Some towns in the United States are famous for their quirky names: Santa Claus, Indiana; Okay, Oklahoma; George, Washington; and Sandwich, Illinois, come to mind. Then there’s Earth, Texas, which got me wondering. Aside from Earth, how many other planets in our solar system share names with U.S. towns?
Turns out, most do. While some remain thriving communities and others are mere ghost town memories of the past, most generally have no direct astronomical origin. Nevertheless, in addition to their curious names, some of these places do have an interesting history.
Mercury, Nevada
From 1951–1962, Mercury was a town in the Nevada atomic testing site where hundreds of test explosions were conducted. Anecdotal evidence suggests Mercury was named by an unknown miner working in the Calico Hills mining ores bearing ores of mercury (the silvery liquid metal) in the 1850s. The route he traveled was called Mercury Road and the surrounding area became known as Mercury. Originally created to house military personal, Mercury grew to have its own post office, movie theater, and bowling alley.
Venus, Texas
Originally known as "Gossip" until the late 1880s when J.C. Smythe purchased 80 acres in the northeastern corner of Johnson County, Texas, where he planned a town site named Venus after a local doctor’s daughter. Venus grew in the early 1900s and, at one point, produced a weekly newspaper, the Venus Express. The town has a famous Hollywood connection since several films were partially shot on location in Venus. This includes a bank robbery scene from “Bonnie and Clyde” (1967) filmed over about a week with locals used as extras, as well as scenes from “The Trip to Bountiful” (1985) and “Born on the Fourth of July” (1989).
Earth, Texas
There is only one “Earth” on Earth and it’s located in the Texas Panhandle’s Lamb County. The origin of the town’s name remains uncertain, although one story credits O. H. Reeves, a resident in the 1920s, who proposed the name Good Earth due to the region’s fertile soil. After a local post office was established in 1925, the name was shortened to Earth.
Mars, Pennsylvania
A borough in Butler County, Pennsylvania, Samuel Parks built a house in the area in 1873 and established the Mars post office in his home with the help of Samuel Marshall. Some say the origin of the name stemmed from Parks’ wife's fondness for astronomy, while a more popular local explanation claims the name honored Marshall. Mars has capitalized on its name with alien figures scattered around the town and even a giant flying saucer adorning the town’s center. The “Martian” population was around 1,700 in 2010.
Jupiter, Florida
With a population of over 65,000, this Palm Beach County, Florida, town is a popular tourist spot deriving its name from the Hobe Indian tribe of the region. Early Spanish explorers named a local river the Rio Jobe after the tribe. The name was later transcribed, apparently mistakenly, as Jove. When Spain ceded Florida to Britain, Jove — the Roman name for the god Zeus — was anglicized to Jupiter.
Saturn, Texas
Located on State Highway 97 in northeastern Gonzales County, Texas, “a community began to develop near this site during the 1870s and was known by several names, including Possum Trot, before a post office was established under the name Saturn in 1902” according to a marker in the Saturn cemetery. A 1907 postal map of the county lists Saturn, but the origin of the name remains obscure.
Uranus, Missouri
While no formal town in the U.S. bears the name of the 7th planet, Uranus, Missouri, was included in the list for completeness, not to mention its quirkiness. An unincorporated tourist spot along historic Route 66 in Pulaski County, the area consists of several businesses, has its own website, museum, restaurant, and unofficial "mayor." Uranus appears on the water tower and a newspaper was (briefly) published in 2018, quaintly named the Uranus Examiner.
Neptune, New Jersey
Located on the Atlantic Coast and bordered on the south by the Shark River estuary, the Township of Neptune acknowledged its watery connection with a name derived from the Roman God of the Sea. It’s also the birthplace of actors Danny DeVito and Jack Nicholson who, curiously, both starred in Tim Burton’s 1996 sci-fi comedy, “Mars Attacks!”
Pluto, Mississippi
Yes, astronomers did separate Pluto from the other eight planets by reclassifying it as a dwarf planet in 2006, but who could leave the little guy off the list?
An unincorporated community in Holmes County, Mississippi, and home to cotton fields and cypress swamps, Pluto became widely known after writer Richard Grant purchased a home in the area as a base to write his best-selling 2015 biography, “Dispatches from Pluto.”
“Why is it called Pluto?” the author asks a regional resident in the book’s prologue. “Pluto was the Lord of the Underworld, that’s the story I always heard,” she replied. “All this was just a big, mean, hellish swamp.”
Nick Thomas teaches at Auburn University at Montgomery and has written features, columns, and interviews for over 800 newspapers and magazines. See www.getnickt.org.
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