Its sign has been stolen over and over, but one thing that can’t be taken away from Katies Crotch Road is its mystery.
The road in Maine with the intriguing name off Route 16 connecting Embden and New Portland has had its share of vandalism and controversy, enough so that town officials unsuccessfully proposed at last Saturday’s annual Town Meeting to change the name to Katies Road.
But while residents are attached to the name, no one is sure which story about its origin – some more colourful than others – is the right one.
Marilyn Gorman, 78, said the road has been known as Katies Crotch since long before there were street signs in town.
Gorman has lived in adjacent New Portland all her life and has researched the area’s history as secretary and treasurer of the New Portland Historical Society.
“I have never found anything written down about the Katies Crotch Road,” she said.
The most logical story she’s heard about how the road got its name came from Harold “Bucky” Emery, who was ahead of her in school.
Emery told her that his father told him a family with the last name Katie used to live at the intersection with Route 16, and “crotch” referred to the V shape of the intersection.
“Where the house would have sat would have been in the middle of what you’d call the crotch,” she said. “If that part of it is true.”
People tell different stories about the name of the road, she said, but “I think they make up things.”
One story is that there used to be a tavern on the road run by a woman named Katie. In another story, likely made up, a woman named Katie used to live on the road and would sit on her porch while wearing no underwear.
Gorman has looked for people with the last name Katie in the Embden town records but hasn’t found any, though records are incomplete. And with another generation disappearing, it’s likely the origin of the road’s name won’t become any clearer.
“All the people I knew as a kid have passed on. All my relatives that were here for generations, everybody’s gone,” she said.
Gorman thinks Embden residents made the right decision to keep the road name, even though it will probably mean they continue to pay to replace stolen road signs.
Town officials said it cost $200 last year, not including labour, to replace the road’s one sign.
“I don’t like messing with history, changing what has been, unless there’s a darn good reason for it,” she said. “That’s what it’s always been. That’s there, and that’s the way it is.”
German police received an emergency call, saying that a cow was waiting on a train platform.
Police later discovered that the cow was in fact a life-sized replica cow which had been placed on the Steinfurt railway station platform.
Following an investigation, they found that the cow had been stolen from a nearby garden by pranksters the night before and abandoned at the station.
The cow’s owner Bernie Schmidt said it was not the first and probably would not be the last time such an incident occurred.
‘It’s always being stolen,’ he said.’ People have a few drinks and think it would be a very funny thing to do.’
He added: ‘We have her in the garden because it’s a bit classier than a gnome.’
A Cessna 182 turned up missing on Jan. 28 from a hangar at Athens Municipal Airport.
Following a tip from an 8-year-old boy, deputies were able to recover the plane reported stolen from the East Texas airport.
Nacogdoches County Sheriff Thomas Kerss says online news stories about the theft included the plane’s U.S. registration, known as the N-number.
Kerss told the Nacogdoches Daily Sentinel that the boy Monday afternoon noticed a plane had just landed on a private airstrip. The child went to a computer, verified the tail’s N-number was the same as the stolen aircraft, then told his father.
Deputies were notified and arrested Terry Lynn Boozer near the airstrip.
He remained in custody Wednesday on a felony theft charge.
Australia’s National Gallery of Victoria reported the theft of a Richard Parkes Bonington oil painting, 12 years after it was first noticed missing.
The Melbourne museum said the theft of the $202,000 painting, Low Tide at Boulogne, was not reported earlier because officials believed it may have been misplaced, The Daily Telegraph, Britain, reported Wednesday.
The painting, believed to have been created in 1824, is thought to have gone missing in 1999 when the 65,000 works possessed by the museum were temporarily relocated for renovations.
The artwork has now been reported stolen and listed on the International Art Loss Register.
Dutch police in the eastern town of Enter are investigating the theft of the country’s largest clog.
The clog disappeared without trace from Enter’s main street, a police spokeswoman said.
“We don’t know who stole it, but it’s disappeared,” Rosita de Vries said of the clog, which at four metres (13 feet) in length, two metres (6.5 feet) high and weighing almost two tonnes is the largest example of the Dutch icon.
“It is a joke. We even received an email announcing that the shoe will probably be back after Carnival,” in mid-February, she said, adding it was believed the shoe disappeared on Friday night or early on Saturday.
Police however failed to trace the email and inquiries lead to nowhere.
“They (the thieves) would have had a truck to fly off with this shoe,” De Vries said.
“Even if it was done as a joke, the thieves will answer in court for their actions.”
Levi Cole from Oregon teaches a class on how to raise and butcher rabbits. He said that 23 rabbits were stolen from his property.
Cole, who is a farmer and instructor for the Portland Meat Collective said the rabbits were taken from his property on Saturday, the day before a planned class on raising, slaughtering and food preparation of rabbits.
Cole said the that thieves left nine nursing baby rabbits behind and the young rabbits died on Sunday as he was unable to find a foster animal.
He says he believes that the incident was a politically-motivated theft.
Camas Davis, the owner of the Portland Meat Collective, said that the theft was a first for the group.
“We get an occasional comment on the Web site, some people who are angry at our existence,” she told the newspaper.
“Something like that is not about a dialogue at all; it’s the opposite,” she said. “I don’t want involvement with the Portland Meat Collective to mean your animals are in danger of being stolen.”
Cole said police are investigating the theft.
