Weird & Wonderful Town Names on Historic Maps
Historic maps don’t just record streets and buildings — they preserve some of the most unusual town names in American history.
Long before Google Maps, early cartographers carefully documented every settlement exactly as it was known at the time. Some names came from geography, some from people, and others from moments of frontier humor that simply stuck.
Here are 12 towns with unusual names that appear on historic maps, many documented on real Sanborn Fire Insurance Maps from the late 1800s and early 1900s.
1. Yazoo City, Mississippi
Yazoo City is named after the Yazoo River, which in turn comes from the Yazoo Native American tribe. The exact meaning of the word “Yazoo” is debated, but the name has appeared on maps since the early 1700s.
Historic maps show Yazoo City as a major river and railroad hub during Mississippi’s cotton era.
2. French Lick, Indiana
The name comes from a natural salt lick once used by wildlife and later visited by French traders.
Historic maps show hotels, rail lines, and bathhouses long before French Lick became famous as a mineral-spring resort town.
3. Medicine Lodge, Kansas
Medicine Lodge was named after Medicine Lodge Creek, an area long used by Native Americans for ceremonial gatherings.
The town is best known for the Medicine Lodge Treaties of 1867, and early maps show its growth from frontier settlement to railroad town.
4. Normal, Illinois
The town takes its name from Illinois State Normal University, a teacher-training school. “Normal school” was the historic term for institutions that taught educational standards.
Old maps of Normal show a carefully planned community centered around education and rail transportation.
5. Bath, Maine
Bath, Maine is known as the “City of Ships.” Founded in 1648, it became one of America’s most important shipbuilding centers along the Kennebec River.
Historic maps document shipyards, docks, and waterfront industries that defined the town for centuries.
6. Bunkie, Louisiana
The origin of the name “Bunkie” comes from local oral history, which credits the name to a child’s nickname associated with an early railroad stop.
Sanborn maps show a compact downtown shaped almost entirely by rail traffic and timber commerce.
7. Cottonport, Louisiana
Cottonport’s name is literal — the town served as a shipping port for cotton along Bayou Rouge.
Historic maps show warehouses, compress buildings, and river transport facilities tied directly to the cotton trade.
8. Hot Springs, Arkansas
Hot Springs is named for its naturally heated thermal springs, which were used by Native Americans centuries before European settlement.
Old maps show bathhouses, hotels, and spa facilities that made the town one of America’s earliest tourism destinations.
9. Thermopolis, Wyoming
Thermopolis comes from Greek roots meaning “Hot City.”
Named for its mineral springs, historic maps reveal bathhouses, hotels, and early tourism development in an otherwise rugged frontier landscape.
10. Tombstone, Arizona
The town takes its name from prospector Ed Schieffelin’s “Tombstone” mining claim, which later gave the settlement its name.
Sanborn maps capture Tombstone during its silver-mining boom of the 1880s, complete with saloons, hotels, and theaters.
11. Deadwood, South Dakota
Deadwood was named for the dead trees found in the gulch where the town was founded.
Historic maps show dense wooden construction that made fire a constant danger — one reason Sanborn maps were so important here.
12. Hellertown, Pennsylvania
Despite the name, Hellertown was not named after the underworld.
It comes from the Heller family, early settlers who helped establish the town along the Saucon Creek.
Historic maps document mills, rail yards, and worker housing typical of Pennsylvania’s industrial towns.
Why These Town Names Still Matter
Historic maps preserve far more than geography — they capture the character, humor, and identity of early American communities.
Sanborn Fire Insurance Maps, created to assess fire risk, now serve as some of the most detailed historical records ever produced, showing:
- street layouts
- business names
- building materials
- railroads and waterways
- schools, hotels, factories, and homes
Even our small towns with unusual names were mapped with extraordinary precision.
Find an Old Map of Your Town
Whether your hometown has a strange name or a familiar one, there’s a good chance it was carefully mapped more than a century ago.
At Hometown History Maps, we turn these historic map scans into high-quality wall art — making it easy to display a meaningful piece of local history in your home or business.
Search our collection to find an old map of your town and see how your community looked 100 years ago. Map art is great — but make it personal.
https://hometownhistorymaps.com/collections
Because every town — no matter its name — has a story worth hanging on the wall.