964.

Section 1 of the act established 32 London boroughs, each of which was to be governed by an elected borough council, and was to be regulated by the Municipal Corporations Act 1882 and Local Government Act 1933 (23 & 24 Geo. 5. c. 51). Twelve of the boroughs, corresponding to the former County of London, were designated Inner London boroughs. The remaining twenty boroughs were designated Outer London boroughs. None of the boroughs were given names in the act.

Section 2 declared that the area comprising the areas of the London boroughs, the City and the Temples shall constitute an administrative area to be known as Greater London. An elected Greater London Council was to govern the new area.

Section 3 abolished the administrative counties of Middlesex and London (created in 1889), and absorbed parts of Kent, Essex, Surrey and Hertfordshire plus the whole of the City of London to form the administrative area of Greater London. As well as the two counties, the twenty-eight existing metropolitan boroughs, plus all county boroughs, county districts or parishes that fell wholly within Greater London were to cease to exist, along with their councils. No part of Greater London was to form part of any administrative county, county district or parish.[2][3] The prohibition on parishes was lifted by the Local Government and Public Involvement in Health Act 2007.[2][3] Three Middlesex urban districts not included in Greater London were transferred to other counties: Potters Bar to Hertfordshire and Staines and Sunbury-on-Thames to Surrey.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5905837&forum_id=2#50148831)

New England Patriots and Arizona Cardinals are above reproach imo

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5905837&forum_id=2#50149081)