Welcome to Brainstuff from how Stuff Works, Hey, brain Stuff Lauren Vogelbaum here, our fifty nifty United States may have had several more siblings if things had turned out differently. For Over the past one fifty years, more than a few additional states have been proposed, such as tex Lahoma and Nikko Jack. The state of tex Lahoma was proposed shortly before World War Two. The state would have been a combination of rural swaths of northern Texas and western Oklahoma.
It was pushed for by residents of those areas who wanted better roads. The car was becoming ubiquitous at the time, but American roads were in terrible condition, especially in the oft overlooked rural areas. If tex Lahoma came to be citizens reckoned, they could build the good roads their region needed.
The proposal, designed by Oklahoma a p Sites, did garner some attention, including the backing of then Vice President John Nance Garner the Fourth but the proposal died when the Texans realized it would result in their becoming tex Lahmans and losing their identity as Texans was unacceptable. In addition to that one, at least two states were proposed during the Civil War as protests against the Confederate States of
America and its push for secession from the Union. Nika Jack was one a combination of southeast Tennessee and northern Alabama. This area was full of Southern Unionists, poor residents who did not own plantations or slaves, and were not in
favor of secession or the Confederacy. Residents of these areas put forth their idea in the hopes of squashing the secessionist movement in their states, But after a majority of Alabama's and Tennesseeans voted in favor of secession, the nika Jack proponents decided it was too dangerous to proceed with their proposal, and the matter was dropped. The common folk residents of Scott County, Tennessee, also wanted to secede from their state leading up to the Civil War, believing that
joining the Confederacy was neither necessary nor wise. But unlike the nika jack Ians, the people here were pro active and made a formal proclamation of secession to the state government, dubbing themselves the Free and Independent State of Scott. The state didn't fight Scott, it simply ignored the proclamation. In nineteen eight six, Scott County formally requested to be readmitted
to Tennessee. The state accepted the request, and even through Scott a party and hey ever ponder Michigan's odd shape. The midwestern state is comprised of two pieces of land, a lower Mitten shaped portion and the Up or Upper Peninsula, which is actually attached to the neighboring state of Wisconsin. The first whispers of up separating from Michigan to become an independent state of Superior came in eighteen fifty eight,
but the ensuing Civil War quashed the discussion. Yet the idea of creating Superior, named after the great Lake that the region hugs, has been broached several times over the ensuing century. While the initial proposal was for the new state to be comprised of the Up and some tracts of land in the upper portions of Lower Michigan and Wasson, more recent pushes were just for the up to become Superior.
And meanwhile, speaking of peninsula's, Delaware is comprised of the bulk of a small peninsula on the east coast, with Maryland and Virginia laying claim too tiny chunks of it. Over the years, various proposals have been floated to create one peninsular state, with most plans calling for Maryland and Virginia to seed their land Delaware, the new state being called del Marva. Today's episode was written by Melanie rad
Zekeie McManus and produced by Tyler Clang. To hear more about half baked States, my compatriots Ben Bolan and Noel Brown have a whole episode about it over on the Ridiculous History podcast The United States That Never Were checked out. If you enjoy our show and also not being naked, check out our shop online at t public dot com slash brain Stuff. We've got a bunch of back to school stuff like laptop cases too, and of course for lots more on this and other fully baked topics. Thank
you very much. Check out our home planet, how stuff works dot com. H