Hi, folks. There was a time when I had too much time on my hands and I studied the Brains Benton books in hopes of locating Crestwood or a reasonable facsimile. I didn't find it.

Just as Verral didn't worry too much about chronology, likewise he created Crestwood to be, as he said, "Anywhere, U.S.A." Undaunted, I searched anyway and decided that Crestwood is a "type" or "kind" of place.

Only 20 miles north is magnificent Lake Carmine, a natural lake with clear waters and a white sandy bottom, where the fishing is famous. Lake Carmine lies east-west, 20 miles long and 10 miles wide at the widest point.

To the east of Crestwood run the Little Elk Mountains (RR, p.33). The foothills begin only a few miles out of town and the town of Crestwood itself is rolling and filled with steep grades (SD, pp.35, 38, 40, 86). The highway that runs past Lake Carmine to Middlebury 40 miles away cuts through hilly, wooded, wild country (MM, p.126, SD, p.141; PD, p.118).

But that said, we might be able to narrow down the geography by discovering where Crestwood ISN'T. Verral may not have had a specific place in mind, but he did at least have a general vision of a type of location.

For example, Crestwood is not in the Southern states, because Mrs. Willoughby in The Case of the Roving Rolls, "had originally come from the South" (p.33). So we might rule out any place south of the Mason-Dixon line. And Crestwood isn't any place that is warm all year, because the town gets ice and snow in the winter and the widow Pruett forgets to salt her sidewalk and gets sued for her negligence.

Crestwood isn't in Califonia, because Jimmy once wanted "zoom out of there and never stop till I hit California" (PD, p.175). Similarly, he once wanted to flee to either California or New York, which seems to put Crestwood somewhere in the middle.

Charles mentioned Wisconsin as his guess for Crestwood's location because in MM some men are listening to a ballgame from Milwaukee. In another place, Jimmy feels like he's been scrimmaging with the Chicago Bears (WM, p.62). Milwaukee and Chicago are geographically close. Did Verral put those words in Jimmy's mouth because he had a general location in mind? Could Lake Winnebago in Wisconsin be the model for Lake Carmine? Well, Lake Winnebago runs north-south, not east-west, and there are no mountains nearby. But it might by a "type" of Lake Carmine.

We're not really looking on a map, we're looking in Verral's mind. He grew up in Toronto and moved to New York City. He probably drew on his life experiences to imagine the details he invented. In that case, Canada's Lake Nipissing directly north of Toronto might make a better model for Lake Carmine if Verral ever visited there.

Here's a few other clues to Crestwood's location:

1) It gets cool at night even in July because Jimmy is wearing a sweater and t-shirt in WM, p.53). That could indicate either a northern clime or high elevation.

2) The trees have already begun to show fall foliage in early to mid- September. "The old trees haven't started shedding their leaves yet, although they've begun to change color, showing yellow and red against the green" (RR, p.95). That was around Sept. 10. That's too early for fall foliage, except for areas in northen tier states next to Canada. A fall foliage progression map indicates northern Wisconsin, Upper Peninsula of Michigan, and upper New York, Vermont, New Hampshire and Maine. But it also includes high elevation terrains in West Virginia and in the mountainous areas of Montana, Idaho,
Wyoming, Colorado and Utah.

3) "Kassabeban time is ten hours ahead" of Crestwood (RR, p.152). My guess is that Kassabeba must have represented one of the small British protectorates (RR, p.97) somewhere on the Saudi Arabian peninsula. Kassabeba might have been one of the tiny, independent emirates that now form the United Arab Emirates. In any case, the Eastern and Pacific time zones are eliminated, placing Crestwood somewhere in the Mountain or Central time zones.

The Central Time Zone lays 10 hours west of the UAE. But other protectorates around the southern end of the Arabian Peninsula would indicate our Mountain Time Zone as the location of Crestwood.

I'm going to lean toward the Mountain Time Zone states at this writing because of the presence of the Little Elk Mountains. Also, because Omar Bevans was the Grand and Glorious Guide and Wagon Master for the Sons of the Pioneers, and they held a rodeo in the same state as Crestwood, and all that makes me think of the West (PD, p.149).

Whatever "state" Crestwood is in, it's near the southeast quarter, because 1) Jimmy refers to "upstate" (MM, p.119; SD, p.100), 2) the state extends at least a 100 miles north of Crestwood (CC, p.154), 3) Brains said a storm "did a lot of damage in the western part of the state. There's been flooding in the Fairfield area," where the rodeo was held (PD, p,167). The Bevans' left the rained-out rodeo in the morning and didn't arrive home until that afternoon. That indicates a large state.

Despite Crestwood's southeast location in the state, the state capitol lies even further south (PD, p.74). Crestwood is not in the extreme SW corner.

Crestwood's location has been pinpointed. It lies in Verral's vision and his readers' dreams :-)

Mark