Obscure American history trivia

It's course direction has shifted often, but sometimes also the flow. In NOLA during hurricanes or some such, the Mississippi just sometimes starts flowing in the opposite direction for a few hours.

 

There are state lines all up and down the Mississippi, and I'm sure other large ones, where shifts have caused parcels of land technically belonging to let's say a state on the east side of the river to be on the west bank and vice versa.
The original boundary was set as the middle of the river 200 years ago, and it's moved.

 

Isn't there some place that was in Illinois that is now on the Missouri side of the river, but is still Illinois? I saw it on one of those "How the states got their shapes" shows or something like that.

 

There’s a little piece of Kentucky that is only accessible by land from Tennessee.

Also, the Omaha airport is in Nebraska, but you have to drive through the Iowa town of Carter Lake — on the west side of the Missouri River — to get to downtown Omaha.

 

The Cincinnati airport is in Kentucky, but I'm sure that has more to do with taxes than the Ohio River.

 

I wondered why when I stayed in Omaha and was going to the airport, I found myself in Iowa. Not a bad thing, hit a good breakfast place and added to my "states visited" list.

 

Reminds me of the joke about the old farmer in Minnesota who is thinking about selling part of his land for a subdivision. The surveyor comes in, does his job and to his surprise finds out the guy's house really located in Iowa.

"Oh great," says the farmer. "I couldn't take another Minnesota winter."

 

None of Tennessee's four borders are exactly where they are supposed to be.
Virginia, North Carolina, and Georgia have all sued in federal court to move them. Each time, the courts ruled that the other states were fine with the border until a resource was discovered, so the cases were shot down.

 

As one who lives a few minutes drive from the Tennessee-Georgia state line, I find this intriguing.

 

Wasn't there a court case fairly recently (since 2000) about water rights between Tennessee and Georgia?

 

Tennessee/Georgia line is about a mile south of where it is supposed to be. The line was supposed to be at the Tennessee River, giving Georgia access to it. It was never an issue until Atlanta got so big. Now, Georgia wants the water. They were told to pound sand.

 

The Tennessee/Virginia/Kentucky state lines are off just because of human error and the equipment of the time.
The Tennessee/Arkansas state line isn't exactly right because the Mississippi River has shifted over time.
The Tennessee/North Carolina is the funny one. The state line is supposed to be the ridge of the mountains. It is except the final 15 miles or so at the south because the guys got tired of dealing with it and just made a straight line. NC was cool with it until copper deposits were discovered.