Our 50 , nifty United States may have had several more sibling if things had turn out differently . For over the preceding 150 years , more than a few extra states have been pop the question , such as Texlahoma and Nickajack . Hosts Ben Bowlin and Noel Brown talk of the town about thesepotential new statesin a late installment of the podcast Ridiculous chronicle : The United States That Never Were .
The state ofTexlahomawas proposed shortly beforeWorld War II . The state would have been a combination of rural swath of northerly Texas and western Oklahoma . It was pushed for by house physician of these region who wanted undecomposed route . The automobile was becoming omnipresent at this sentence , but American roads were in terrible condition , especially in the oft - overlooked rural areas . If Texlahoma came to be , citizens reckoned , they could build the good route their region needed . The proposal of marriage , designed by Oklahoman A. P. Sights , did garner some attention , include the backing of then - American Vice President John Nance Garner IV . But the proposal break when the Texans actualise it would result in their becoming Texlahomans — and losing their identity as Texans was unaccepted .
At least two states were proposed during theCivil Waras a protest against the Confederates States of America and its pushing for secession from the Union . Nickajackwas one . A compounding of southeast Tennessee and northern Alabama , this arena was full of Southern Unionists — poor residents who did not own plantations and slave , and thus 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 body politic . But after a majority of Alabamans and Tennesseans voted in favour of secession , the Nickajack proponents determine it was too dangerous to proceed with their proposal , and the matter was dropped .
The residents ofScott County , Tenn. , also wanted to splinter from their state because they were n’t flush , slave - owning plantation folk ; thus , joining the Confederacy was n’t deem necessary or wise . But unlike the Nickajackians , the people here were pro - active and made a formal annunciation of secession to the state government , knight themselves the Free and Independent State of Scott . The state did n’t fight Scott ; it plainly discount the annunciation . In 1986 , Scott County formally requested to be readmitted to Tennessee . The state accepted the request , and even threw Scott a party .
Ever ponder Michigan ’s odd shape ? The midwestern state is make up of two pieces of land : a low , mitten - shaped portion and the U.P. , or Upper Peninsula , which is really attached to the neighboring state of Wisconsin . The first whispers of the U.P. separating from Michigan to become the independent state ofSuperiorcame in 1858 , but the ensuing Civil War quashed the discourse . Yet the idea of create Superior — named after the Great Lake the region hugs — was broached several time over the ensuing C . While the initial marriage offer was for the fresh State Department to be incorporate of the U.P. and some tracts of domain in the upper portions of Lower Michigan and Wisconsin , more recent pushes were just for the U.P. to become Superior .
