Go West, Young Man

While teaching Social Studies in fourth grade this week, I realized why we in the Mid-West are called Mid-West when we are not even half way to the West. When the colonists from the East coast began moving West of the Appalacian Mountains, they were moving to the West. At that time the West stopped at the Mississippi River. Thus the name West worked. But when people moved further West our area could not be called West anymore. (Are you still with me? That's okay, neither were the fourth graders.) So our area was renamed Mid-West. I just love it when some item of interest comes to me in this way and after all these years. You are never too old to learn.