Patriot’s Dream #34
Martinsdale, Montana
2014
Look closely, that’s a small American flag in the window of the old Stockmens Bank. (Does the garage door mean it was a drive-in bank?) Except for the flag, the building is empty, perhaps it’s fortune faded for lack of an apostrophe. Sometimes it’s those small details that will do you in.]]>
Patriot’s Dream #34
Martinsdale, Montana
2014
I was curious about the apostrophe so I did a little searching. First off, I’m not sure where you took your photo, but there appear to be two Stockmens Banks one in Cascade MT the other in Colorado Springs. They don’t seem to be connected. I was curious what the origin of the apostrophe was. It is several centuries old, and has been used for possessive use for some time. What I did find interesting in this article: http://www.worldwidewords.org/articles/apostrophe.htm was that in 1890 the US Board on Geographic Names discouraged the use of apostrophes for geographic locations (obviously they have no impact on naming a bank), but apparently there are only 5 locations that have been approved since 1890 with an apostrophe. By the way I like the photo.
Martinsdale, MT isn’t very close to Cascade, MT and certainly a long way from Colorado Springs. I guess the lack of apostrophe in place names explains the Henrys Fork river in Idaho–or maybe not since it’s name surely predates 1890. Those who decided to eliminate the apostrophe from names were way ahead of the times and would fit in good with the texters and tweeters of today who thrive on throwing out pretty much all grammar and spelling rules.
I went to the US Board on Geographic Names (which is part of USGS) The 5 locations approved since 1890 are: Martha’s Vineyard (1933); Ike’s Point in New Jersey (1944); John E’s Pond in Rhode Island (1963) , Carlos Elmer’s Joshua View (1995) , and Clark’s Mountain in Oregon (2002) .