Time in the United States
Time in the United States, by law, is divided into nine standard time zones covering the states and its possessions, with most of the United States observing daylight saving time for the spring and fall months. The time zone boundaries and DST observance are regulated by the Department of Transportation. Official and precise timekeeping services are provided by two federal agencies: the National Institute of Standards and Technology; the clocks run by these services are kept synchronized with each other as well as with those of other international timekeeping organizations. It is the combination of the time zone and daylight saving rules, along with the timekeeping services, which determines the legal civil time for any U. S. location at any moment. Before the adoption of four standard time zones for the continental United States, many towns and cities set their clocks to noon when the sun passed their local meridian, pre-corrected for the equation of time on the date of observation, to form local mean solar time.
Noon occurred at different times but time differences between distant locations were noticeable prior to the 19th century because of long travel times and the lack of long-distance instant communications prior to the development of the telegraph. The use of local solar time became awkward as railways and telecommunications improved. American railroads maintained many different time zones during the late 1800s; each train station set its own clock making it difficult to coordinate train schedules and confusing passengers. Time calculation became a serious problem for people traveling by train, according to the Library of Congress; every city in the United States used a different time standard so there were more than 300 local sun times to choose from. Time zones were therefore a compromise, relaxing the complex geographic dependence while still allowing local time to be approximate with mean solar time. Railroad managers tried to address the problem by establishing 100 railroad time zones, but this was only a partial solution to the problem.
Weather service chief Cleveland Abbe had needed to introduce four standard time zones for his weather stations, an idea which he offered to the railroads. Operators of the new railroad lines needed a new time plan that would offer a uniform train schedule for departures and arrivals. Four standard time zones for the continental United States were introduced at noon on November 18, 1883, when the telegraph lines transmitted time signals to all major cities. In October 1884, the International Meridian Conference at Washington DC adopted a proposal which stated that the prime meridian for longitude and timekeeping should be one that passes through the centre of the transit instrument at the Greenwich Observatory in the United Kingdom; the conference therefore established the Greenwich Meridian as the prime meridian and Greenwich Mean Time as the world's time standard. The US time-zone system grew from this, in which all zones referred back to GMT on the prime meridian. In 1960, the International Radio Consultative Committee formalized the concept of Coordinated Universal Time, which became the new international civil time standard.
UTC is, within about 1 second, mean solar time at 0°. UTC does not observe daylight saving time. For most purposes, UTC is considered interchangeable with GMT, but GMT is no longer defined by the scientific community. UTC is one of several related successors to GMT. Standard time zones in the United States are defined at the federal level by law 15 USC §260; the federal law establishes the transition dates and times at which daylight saving time occurs, if observed. It is the authority of the Secretary of Transportation, in coordination with the states, to determine which regions will observe which of the standard time zones and if they will observe daylight saving time; as of August 9, 2007, the standard time zones are defined in terms of hourly offsets from UTC. Prior to this they were based upon the mean solar time at several meridians 15° apart west of Greenwich. Only the full-time zone names listed below are official. View the standard time zone boundaries here; the United States uses nine standard time zones.
As defined by US law they are: From east to west, the four time zones of the contiguous United States are: Eastern Time Zone, which comprises the states on the Atlantic coast and the eastern two thirds of the Ohio Valley. Central Time Zone, which comprises the Gulf Coast, Mississippi Valley, most of the Great Plains. Mountain Time Zone, which comprises the states and portions of states that include the Rocky Mountains and the western quarter of the Great Plains. Pacific Time Zone, which comprises the states on the Pacific coast, plus Nevada and the Idaho panhandle. Alaska Time Zone, which comprises most of the state of Alaska. Hawaii-Aleutian Time Zone, which includes Hawaii and most of the length of the Aleutian Islands chain. Samoa Time Zone, which comprises American Samoa. Chamorro Time Zone, which comprises Guam and the Northern Mariana Islands. Atlantic Time Zone, which comprises Puerto Rico and the US Virgin Islands; some United States Minor Outlying Islands are outside the time zones defined by 15 U.
S. C. § exist in waters defined by Nautical time. In practice, military crews may
Post road
A post road is a road designated for the transportation of postal mail. In past centuries, only major towns had a post house and the roads used by post riders or mail coaches to carry mail among them were important ones or, due to the special attention given them, became so. In various centuries and countries, post road became more or less equivalent to main road, royal road, or highway; the 20th century spread of postal service blurred the distinction. Great Post Road, from Anyer to Panarukan, was a notable post road in Asia, built during the governancy of Herman Willem Daendels of Dutch East Indies from 1808 to 1811. Notable post roads in Europe include: Antwerp-Venice Post Road, similar to the Dutch Post Road. Bremen-Hamburg Post Road, approved by the king of Sweden on July 5, 1665 to establish regular mail service. A second route was routed from Cuxhaven through the Land of Wursten to Lehe. Dutch Post Road, established in 1490, connected the Netherlands with coaching inns in Germany and Italy.
The following are notable posts roads in Canada and the U. S. Chemin du Roy was built between Montreal and Quebec City from 1731 to 1737, for mail and as a means of travel for the key settlements in New France/Lower Canada, it was incorporated as Quebec Route 2 and is now part of Quebec Route 138. Two notable post roads built in the late 1700s and early 1800s were Dundas Road and Kingston Road to provide a route for mail and stagecoaches between key settlements in Upper Canada; the latter route, which became The Provincial Highway in 1917, the former which became a Dundas Highway in 1920, were the beginning of the provincial highway system in Ontario. In what was to become the United States, post roads developed as the primary method of communicating information across and between the colonies; the Articles of Confederation authorized the national government to create post offices but not post roads. Adoption of the U. S. Constitution changed this, as Article I, Section Eight, known as the Postal Clause authorizes Congress the enumerated power "to establish post offices and post roads."
This was interpreted liberally, to include all public highways. U. S. Supreme Court justice Joseph Story defended the broad interpretation that had become dominant in his influential Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States. Notable American post roads built for the purpose include: Albany Post Road, which connects New York City to Albany, the capital of New York State Boston Post Road, which traverses New England from New York City to Boston, Massachusetts White Plains Post Road, the southernmost section of New York State Route 22, known as the White Plains Post Road in the 18th and 19th centuries, was a major highway connecting New York City to White Plains, Westchester's county seat. Justice Joseph Story, Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States, 3 vols
Missouri
Missouri is a state in the Midwestern United States. With over six million residents, it is the 18th-most populous state of the Union; the largest urban areas are St. Louis, Kansas City and Columbia; the state is the 21st-most extensive in area. In the South are the Ozarks, a forested highland, providing timber and recreation; the Missouri River, after which the state is named, flows through the center of the state into the Mississippi River, which makes up Missouri's eastern border. Humans have inhabited the land now known as Missouri for at least 12,000 years; the Mississippian culture built mounds, before declining in the 14th century. When European explorers arrived in the 17th century they encountered the Osage and Missouria nations; the French established Louisiana, a part of New France, founded Ste. Genevieve in 1735 and St. Louis in 1764. After a brief period of Spanish rule, the United States acquired the Louisiana Purchase in 1803. Americans from the Upland South, including enslaved African Americans, rushed into the new Missouri Territory.
Missouri was admitted as a slave state as part of the Missouri Compromise. Many from Virginia and Tennessee settled in the Boonslick area of Mid-Missouri. Soon after, heavy German immigration formed the Missouri Rhineland. Missouri played a central role in the westward expansion of the United States, as memorialized by the Gateway Arch; the Pony Express, Oregon Trail, Santa Fe Trail, California Trail all began in Missouri. As a border state, Missouri's role in the American Civil War was complex and there were many conflicts within. After the war, both Greater St. Louis and the Kansas City metropolitan area became centers of industrialization and business. Today, the state is divided into the independent city of St. Louis. Missouri's culture blends elements from Southern United States; the musical styles of ragtime, Kansas City jazz, St. Louis Blues developed in Missouri; the well-known Kansas City-style barbecue, lesser-known St. Louis-style barbecue, can be found across the state and beyond. Missouri is a major center of beer brewing.
Missouri wine is produced in Ozarks. Missouri's alcohol laws are among the most permissive in the United States. Outside of the state's major cities, popular tourist destinations include the Lake of the Ozarks, Table Rock Lake, Branson. Well-known Missourians include U. S. President Harry S. Truman, Mark Twain, Walt Disney, Chuck Berry, Nelly; some of the largest companies based in the state include Cerner, Express Scripts, Emerson Electric, Edward Jones, H&R Block, Wells Fargo Advisors, O'Reilly Auto Parts. Missouri has been called the "Mother of the West" and the "Cave State"; the state is named for the Missouri River, named after the indigenous Missouri Indians, a Siouan-language tribe. It is said that they were called the ouemessourita, meaning "those who have dugout canoes", by the Miami-Illinois language speakers; this appears to be folk etymology—the Illinois spoke an Algonquian language and the closest approximation that can be made in that of their close neighbors, the Ojibwe, is "You Ought to Go Downriver & Visit Those People."
This would be an odd occurrence, as the French who first explored and attempted to settle the Mississippi River got their translations during that time accurate giving things French names that were exact translations of the native tongue. Assuming Missouri were deriving from the Siouan language, it would translate as "It connects to the side of it," in reference to the river itself; this is not likely either, as this would be coming out as "Maya Sunni" Most though, the name Missouri comes from Chiwere, a Siouan language spoken by people who resided in the modern day states of Wisconsin, South Dakota, Missouri & Nebraska. The name "Missouri" has several different pronunciations among its present-day natives, the two most common being and. Further pronunciations exist in Missouri or elsewhere in the United States, involving the realization of the first syllable as either or. Any combination of these phonetic realizations may be observed coming from speakers of American English; the linguistic history was treated definitively by Donald M. Lance, who acknowledged that the question is sociologically complex, but that no pronunciation could be declared "correct", nor could any be defined as native or outsider, rural or urban, southern or northern, educated or otherwise.
Politicians employ multiple pronunciations during a single speech, to appeal to a greater number of listeners. Informal respellings of the state's name, such as "Missour-ee" or "Missour-uh", are used informally to phonetically distinguish pronunciations. There is no official state nickname. However, Missouri's unofficial nickname is the "Show Me State"; this phrase has several origins. One is popularly ascribed to a speech by Congressman Willard Vandiver in 1899, who declared that "I come from a state that raises corn and cotton and Democrats, frothy eloquence neither convinces nor satisfies me. I'm from Missouri, you have got to show me." This is in keeping with the saying "I'm from Missouri" which means "I'm skeptical of the matter and not convinced." However, according to researchers, the phrase "show me" was in use
Fayette County, Illinois
Fayette County is a county located in the U. S. state of Illinois. As of the 2010 census, the population was 22,140, its county seat is Vandalia. Ramsey Lake State Recreation Area is located in the northwest part of this county. Fayette County was formed in 1821 out of Bond and Crawford counties, it was named in honor of French hero of the American Revolutionary War. According to the U. S. Census Bureau, the county has a total area of 725 square miles, of which 716 square miles is land and 8.9 square miles is water. In recent years, average temperatures in the county seat of Vandalia have ranged from a low of 18 °F in January to a high of 88 °F in July, although a record low of −21 °F was recorded in January 1985 and a record high of 104 °F was recorded in July 1980. Average monthly precipitation ranged from 2.41 inches in February to 4.11 inches in May. Shelby County - northeast Effingham County - east Clay County - southeast Marion County - south Clinton County - southwest Bond County - west Montgomery County - northwest Interstate 57 Interstate 70 U.
S. Route 40 U. S. Route 51 Illinois Route 33 Illinois Route 37 Illinois Route 128 Illinois Route 140 Illinois Route 185 As of the 2010 United States Census, there were 22,140 people, 8,311 households, 5,648 families residing in the county; the population density was 30.9 inhabitants per square mile. There were 9,302 housing units at an average density of 13.0 per square mile. The racial makeup of the county was 93.7% white, 4.4% black or African American, 0.2% Asian, 0.2% American Indian, 0.4% from other races, 1.0% from two or more races. Those of Hispanic or Latino origin made up 1.4% of the population. In terms of ancestry, 27.5% were German, 10.5% were English, 9.4% were American, 9.3% were Irish. Of the 8,311 households, 31.2% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 53.3% were married couples living together, 9.7% had a female householder with no husband present, 32.0% were non-families, 27.2% of all households were made up of individuals. The average household size was 2.45 and the average family size was 2.95.
The median age was 39.9 years. The median income for a household in the county was $41,269 and the median income for a family was $51,216. Males had a median income of $38,257 versus $27,188 for females; the per capita income for the county was $21,663. About 10.8% of families and 16.1% of the population were below the poverty line, including 22.6% of those under age 18 and 12.0% of those age 65 or over. St. Elmo Vandalia Bingham Brownstown Farina Ramsey St. Peter Fayette County is divided into twenty townships: Until the beginning of the twentieth century, Fayette County was rock-ribbed Democratic, it was not won by a Republican until Theodore Roosevelt’s landslide win of 1904. The county voted after that for the winning candidate in every election until 1940, when opposition to Franklin D. Roosevelt’s economic and war policies gave the county to Wendell Willkie. Since only two Democratic presidential candidates have gained an absolute majority in the county – the more recent of these two, Jimmy Carter in 1976, doing so by a single vote.
Like all of the Upland South the county has seen a rapid swing to the Republicans in recent elections due to opposition to the Democratic Party’s liberal views on social issues: Hillary Clinton’s 2016 tally of 19.0 percent of the county’s vote is 15.7 percent worse than any Democrat before 2012. National Register of Historic Places listings in Fayette County, Illinois United States Census Bureau 2007 TIGER/Line Shapefiles United States Board on Geographic Names United States National Atlas
Salt evaporation pond
A salt evaporation pond is a shallow artificial salt pan designed to extract salts from sea water or other brines. Natural salt pans are geological formations that are created by water evaporating and leaving behind salts; some salt evaporation ponds are only modified from their natural version, such as the ponds on Great Inagua in the Bahamas, or the ponds in Jasiira, a few kilometres south of Mogadishu, where seawater is trapped and left to evaporate in the sun. The seawater or brine is fed into large ponds and water is drawn out through natural evaporation which allows the salt to be subsequently harvested; the ponds provide a productive resting and feeding ground for many species of waterbirds, which may include endangered species. The ponds are separated by levees. Salt evaporation ponds called salterns, salt works or salt pans, are shallow artificial ponds designed to extract salts from sea water or other brines; the seawater or brine is fed into large ponds and water is drawn out through natural evaporation which allows the salt to be subsequently harvested.
Due to variable algal concentrations, vivid colors are created in the evaporation ponds. The color indicates the salinity of the ponds. Microorganisms change their hues as the salinity of the pond increases. In low- to mid-salinity ponds, green algae such as Dunaliella salina are predominant, although these algae can take on an orange hue. In middle- to high-salinity ponds, a group of halophilic Archaea, shift the colour to pink and orange. Other bacteria such as Stichococcus contribute tints. Notable salt ponds include: The Salterns of Guérande, in Loire-Atlantique, the last artisanal salt production in France; the salt produced in the salterns are a Protected geographical indication in Europe The Salineras de Maras, Peru, in the Cusco Region The El Caracol solar evaporator, on the outskirts of Mexico City, Mexico The Sečovlje and Strunjan salt ponds on the northern edge of the Adriatic Sea in Slovenia, The San Francisco Bay salt ponds in the United States, operated by Cargill, including Charleston Slough The Dead Sea salt ponds in the West Bank and Jordan The salt ponds in Salina, Malta.
The name of the village is the Maltese word for salt pan The Port Hedland, Lake McLeod, Useless Loop and Onslow salt ponds in Western Australia Yellow Walls, Ireland. Lake Grassmere in New ZealandUntil World War II, salt was extracted from sea water in a unique way in Egypt near Alexandria. Posts were covered with several feet of sea water. In time the sea water evaporated, leaving the salt behind on the post, where it was easier to harvest. Salt pans are shallow open metal, pans used to evaporate brine, they are found close to the source of the salt. For example, pans used in the solar evaporation of salt from sea water are found on the coast, while those used to extract salt from solution-mined brine will be found near to the brine shaft. In this case, extra heat is provided by lighting fires underneath. Solar desalination Seawater Greenhouse Evaporite NASA page on salt ponds Information on the San Francisco Bay salt ponds Interactive satellite view "Salt, Grown On Sticks Harvested From Sea" Popular Science, March 1933
Clinton County Courthouse (Illinois)
The Clinton County Courthouse is a government building in Carlyle, the county seat of Clinton County, United States. Built in 1999, this new structure is the county's third courthouse; the major territorial road from Shawneetown to Kaskaskia was constructed in 1808, settlers soon began to take advantage of improved transportation by claiming lands near the road. Squatters began arriving in 1809, but the advance of civilization was retarded by the depredations of Indian bands, only after the end of the War of 1812 could settlement occur on a more widespread basis. Carlyle's foundation predated the war. Clinton County has never experienced a county seat war, as Carlyle has been the seat since the county's establishment in 1824. Clinton County's obscure first courthouse was used until the construction of a replacement in 1849; this was a two-story brick structure in the shape of the letter "I", with a three-bay central projection that included the main entrance and side rooms. Built of brick with corner pilasters, it was covered with a mansard roof supported by brackets under the eaves.
Its arches were placed over each of the windows, most of which were single, although the doorways sat under larger double windows, a triangular dormer window was placed in a small tower over the entrance. This building remained in use until 1997, after which Clinton County functioned without a courthouse for two years, its replacement, the current structure, was completed in 1999 under the direction of Phillips Swager Associates and Kuhlmann Design Group. A central glass section rises from ground to roof, broken only by the belt course between the second and third stories. Clinton County website Postcards of previous and current courthouses
Indiana Territory
The Indiana Territory was created by a congressional act that President John Adams signed into law on May 7, 1800, to form an organized incorporated territory of the United States that existed from July 4, 1800, to December 11, 1816, when the remaining southern portion of the territory was admitted to the Union as the state of Indiana. The territory contained 259,824 square miles of land, but its size was decreased when it was subdivided to create the Michigan Territory and the Illinois Territory; the Indiana Territory was the first new territory created from lands of the Northwest Territory, organized under the terms of the Northwest Ordinance of 1787. William Henry Harrison, the territory's first governor, oversaw treaty negotiations with the native inhabitants that ceded tribal lands to the U. S. government, opening large parts of the territory to further settlement. In 1809 the U. S. Congress established a bicameral legislative body for the territory that included a popularly-elected House of Representatives and a Legislative Council.
In addition, the territorial government began planning for a basic transportation network and education system, but efforts to attain statehood for the territory were delayed due to war. At the outbreak of Tecumseh's War, when the territory was on the front line of battle, Harrison led a military force in the opening hostilities at the Battle of Tippecanoe and in the subsequent invasion of Canada during the War of 1812. After Harrison resigned as the territorial governor, Thomas Posey was appointed to the vacant governorship, but the opposition party, led by Congressman Jonathan Jennings, dominated territorial affairs in its final years and began pressing for statehood. In June 1816 a constitutional convention was held at Corydon, where a state constitution was adopted on June 29, 1816. General elections were held in August to fill offices for the new state government, the new officeholders were sworn into office in November, the territory was dissolved. On December 11, 1816, President James Madison signed the congressional act that formally admitted Indiana to the Union as the nineteenth state.
When the Indiana Territory was formed in 1800 its original boundaries included the western portion the Northwest Territory. This encompassed an area northwest of a line beginning at the Ohio River, on the bank opposite to the mouth of the Kentucky River, extending northeast to Fort Recovery, in present-day western Ohio, north to the border between the United States and Canada along a line 84 degrees 45 minnutes West longitude; the territory included most of the present-day state of Indiana, all of present-day states of Illinois and Wisconsin, fragments of present-day Minnesota that were east of the Mississippi River, nearly all of the Upper Peninsula the western half of the Lower Peninsula of present-day Michigan, a narrow strip of land in present-day Ohio, northwest of Fort Recovery. This latter parcel became part of Ohio when it attained statehood in 1803; the Indiana Territory's southeast boundary was shifted in 1803, when Ohio became a state, to the mouth of the Great Miami River from its former location opposite the mouth of the Kentucky River.
In addition, the eastern part of present-day Michigan was added to the Indiana Territory. The territory's geographical area was further reduced in 1805 with the creation of the Michigan Territory to the north, in 1809, when the Illinois Territory was established to the west; the Indiana Territory's government passed through a non-representative phase from 1800 to 1804. Under the terms of the Northwest Ordinance, during the non-representative phase of territorial government the U. S. Congress, after 1789, the president with congressional approval, appointed a governor and three judges to govern each new territory. Local inhabitants did not elect these territorial officials. During the second, or semi-legislative phase of government, the territory's adult males who owned at least fifty acres of land elected representatives to the lower house of the territorial legislature. In addition, the Congress, the president with congressional approval, appointed five adult males who owned at least five hundred acres of land to the upper house of the territorial legislature from a list of ten candidates that the lower house submitted for consideration.
In the semi-legislative phase of government, the upper and lower houses could legislate for the territory, but the territorial governor retained absolute veto power. When the territory reached a population of 60,000 free inhabitants, it entered the final phase that included its successful petition to Congress for statehood. In 1803, when the Indiana Territory was formed from the remaining Northwest Territory after Ohio attained statehood, the requirement for proceeding to the second or semi-legislative phase of territorial government was modified. Instead of requiring the territory's population to reach 5,000 free adult males, the second phase could be initiated when the majority of territory's free landholders informed the territorial governor that they wanted to do so. In 1810 the requirement for voters to be landholders was replaced with a law granting voting rights to all free adult males who paid county or territorial taxes and had resided in the territory for at least a year; because of William Henry Harrison's leadership in securing passage of the Land Act of 1800 and his help in forming the Indiana Terri
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Clinton County, Illinois
