I’ve been on a quest to find out why The Nations is called The Nations. This hasn’t been an easy task, in part because searching Newspapers.com for “The Nations” brings up just about every issue of every paper ever.

(Before I go further, let me note that former Scene staffer J.R. Lind also talked about this some in 2021 for his column Walk a Mile . Go read that too.)

Anyway, I persevered because the conventional wisdom makes no sense. There are two stories:

1. This is the area in which all the Native American nations in the area came together to meet in James Robertson’s front yard and make peace with the new arrivals. So, the area has always been informally referred to as The Nations in honor of that diplomatic feat.

2. It’s called The Nations because all the streets have state

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