The "last eastern city" and "first western city"

[Docere]

I've heard this often applied to St. Louis and Kansas City and even St. Paul and Minneapolis.

In Canada, Thunder Bay and Winnipeg could have the monikers.

(This assumes of course there's no "neither east or west" middle zone, forcing various areas of the American Midwest to "pick a side.").

[James Bond Agent 007]

Last eastern city: Kansas City
First western city: Kansas City

[Docere]

Hmm...maybe should have posed a question.

[ThePhun1]

Originally Posted by Docere

I've heard this often applied to St. Louis and Kansas City and even St. Paul and Minneapolis.

In Canada, Thunder Bay and Winnipeg could have the monikers.

(This assumes of course there's no "neither east or west" middle zone, forcing various areas of the American Midwest to "pick a side.").

But, but, but, I thought St. Louis was the gateway to the west?

An alternative is Dallas and Fort Worth if some are to be believed.

In modern times, Missouri is not even close to the west. Denver is the first/last city in the west while Pittsburgh is where I say the east begins. It's a transition zone.

[ThePhun1]

Okay, semi-scratch everything I just wrote. It's not totally invalid but here's my new criterIa that popped into my head. The west starts west of the Rockies and the east starts east of the Mississippi. We have three contenders in St. Paul, New Orleans and Memphis. None seem really eastern so we move a little further east and there's Chicago. As for the west, it seems like a tie between Salt Lake and Phoenix. To break it, we move further west and the answer is Las Vegas.

Las Vegas and Chicago. Okay, that's not what I really believe but I at least tried something more scientific.

^ None of these terms have to do with strict geographical locations, though, and saying that the west starts at the Rockies and the east at the Mississippi is completely arbitrary. It's about genealogy and historical context. In terms of architectural styles, KC is more similar to Denver than St. Louis, and St. Louis is more similar to Pittsburgh. The transition from "eastern" to "western" across Missouri is pretty stark, IMO. If we split the US into northern, central, and southern latitudes, I'd say St. Louis is the westernmost eastern city in the central zone. And it's the "Gateway to the West" in the context of westward expansion, obviously. The "new" gateway to the west--in terms of when the culture starts to "feel" western--would be either KC or Denver, IMO.

[austlar1]

Probably not very accurate, but this has always been a popular saying in Fort Worth: "Dallas is where the east peters out, and Fort Worth is where the West Begins!" The latter is the official motto or slogan for Fort Worth by the way.

[balletomane]

For the US there are many options, St. Louis, Kansas City, Minneapolis-St. Paul, etc. Any state that borders the Mississippi I think could lay claim to being a gateway to the west. It just depends at which point on the north-south axis you are traveling westward.
Since Canada is much more sparsely populated I think Winnipeg has to be the gateway city between the east and west. Winnipeg needs a monument like the Gateway Arch.

[iheartthed]

Originally Posted by Docere

I've heard this often applied to St. Louis and Kansas City and even St. Paul and Minneapolis.

In Canada, Thunder Bay and Winnipeg could have the monikers.

(This assumes of course there's no "neither east or west" middle zone, forcing various areas of the American Midwest to "pick a side.").

Midwest is a misnomer. Most of the American Midwest is physically east, and I think most is also culturally "east." The areas bordering the South and Plains tend to take on characteristics of those areas, but the Great Lakes Midwest has a lot of overlap with the northeast and mid-Atlantic coast.

[llamaorama]

Honolulu or Darwin. I'd otherwise say Hagatna but it's too small to be a city.

/troll

[Sun Belt]

First western city would Denver in what would be the first western state Colorado. Kansas would never be considered western.

Chicago 87W is firmly in the midwest and is a midwestern city.

Atlanta is the last (or is it first) eastern city. 84 degrees west -- really not too much farther east than Chicago - which puts it at the same line of latitude as Cincinnati and further west than Detroit. GA is an eastern state, one of the original 13 colonies in the eastern time zone.

[Razor]

Culturally, is it safe to say the West began where the ranching and cowboy culture started, or is that simplifying it too much? Here in Canada I, like others, see Winnipeg as an Eastern type city..At least architecturally..It's our transition to our West. We don't have the population to see a clearer transition.No mid west really.

[iheartthed]

Originally Posted by Razor

Culturally, is it safe to say the West began where the ranching and cowboy culture started, or is that simplifying it too much?

Seems legit to me. In my mind, for the U.S., any state whose eastern boundary starts west of Texas's eastern most boundary is West. The rest are "not West."

[Ex-Ithacan]

I have a feeling if you asked native New Yorkers, most would say the east ends at the Hudson River and the west starts at Jersey City.

[ThePhun1]

Originally Posted by Sun Belt

First western city would Denver in what would be the first western state Colorado. Kansas would never be considered western.

Chicago 87W is firmly in the midwest and is a midwestern city.

Atlanta is the last (or is it first) eastern city. 84 degrees west -- really not too much farther east than Chicago - which puts it at the same line of latitude as Cincinnati and further west than Detroit. GA is an eastern state, one of the original 13 colonies in the eastern time zone.

Dodge City would never be considered western? Kansas can be considered western, even though it shouldn't.

[ThePhun1]

Originally Posted by Ex-Ithacan

I have a feeling if you asked native New Yorkers, most would say the east ends at the Hudson River and the west starts at Jersey City.

Not the east, the world.

Heck, not the world, the universe.

[Sun Belt]

Originally Posted by ThePhun1

Dodge City would never be considered western? Kansas can be considered western, even though it shouldn't.

It depends. Are we talking about today's world, or 1875?

[Pedestrian]

The European settlement of San Francisco began in 1774 after a Spanish exploratory party had reached it in 1769. The usual date of the still-existing Mission is 1776:


https://missiontour.org/wp/sanfranci...o-de-asis.html

It is clearly a "western city" since you can't go much farther west on the North American continent and, as the city's song says, "You're the heart of all the golden West."

I think that relatively early founding date and its extreme western location puts it in the running for "first western city".

[SHiRO]

Istanbul

[Crawford]

What about Europe? Vienna? Prague? Berlin?