[Kenswing]

Originally Posted by Wiotte

My immediate mission. Why is the Pacific North West called the Pacific North West ? Obviously if it’s the North West it’s the Pacific North West. Should we call the North East the Atlantic North East too ? I think our Pacific North West NOTHING brother needs to enlighten the rest of us.


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This might be NOTHING but BS but it's the best I could find before heading out to work..

In US history, the term Northwest originally referred to the territory covered by the Great Lakes states, OH, IN, IL, MI, & WI.

From your US history, you will remember references to the Northwest Ordinance passed by Congress, in the 1780s, under the Articles of Confederation whereby the Atlantic states ceded their interior territories to the Federal government. The NW Ordinance also mandated that slavery would not be allowed. This "old" Northwest was the northwest when the western border of the US was the Mississippi River.

The Pacific NW was acquired in the 1840s so you can see many people were still alive who had grown up thinking of the Northwest as the Great Lakes area, and therefore this "new" Northwest needed to be differentiated in someway from the "old" Northwest.