What's In A Name?

Names of geographic features around the country are sometimes hard to figure out, and if we only knew, some of them have amusing stories behind them. While checking out the topo map for a fire I was going to in Eastern Kentucky(Long,Long Time Ago), one of the other guys spoke up that the map was wrong. He said the creek we were going to was Hurricane Branch, not Harkin, as the USGS map showed. That was easy enough to figure out. The mountain accent of the locals made Hurricane sound like Harkin to the surveyors who did the field work. (The hollow next to was named 'Hard' on the map, but it should have been 'Howard.') It was probably named Hurricane because a 'Toad Strangler' hit an early settler there. The stream you see above is Dry Fork, and I don't think it has ever been dry in all the years I have been in Southern Illinois. Much of it is downright swampy, with lacustrine deposits alongside that soak up water during wet weather, and seep it back into the stream during droughts. Anyhow, this is how it looked Wednesday morning.