RoadsideThoughts
A Gazetteer for the United States and Canada
Home >> State of Iowa >> Dubuque County >> Cottage Hill >> Tidbits & TriviaIndex...

Outdoor Activities ...

As we travel, we like to pursue some of our interests (such as astronomy and bird watching).

When in Cottage Hill, we use the following websites to find information relevant to Cottage Hill and the surrounding area.

  • Weather ...
  • Astronomy & Satellites ...
    • Whether using binoculars, a small telescope or the naked-eye, the Heavens-Above website can help you to find your way around the night-time sky. In addition to detailed sky charts, their website will help you find planets, asteriods, comets, satellites and their tracks across the sky.
    • To give accurate results, Heavens-Above requires the latitude and longitude of your location. As a starting point, when we link to Heavens-Above, we pass this GPS location for Cottage Hill:
    • 42.585275, -90.913740
    • Once you're on the Heavens-Above website, you can improve its accuracy by giving a more precise longitude and latitude as your actual position.
    • Open the Heavens-Above website centered on Cottage Hill
  • Bird Watching ...
    • We enjoy finding new spots for bird watching and we use the eBird website for local sighting reports and to help identify hotspots.
    • The eBird website is organized on a county-by-county basis. We have selected Dubuque County as the starting point when you click on the link below:
    • Open the eBird sighting report for Dubuque County
    • Since Cottage Hill is near Clayton County and also Grant County, we have provided a link to their eBird sighting reports:
    • Open the eBird sighting report for Clayton County
    • Open the eBird sighting report for Grant County
  • Waymarking ...
    • Looking for somewhere out of the ordinary? Find a unique place and want to share it with others? Then it's time to visit Waymarking.com:
    • Open the Waymark.com report for Cottage Hill

Communities Also Named Cottage Hill ...

We found eleven communities that are also named Cottage Hill.

Within Iowa, the name Cottage Hill is unique.

Beyond Iowa, we know of eleven communities that are located in the United States.

  • Communities Elsewhere In North America ...
    • Alabama
      • Jefferson County
      • This Cottage Hill is located in Jefferson County and lies 663 miles [1,067 km]<1> to the south southeast of the Cottage Hill that is located in Dubuque County.
      • For more information, please visit our profile page for the Jefferson County community of Cottage Hill.
      • Mobile County
      • This Cottage Hill is located in Mobile County and lies 838 miles [1,348.6 km] to the south of the Cottage Hill that is located in Dubuque County.
      • For more information, please visit our profile page for the Mobile County community of Cottage Hill.
      • Saint Clair County
      • We found mention of this community, but have little information.<2> For the information that we do have, please visit our profile page for the Alabama community of Cottage Hill [Saint Clair County].
    • Arkansas
      • Benton County
      • This community is historic<3> and we have very little information. For the information that we do have, please visit our profile page for the Arkansas community of Cottage Hill [Benton County].
    • Florida
      • Escambia County
      • This Cottage Hill is located in Escambia County and lies 848 miles [1,364.7 km]<1> to the south southeast of the Cottage Hill that is located in Dubuque County.
      • For more information, please visit our profile page for the Escambia County community of Cottage Hill.
    • Illinois
      • Putnam County
      • We found mention of this community, but have little information.<2> For the information that we do have, please visit our profile page for the Illinois community of Cottage Hill [Putnam County].
    • Indiana
      • Clay County
      • This Cottage Hill is located in Clay County and lies 288 miles [463.5 km]<1> to the southeast of the Cottage Hill that is located in Dubuque County.
      • For more information, please visit our profile page for the Clay County community of Cottage Hill.
    • Kansas
      • Marshall County
      • This Cottage Hill is located in Marshall County and lies 367 miles [590.6 km]<1> to the west southwest of the Cottage Hill that is located in Dubuque County.
      • For more information, please visit our profile page for the Marshall County community of Cottage Hill.
    • Massachusetts
      • Suffolk County
      • This Cottage Hill is located in Suffolk County and lies 1,013 miles [1,630.3 km]<1> to the east of the Cottage Hill that is located in Dubuque County.
      • For more information, please visit our profile page for the Suffolk County community of Cottage Hill.
    • Ohio
      • Muskingum County
      • This Cottage Hill is located in Muskingum County and lies 485 miles [780.5 km]<1> to the east southeast of the Cottage Hill that is located in Dubuque County.
      • For more information, please visit our profile page for the Muskingum County community of Cottage Hill.
    • Pennsylvania
      • Clarion County
      • This Cottage Hill is located in Clarion County and lies 604 miles [972 km]<1> to the east of the Cottage Hill that is located in Dubuque County.
      • For more information, please visit our profile page for the Clarion County community of Cottage Hill.

Curious and Interesting Names Near Cottage Hill ...

As we travel, we always see a community with a name that gives pause. While there are names which are interesting or familiar, some catch our attention or strike our fancy. We always wonder about such a name. If time permits and the community is not too far, we'll usually try to make a side-trip.

  • Balltown
    (4 miles [6.4 km] to the northeast)
    • Balltown is located in Dubuque County
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Balltown
    • Population from the 2020 Census: 69 people
  • Budd
    (6 miles [9.7 km] to the southeast)
    • Budd is located in Dubuque County
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Budd
  • Five Points
    (3 miles [4.8 km] to the southeast)
    • Five Points is located in Dubuque County
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Five Points
  • Holy Cross
    (4 miles [6.4 km] to the west)
    • Holy Cross is located in Dubuque County
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Holy Cross
    • Population from the 2020 Census: 370 people
  • Kidder
    (8 miles [12.9 km] to the south)
    • Kidder is located in Dubuque County
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Kidder
  • Lore
    (7 miles [11.3 km] to the southeast)
    • Lore is located in Dubuque County
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Lore
  • Rose
    (10 miles [16.1 km] to the east)
    • Rose is located in Dubuque County
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Rose
  • Sageville
    (10 miles [16.1 km] to the east)
    • Sageville is located in Dubuque County
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Sageville
    • Population from the 2020 Census: 100 people
  • Turkey River
    (10 miles [16.1 km] to the northwest)
    • Turkey River is located in Clayton County
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Turkey River
  • Twin Springs
    (6 miles [9.7 km] to the southeast)
    • Twin Springs is located in Dubuque County
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Twin Springs

How Far From Cottage Hill to ...

We spend a lot of time looking through Gazetteers, Almanacs & Directories that were published in the late 1800's and early 1900's. Many of the Gazetteers include the distance from a community such as Cottage Hill to various places of note, such as the White House.

With a nod to our favorite Gazetteers, the straight-line distance beginning in Cottage Hill and extending to:

  • Dubuque, which is the Seat of Dubuque County, lies 13 miles [20.9 km]<1> to the east southeast. If you could walk a straight line from Cottage Hill to Dubuque, with an average speed<4> of 2.2 miles [3.5 km] per hour, it would take 6 hours to make the trip. A horse and buggy averaging 3.2 miles [5.1 km] per hour would take four to five hours.
  • Des Moines, which is the State Capital of Iowa, lies 154 miles [247.8 km] to the west southwest (WSW). Driving, with an average speed of 63 miles [101.4 km] per hour, would take less than three hours, a buggy would take 6 days and walking would take 9 days.
  • The White House (Washington, DC) is 768 miles [1,236 km] to the east southeast (ESE). Driving would take just about two full days, a buggy would take 30 days and walking would take 44 days.
  • The shortest distance<5> to Jerusalem (specifically the Temple Mount and the Dome of the Rock) is 6,265 miles [10,082.5 km] and it lies to the northeast (NE).<6>
  • The distance to the Great Mosque of Mecca (specifically the Ka'bah - or Kaaba ) is 7,011 miles [11,283.1 km] and it lies to the northeast (NE).<7>
  • The distance to Saint Peter's Basilica (The Vatican) is 4,903 miles [7,890.6 km] and it lies to the northeast (NE).<8>'

Footnotes ...

<1>Our distances are not driving distances, but are calculated as a 'point-to-point' distance. A straight line distance ignores things like rivers, canyons, lakes, et cetera - it's truly a line drawn from Point A (ie- Cottage Hill) to Point B. In other words: 'As the crow flies'.
<2>If we encounter the name of what might be a community, our methodology is to add that name to our Gazetteer as a placeholder. As we find more information about that community, it will be added to our Gazetteer.

Just as a reminder: Our definition of a community is rather broad and includes those places (or areas) where several families lived and had a name which identified that place. For example, you might hear somebody say that they are going over to Rock Creek to see Pete ... Rock Creek is just a gas station and a couple of homes at the crossroads. While it might not be on the map, everybody in the area knows it by that name.

Places of interest include buildings at a crossroad, several families clustered in a hollow or maybe the location of a way station. It also includes places like mines, lumber camps, ferry crossings, etc. The community might still exist, is now gone or only existed for just a short period of time.

Also keep in mind that Cottage Hill could have been on the original document by mistake, misspelled, the original/alternate name of a community that we've listed elsewhere or was placed in the wrong county. Sometimes a post office or train station would have a different name than the community where it's located, so two names might be referring to the same community - we're working to straighten it all out.
<3>We use the term 'Historic' broadly and it generally means that the community no longer exists. However, it can also mean that the community might still exist, but was significantly larger or had a more 'official' existence in the past than it does now. Unfortunately our sources of data have proven to be unreliable. If you can provide us with more specific information about Cottage Hill, please let us know so that we can improve our accuracy.
<4>While we have tried to pick reasonable speeds, the rate of travel is very theoretical - obstacles like fences, hills, lakes, river crossings and rest stops have been ignored. When we say 'Days' of travel, we're assuming 8 hours of travel per day.
<5>The shortest line can be visualized by stretching a string on a Globe from Point A to Point B - this is known as a Great Circle Route. Where you might expect the shortest route from Cottage Hill to the Middle East to be East and South, the Great Circle Route actually lies to the North and East.Our distance measurements begin at a specific point in Cottage Hill. The point we use is located at these GPS coordinates - Latitude: 42.5853, Longitude: -90.9137       In this case, the coordinates for Cottage Hill have been provided by the Geographic Names Information System (GNIS).
<6>The calculated bearing (or angle) to Jerusalem is 316.647 degrees.
<7>The calculated bearing (or angle) to Mecca is 313.954 degrees.
<8>The calculated bearing (or angle) to the Vatican is 310.026 degrees.