We read all the time of new towns being born -- Leo-Cedarville may be a mouthful, but its people are creating a municipal identity -- or of towns becoming cities and cities wanting to be bigger (welcome to Fort Wayne, Aboite!). But sometimes, a place falls off the map:
The 2000 census found the 129-year-old town of Milford had a population of 121, but the commissioners decided Monday that effective Aug. 4 it will become an unincorporated community, with the county government taking its roads and other property."We cannot operate as a town," Town Board member Vickie Adams told county commissioners on Monday. "There is nothing to generate money to fix roads and make improvements. It's only a very small group of homes. I don't even know how it became a town."
A long time, 129 years, and I suspect residents will be less apathetic about the loss after it sinks in. There is a flip side, though. My brother lives outside a little place in Texas called Wimberley, the residents of which recently voted to incorporate as a town. But the new status brought a whole crop of town "leaders" who couldn't wait to start implementing and zealously enforcing a bunch of fussy rules about who could build what where and how. Now, about half the residents are clamoring for a new vote to unincorporate the place.
