Unusual town names on the decline

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RALEIGH, N.C., May 4 (UPI) -- A North Carolina historian said U.S. towns with unusual names, such as Grubville, Mo., and Battiest, Okla., are slowly disappearing.

Mike Hill of the North Carolina Office of Archives and History said the unusual town names, which were often given by settlers as a joke, are being replaced with more commonplace names dreamed up by developers to drum up interest in real estate, USA Today reported Friday.

"For the most part," Hill said, "we stopped making good new place names a long time ago."

USA Today said the U.S. Postal Service is seeking to close post offices in small towns, many of which bear unusual names such as Beetown, Wis., and Dwarf, Ky., as their populations dropped between the Census counts of 2000 and 2010, while the overall U.S. population increased 10 percent.