The Lost Cities of "Pile-of-Bones" and Hot Springs

Pile-of-Bones (The City) - It went missing in 1900

Actually it was the names of Pile-of-Bones and Hot Springs that were lost, not the communities themselves. They were among a number of places in North America with names that were not considered proper. In the case of Pile-of-Bones, a group of citizens threatened to leave town if the name was not changed. In Hot Springs, the townspeople decided on a new name because of a radio broadcast. Get the story behind the story in this second installment of Bill Russo's series of tales of Lost Cities - it's the followup to the short book "Getting Rid of Swillings Mills", also available for free.        

Here's a sample from the chapter......

     

Pile of Bones

Though some communities may have acquired a genteel name through debate and perhaps voting, there was no choice for the residents of Pile-Of-Bones, Canada. The name was quickly and summarily changed shortly before the year 1900.

Pile-Of-Bones literally sprouted up from an 1882 map.  It showed that the route of the great and powerful Canadian Pacific Railroad would pass by a certain parcel of arid and featureless grassland; which had but one distinguishing characteristic - a mountain of buffalo bones that glistened when the sun shined.

The Lieutenant Governor of Canada's North-West territories just happened to own that land which quickly birthed a sleepy village. In a national scandal, the collection of shacks and shanties therein, were designated as the seat of territorial government. By the middle of the 20th century, the ragged little village of Pile-of=Bones mushroomed into a major city.

      The first 'house' built in the city of Pile-of-Bones

Today it is a capital city and the seventh largest metropolitan area in Canada. What about the name Pile-of-Bones? Apparently that handle didn’t sit well with Princess Louise, the Dutchess of Argyll. She told her hubby, the Governor General of Canada, that she wanted to name the community after her Mother, Queen Victoria of England. And thus was born the city of Regina, Saskatchewan, Canada.

In 1900 the town had about a thousand residents.  By 1916, some 30,000 people called it home, and a hundred years later in 2016 Pile-o-Bones/Regina had a population of over 216,000 making it the second largest city in Saskatchewan.

What’s in a name?  I think the good people of Regina would say, ‘a lot’ - for it is hard to imagine that Pile-of-Bones would have grown so big without its new name.

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The community of Hot Springs didn't lose its name because folks hated it, in fact most townspeople loved the name.  Why did they change it?  Radio.  They did it because of a radio program.  It happened at a time when radio was so powerful that one program - Orson Welles 'War of the Worlds' - caused widespread panic.  But it was not an Orson Welles show that caused the name switch: it was a comedy/quiz show.  To get the rest of the story for free, follow this link...  https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/742885