The second in what will be a continuing series . . .
The name of Lanexa has always perplexed me. Originating in 1882 as the name of a train stop on the just completed Peninsula Extension railroad it bears a striking resemblance to only one other location that I know of in the United States. That is Lenexa Kansas, founded in 1869 in the vicinity of Kansas City. That name is said to originate in the name of the wife of the local Shawnee Chief Blackhoof spelled a variety of ways including "Na Nex Se" or "Len Ag See."
But what does that have to do with Tidewater Virginia?
Well there may be a clue.
The Virginia Gazette of October 10, 2022 included an article titled The Rise and Fall and Rise Again of Toano by Frank Statz. In it I found this . ..
In 1881 the Chesapeake & Ohio Railway expanded and laid track through the center of Burnt Ordinary. The crew that had been working on the Union & Pacific Railroad in the Sierra Nevada Mountains before coming to this area. They notice that the land ran uphill from Windsor Shades to to Burnt Ordinary.
In 1883, the village was renamed Toano, named for the Paiute Indian word meaning "high ground.
So we have a Western Indian name being used for a stop on the railroad in 1881. Could Lanexa have also originated from the mind of a railway-man just back from the West?
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