Warsaw and Rose Hill, North Carolina

First timer?  In this formerly once-a-day blog (now pretty much an every-other-day blog), I have my computer select a random latitude and longitude that puts me somewhere in the continental United States (the lower 48).  I call this “landing.”  I keep track of the watersheds I land in, as well as the town I land near.  I do some internet research to hopefully find something of interest about my landing location.  To find out more about A Landing A Day (like who “Dan” is and what the various numbers and abbreviations mean), please see “About Landing,” (and “Abbreviations” and “Cryptic Numbers”) above.

Dan –  I landed in a state that I’ve come to think of as a solid OSer, but which, stealthily, has crept to US-land.  The state . . . NC; 32/33; 5/10; 4; 150.6.  Here’s my landing map, showing my proximity to a bunch of small towns:

I ended up selecting Warsaw & Rose Hill for the title of this post because those are the two towns I feature a little later.

Here’s a broader view:

I landed in the watershed of a stream with an outstanding name:  the Quewhiffle Creek; on to the Six Runs Creek (named after a baseball game?); on to a new river, the Black (my 10^th Black River!); on to Cape Fear River (9^th hit); on to the AO.

Here’s my GE shot, showing that I landed right on the edge of a farm field (although the area looks much more wooded than agricultural).  By the way, that’s a large elementary school to the southwest (more about that later):

Fortunately, there was StreetView coverage for the road next to my landing, so, of course, here’s the shot looking towards the school, with my landing about 75 away:

It turns out that the school is the Union Elementary School:

The school’s out in the boonies, but it’s big (more than 700 students in K-3).  It must have quite the regional draw.

Moving right along – I’ve checked out the various towns around (Clinton, Turkey, Warsaw, Magnolia, Rose Hill), and can’t find much of great interest.  Here’s a little something about how Warsaw got it’s name (from the town’s website):

In 1838, the present day town of Warsaw was laid out into lots along a new rail line that ran from Wilmington to Weldon, North Carolina.  The area was then know as Duplin Depot, but the name was shortly thereafter changed to Mooresville.  During the same year, a merchant named Thaddeus Love moved to town to be the stationmaster of the Duplin Depot.  At the time, a biography of a Polish national  hero, Tadeusz Kosciuszko, was extremely popular.  The Joane Porter book, entitled Thaddeus of Warsaw, furnished Thaddeus Love a catchy nickname. In fact, Love’s nickname was so appealing, that by 1847, the community was already known in legal circles as “Warsaw Depot.” When the town was incorporated in 1855, the community was officially designated as Warsaw

So let me get this straight.  A guy named Thaddeus Love was the local stationmaster.  Coincidentally, Tadeusz (aka Thaddeus) Kosciuszko was capturing the American imagination.  So, I guess Joane Porter’s book, “Thaddeus of Warsaw,” was locally popular, and someone or other gave Thaddeus Love the nickname “Warsaw.”  Somehow, this nickname ended up as the name of the town.  Phew.  This story doesn’t really hang together well at all, but it is what it is.

The only other item of interest I could find involves Rose Hill.  Amazingly, Rose Hill lays claim to the home of “The World’s Largest Frying Pan.”

Here’s a close-up (which doesn’t look much like a frying pan) along with a short write-up:

It was built in 1963 and is still used for festivals and other events. It weighs 2 tons and uses 200 gallons of cooking oil.

I’ll close with this shot of a contender for the title of World’s Largest Frying Pan, this one in  Long Beach WA.  This frying pan is much more photogenic than Rose Hill’s . . .

It turns out, that as I was typing this post, I have house guests (Mike & Laura) who just relocated back East after spending 5 years in Seattle.  I casually mentioned to them that I posted a picture of a guy in a bacon suit from Washington.  Laura immediately said “it must be a Bacon Salt suit; I’ve seen them in Seattle.”  Well, it turns out that this is indeed a “Bacon Salt Suit”.   “Bacon Salt” includes a family of vegetarian bacon-flavored seasonings, with the catchy logo “Everything Should Taste Like Bacon:”

That’ll do it. . .

KS

Greg

© 2010 A Landing A Day