The myriad faces of Princeton

Decades ago, as a teenager in southern Kentucky, Gale Cherry picked up a hitchhiker who wanted a ride to Princeton.

After driving for a few minutes, though, Cherry realized that the traveler was bound not for her own small Kentucky town of Princeton but for Princeton, N.J.

"This was before we knew there were other counties in the world," Cherry said in her pronounced southern drawl. She is now mayor of Princeton, Ky.

Across the United States and Canada, there are at least 22 towns called Princeton. They range from a 0.7 square-mile town in South Carolina with a population of 65 to a Florida principality located in the heart of Miami-Dade County.

Princeton, Fla., was founded by Gaston Drake, Class of 1894, who named the town after his alma mater and colored the buildings orange and black in its honor.

For other towns, however, the Princeton name was bestowed by founders who had no affiliation with the University. Princeton, Ky., for example, was originally called "Princetown" after an early settler named William Prince. The University's home was also named for a William, albeit one with a more royal pedigree: Prince William of Orange and Nassau, who ascended to the English throne with his wife Mary Stuart after the Glorious Revolution of 1688.

Many Princetons take pride in their local flavors and historical legacies, scorning any attempt to capitalize on sharing an appellation with the University.

Matthew Schneider, mayor of Princeton, Wis., said his town's name sparks the occasional "I graduated from Princeton" joke. But, he said, the town boasts its own unique reputation.

With only a single gas station and no stoplights, Princeton, Wis., residents revel in the deer-hunting, fishing and canoeing available nearby. "You ever been to Smalltown, America?" Schneider asked. "That's what Princeton, Wisconsin's like."

"There's a lot of small towns around the area," he added, "but this is where you are; this is where you're proud to be from. There's pride in the fact; there's no shame in it."

Kentucky's Princeton also emphasizes its own heritage, but has focused on commercial and industrial development as well. Recently, it received the Kentucky League of Cities' Enterprise City Award for its efforts to restore over 40 downtown buildings. Visitors to the town can also watch a movie in one of the oldest working movie theaters in the state, which was designed in the art-deco style. Each year, the town holds a Black Patch festival to commemorate a 1906 uprising of farmers protesting a tobacco monopoly. The uprising was the third largest in U.S. history, Cherry said.

This emphasis on local color and events leaves Princeton, Ky., residents little time to think about other Princetons, Cherry said. In fact, she added, "I would say they think about it none at all."

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In Princeton, Minn., local pride stems from the legacy of John Prince, an 18th-century sawmill builder who set up a logging industry in the area that thrived for many years. More recently, the town has dabbled in potato production, dairy and a federally owned flight service station operated by Lockheed-Martin.

It was the area's rich pine forests, however, that provided the initial impetus for growth, town mayor Jeremy Riddle said, adding that people haven't forgotten the town's roots.

"There's a sense of history that goes right along with us at Princeton, and people are happy about that," Riddle, who also works as a veterinarian, said.

Though other Princetons may seem distinctly different from Princeton, N.J., Joseph Forkey '96 decided to settle in another town of the same name after he graduated from the University.

He moved to Princeton, Mass., about a decade ago. Both towns, he said, share a "colonial" atmosphere, "in terms of the desire to hold on to the historical aspects of the town."

"There's a lot of history in the two places," he said. "Princeton, Mass., doesn't have a Nassau Hall, but it's sort of embedded in the whole colonial tradition."

The Massachusetts town's desire to preserve its New England ambience, Forkey said, is manifested in a town ordinance forbidding commercial signs downtown. Additionally, the town makes an effort to keep up such colonial-era institutions as the village green, town hall and white-steepled church.

While residents of other Princetons make an effort to distinguish their town from the University, the mayors interviewed said the identical names can lead to confusion.

Several weeks ago, for example, Riddle was contacted by a woman complaining about the decision to put to death a German Shepherd named Congo who had attacked a gardener. It turned out, though, that she had contacted the wrong Princeton mayor — the case was big news, but in Princeton, N.J.

"I thought it was kind of interesting, because I got this ornery email about how horrible this judge was," Riddle said. "I had to do some research and tell her she had the wrong person."

The confusion seems to only go one way, however, at least according to the University's mail services. "I can't remember seeing anything like that showing up here," Mail Services Manager Dave Balitz said.

But postal problems were an issue for Forkey when he switched Princetons.

"For the first six months," he said, "I always wrote the wrong zip code."