The Birth of Horny Town U.S.A.

Revision 2 on the Horner Springs Map Remix.

Made area n' road adjustments according to details from Jack & Handley. Let me know if these specifics more or less jibe with the way you're seeing it in your heads.

Also added in more farmland/woodland/park/vegetation greenery to differentiate from the residential/commercial habitation areas and some elevation delineation. Size is expanded from previous version. Buildings are less obtrusive and more correlating to scale. Added a Main St., a Hiker's Road in the north hills to play around with and named the observatory for Stella. Still lots of names for stuff to be considered. Am considering to name the drive on the west side of the river after a female relative of Miss Futter's — something flowery and Victorian that nobody names girls with anymore, like "Alamandreda" or "Cassiopeia." Somethin' like that.

This is fun! Let's keep it going, y'all!

Handley: I used Illustrator for the base map and InDesign for type manipulation & buildings.

IrezumiKiss said:

Revision 2 on the Horner Springs Map Remix.
Still lots of names for stuff to be considered. Am considering to name the drive on the west side of the river after a female relative of Miss Futter's — something flowery and Victorian that nobody names girls with anymore, like "Alamandreda" or "Cassiopeia." Somethin' like that.

This is fun! Let's keep it going, y'all!

Handley: I used Illustrator for the base map and InDesign for type manipulation & buildings.

Click to expand...

Just one little adjustment, The traffic circle should have a road from the east going straight into the center of the circle, and it should be down closer to the river. I can't tell you why, yet.

I was thinking that a small stream, creek, should meet the river along the east side of the Village. There will be a swampy section, that the Uni, uses a a biology lab and field science area, just at the river, below the traffic circle. The rise of the land there is due to an igneous intrusion that lifts the north bank of the river ~ 15-25 feet, down past Slippery Dick's place. (Now to be called "Horner House" a B&B, eventually.)

This is one of the reasons that a map should be 'approximate' until something is written in a story. If HS has a population of 50-75,000 and the rural community totals up to ~150,000, we're gon'a need more houses.

I like how this is developing. I really need to get a couple of in-progress stories finished so I can contribute. Have we figured out how to put them together?

voluptuary_manque said:

I like how this is developing. I really need to get a couple of in-progress stories finished so I can contribute. Have we figured out how to put them together?

Click to expand...

I haven't heard anything from Laurel yet.

I've got one long chapter and two short chapters almost ready. I've got a complete plot, but I'm still filling in the sexy parts.

I could use some help with a couple of characters. I wanted to make them a Dom/Sub pair, but I don't feel I can do them right. They are peripheral to my story but if I screw it up, I'm sure I'll get "1" bombed.

Anyone want to take on their story?

JackLuis said:

I haven't heard anything from Laurel yet.

I've got one long chapter and two short chapters almost ready. I've got a complete plot, but I'm still filling in the sexy parts.

I could use some help with a couple of characters. I wanted to make them a Dom/Sub pair, but I don't feel I can do them right. They are peripheral to my story but if I screw it up, I'm sure I'll get "1" bombed.

Anyone want to take on their story?

Click to expand...

I'm not good at dom/sub. You might PM Stella Omega. She understands that kink very well.

I'm not convinced of the Interstate highway so close. Horner Springs is very rural, to my mind. I think the highway should be well to the west on the other side of the airport.

I do wish some of those roads looked older, more curved. Someone's going to have a real injury on North Boulevard in winter.

I do like this Town Planning stuff; it's fun

Handley_Page said:

I'm not convinced of the Interstate highway so close. Horner Springs is very rural, to my mind. I think the highway should be well to the west on the other side of the airport.

I do wish some of those roads looked older, more curved. Someone's going to have a real injury on North Boulevard in winter.

I do like this Town Planning stuff; it's fun

Click to expand...

Something that naggs me, is that in the intermountian west, a Town of 25-50,000 would have at least a State Highway, if not an Interstate passing close by. Route 66'ish. The reason is that a Town requires access to other towns to exist. Now maybe HS is 'special' because of the Hot Springs?

In the early 1900's there were lots of places that had accommodations, attractions and clean air, that were tourist destinations, but during the depression most disappeared, unless they served a basic economic purpose in the general society.

Has anyone thought that the "First" story should/could sketch the history, using appropriate innuendo?

? Hows this for an Idea? The first chapter is a audio file, background mucsic as a sultry voice describes the 'Heavenly Valley of Horner Springs?

"From space it appears to be the Vulva Of Mother Earth thrust high in the atmosphere, as if seeking the Kiss of the Sun God!"

Stella was right, lets just leave it a little wild and loose and see how it goes.

JackLuis said:

Something that naggs me, is that in the intermountian west, a Town of 25-50,000 would have at least a State Highway, if not an Interstate passing close by. Route 66'ish. The reason is that a Town requires access to other towns to exist. Now maybe HS is 'special' because of the Hot Springs?

In the early 1900's there were lots of places that had accommodations, attractions and clean air, that were tourist destinations, but during the depression most disappeared, unless they served a basic economic purpose in the general society.

Has anyone thought that the "First" story should/could sketch the history, using appropriate innuendo?

? Hows this for an Idea? The first chapter is a audio file, background mucsic as a sultry voice describes the 'Heavenly Valley of Horner Springs?

"From space it appears to be the Vulva Of Mother Earth thrust high in the atmosphere, as if seeking the Kiss of the Sun God!"

Stella was right, lets just leave it a little wild and loose and see how it goes.

Click to expand...

Damn, what an image! Mikey likey!

JackLuis said:

Something that naggs me, is that in the intermountian west, a Town of 25-50,000 would have at least a State Highway, if not an Interstate passing close by. Route 66'ish. The reason is that a Town requires access to other towns to exist. Now maybe HS is 'special' because of the Hot Springs?

In the early 1900's there were lots of places that had accommodations, attractions and clean air, that were tourist destinations, but during the depression most disappeared, unless they served a basic economic purpose in the general society.

Has anyone thought that the "First" story should/could sketch the history, using appropriate innuendo?

? Hows this for an Idea? The first chapter is a audio file, background mucsic as a sultry voice describes the 'Heavenly Valley of Horner Springs?

"From space it appears to be the Vulva Of Mother Earth thrust high in the atmosphere, as if seeking the Kiss of the Sun God!"

Stella was right, lets just leave it a little wild and loose and see how it goes.

Click to expand...

You mean rather in the same was as Maidenhead got its name from the goings-on in its early history ?

voluptuary_manque said:

Damn, what an image! Mikey likey!

Click to expand...

So you want to write the 'Intro"?

I'll help if you can put up with my crazy ass.

Raven, does audio work and she has a good voice Maybe she'd narrate?

JackLuis said:

Something that naggs me, is that in the intermountian west, a Town of 25-50,000 would have at least a State Highway, if not an Interstate passing close by. Route 66'ish. .

Click to expand...

Known locally as Route 69 ?

Handley_Page said:

Known locally as Route 69 ?

Click to expand...

But you would not want to split an area by a road if there's an airport nearby would you?

JackLuis said:

So you want to write the 'Intro"?

I'll help if you can put up with my crazy ass.

Raven, does audio work and she has a good voice Maybe she'd narrate?

Click to expand...

Sure. I just finished "Jonquil's Diary" and it's set in a Steampunk Fantasy so I'm still thinking along the lines of the XIX Century. I am in the middle of a chapter of my next novelette for the Summer Contest but there's so much time before that starts we can get this thing off to a good start. I really think that we should just all start each story with Horny Town, USA: (fill in the blank here). That will help group them in the index so readers can follow the "epic" as it unfolds.

Handley_Page said:

But you would not want to split an area by a road if there's an airport nearby would you?

Click to expand...

Route 69, I like it.

The Main roads would have preceded the airport by decades.

The Military school would have had an ROTC connection. If the U. kept that connection, there would be an 'excuse' for a small Military contingent.

Perhaps there is an ROTC program to teach basic flying skills and that supports the Gray Boys with a cover? The Army supplied two aging U6 Beavers to teach basic pilotage and navigation?

Will there be a rifle range tied to the Airport. training ground complex? You know somewhere to keep the cowboys from shootin' every which a ways?

JackLuis said:

Route 69, I like it.

The Main roads would have preceded the airport by decades.

The Military school would have had an ROTC connection. If the U. kept that connection, there would be an 'excuse' for a small Military contingent.

Perhaps there is an ROTC program to teach basic flying skills and that supports the Gray Boys with a cover? The Army supplied two aging U6 Beavers to teach basic pilotage and navigation?

Will there be a rifle range tied to the Airport. training ground complex? You know somewhere to keep the cowboys from shootin' every which a ways?

Click to expand...

This is the Mountain West. Every campus has a rifle range, usually in the basement of the gym. Whether there's a ROTC contingent, it will be there. After all, if the school has a strong environmental program, some of the students will be looking for careers in wildlife management and those guys/gals are all hunters.

Every Air Base I've served on has had an outdoor rifle range: Probably several. All with huge walls and many tons of sand.
Underground ranges are for cissies.

Handley_Page said:

Every Air Base I've served on has had an outdoor rifle range: Probably several. All with huge walls and many tons of sand.
Underground ranges are for cissies.

Click to expand...

No, for civilians. It lets them practice when there's snow on the ground. Remember, this is an NCAA approved intercollegiate sport. So there are probably both, indoors for .22 rimfire and outdoors on the old AAF ranges for the hunting rifles, NRA military match, etc.

I stand corrected, with thanks.

JackLuis said:

Something that naggs me, is that in the intermountian west, a Town of 25-50,000 would have at least a State Highway, if not an Interstate passing close by. Route 66'ish. The reason is that a Town requires access to other towns to exist. Now maybe HS is 'special' because of the Hot Springs?

In the early 1900's there were lots of places that had accommodations, attractions and clean air, that were tourist destinations, but during the depression most disappeared, unless they served a basic economic purpose in the general society.

Click to expand...

I could have sworn the highway access was covered early on in this thread -- there is no through highway within about 20-25 miles.

Horner springs survived the depression, without easy accesss to other towns (albeit much reduced in population,) because Futters school and Horner Military academy were conveniently out of the pubic eye for troublesome or embarassing children.

The Hotsprings resort survived as luxury accomodations for visiting relatives and a venue for intermingling of the two student bodies before the schools merged.

WWII brought the runway and military presence and a housing boom; then the post-war population boom brought the tourism and population back to, and beyond, the humble health-spa beginnings.

The highway into Horner Springs is a County/Farm-to-Market class road that was co-opted by the military and county after a long pre-war existance as a private road into a privately owned shangri-la. Purely by coincidence, the Couty has assigned the number 69 to the main road into town as there is no rhyme or reason to the county's road numbering system; the next nearest county roads are numbered 81 and 247

+++

Horner Springs can't be located on or near any (named) Interstate, US highway, or State Highway without pinning it down to a real(ish) location. There just aren't that many major highways to choose from. -- ergo, the road has to be either County, Private. If a specific major highway has to be named, it should be US-50, "The Lonliest Highway in US," which pretty much bisects the intermountain west horizontaly (through central Nevada.)

There are lots of little towns tucked away in blind valleys in the intermountain west that are 30-50 miles from the nearest signs of civilization; a very few of them are substantial cities like Horner Springs, but if there is sufficient water, the target population is plausible -- which is why Horner Hotsprings Resort and Spa was chosen as the central feature of the history of Horner Springs.

Rail lines?

They need at least a rail spur to bring in the pre-1940's Hot Springers, and to export the Ag products. If HS is this big, it would be the primary point of distribution for goods.

Not that we need to have a rail line in the stories. But otherwise, it's just fiction.

Oh, right.

JackLuis said:

Rail lines?

They need at least a rail spur to bring in the pre-1940's Hot Springers, and to export the Ag products. If HS is this big, it would be the primary point of distribution for goods.

Not that we need to have a rail line in the stories. But otherwise, it's just fiction.

Oh, right.

Click to expand...

Not necessarily. Quite a few resorts were some distance from the nearest railway and ran busses just like today's hotel shuttles to the airport. In fact, most of the National Parks worked like that before the Interstate Highway System was developed.

JackLuis said:

Rail lines?

They need at least a rail spur to bring in the pre-1940's Hot Springers, and to export the Ag products. If HS is this big, it would be the primary point of distribution for goods.

Not that we need to have a rail line in the stories. But otherwise, it's just fiction.

Oh, right.

Click to expand...

Probably an abandoned railway at least to the Airfield, but not necessarily. A lot of the small auxiliary fields were nothing more than a hard runway and admin building/hanger/tower and not worth the time, expense, and scarce steel needed for a rail-spur.

Road improvements and a stagecoach/tour bus would be far cheaper for an out of the way, private enterprise such as Horner Hotsprings Spa or either of the two boarding schools -- or even all three together -- than a private rail-spur off of the few territorial railroads in the intermountain west. Anyplace more than a few level miles away from the easy route from a transcontinental road to a large mining operation wouldn't have a railroad. The mining operations needed railroads and could make them profitable, but Health Spas and boarding schools din't need them and couldn't support them.

If we have room for "development" to the south of Slippery Richard Road, can we have a fairly decent Hotel round there please?
My character is going to have problems with the friendly lot.

Handley_Page said:

If we have room for "development" to the south of Slippery Richard Road, can we have a fairly decent Hotel round there please?
My character is going to have problems with the friendly lot.

Click to expand...

Decent hotel? I should hope so. Where else would the early tourists stay when coming for "the cure"? There might even be a couple though at least one might have a bit of a dubious reputation.

IrezumiKiss said:

Revision 2 on the Horner Springs Map Remix.

Made area n' road adjustments according to details from Jack & Handley. Let me know if these specifics more or less jibe with the way you're seeing it in your heads.

Also added in more farmland/woodland/park/vegetation greenery to differentiate from the residential/commercial habitation areas and some elevation delineation. Size is expanded from previous version. Buildings are less obtrusive and more correlating to scale. Added a Main St., a Hiker's Road in the north hills to play around with and named the observatory for Stella. Still lots of names for stuff to be considered. Am considering to name the drive on the west side of the river after a female relative of Miss Futter's — something flowery and Victorian that nobody names girls with anymore, like "Alamandreda" or "Cassiopeia." Somethin' like that.

This is fun! Let's keep it going, y'all!

Handley: I used Illustrator for the base map and InDesign for type manipulation & buildings.

Click to expand...

A few corrections, Weird Harold says there is no interstate. I guess HS is at the head of a closed in valley. Though the Airport road could give access to the high plains NW of town??

Slippery Richard Road needs to terminate perpendicular to the center of the Traffic circle with Lost Horses Way approaching as a tangent. Move the Traffic Circle to the right so that Lost Horses way and Xxxx St. are tangential with the two smaller streets (on the left) perpendicular.

What you are now calling Slippery Richard Road could be change to Futter Boulevard?

The area along the river and above the traffic circle is what I call the Village, the remains of Lost Horses and part of the older (1920-30's) Horner Springs.
I guess you could call them neighborhoods now. I will make a distinction between the Yuppie Village People, who are new comers, for the most part. Post 1970's and the Town which has a slightly different outlook due to it's pioneering heritage.

I don't think we should get too precise until the story is published, to allow freedom of thought, but I do understand the need for a basic framework, like you have here. Great work.