RoadsideThoughts
A Gazetteer for the United States and Canada
Home >> State of Virginia >> Appomattox County >> Spring Mills >> Tidbits & TriviaIndex...

Outdoor Activities ...

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

When in Spring Mills, we use the following websites to find information relevant to Spring Mills 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 Spring Mills:
    • 37.244429, -78.919139
    • 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 Spring Mills
  • 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 Appomattox County as the starting point when you click on the link below:
    • Open the eBird sighting report for Appomattox County
    • Since Spring Mills is near Campbell County and also Charlotte County, we have provided a link to their eBird sighting reports:
    • Open the eBird sighting report for Campbell County
    • Open the eBird sighting report for Charlotte 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 Spring Mills

Communities Also Named Spring Mills ...

We found seven communities that are also named Spring Mills.

Within Virginia, the name Spring Mills is unique.

Beyond Virginia, we know of seven communities that are located in the United States.

  • Communities Elsewhere In North America ...
    • Maryland
      • Carroll County
      • This Spring Mills is located in Carroll County and lies 189 miles [304.2 km]<1> to the north northeast of the Spring Mills that is located in Appomattox County.
      • For more information, please visit our profile page for the Carroll County community of Spring Mills.
    • Michigan
      • Oakland 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 Michigan community of Spring Mills [Oakland County].
    • New Jersey
      • Hunterdon County
      • This Spring Mills is located in Hunterdon County and lies 308 miles [495.7 km]<1> to the northeast of the Spring Mills that is located in Appomattox County.
      • For more information, please visit our profile page for the Hunterdon County community of Spring Mills.
    • New York
      • Allegany County
      • This Spring Mills is located in Allegany County and lies 334 miles [537.5 km]<1> to the north of the Spring Mills that is located in Appomattox County.
      • For more information, please visit our profile page for the Allegany County community of Spring Mills.
    • Pennsylvania
      • Centre County
      • This Spring Mills is located in Centre County and lies 259 miles [416.8 km]<1> to the north northeast of the Spring Mills that is located in Appomattox County.
      • For more information, please visit our profile page for the Centre County community of Spring Mills.
    • South Carolina
      • Lancaster 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 South Carolina community of Spring Mills [Lancaster County].
    • West Virginia
      • Berkeley County
      • This Spring Mills is located in Berkeley County and lies 168 miles [270.4 km]<1> to the north northeast of the Spring Mills that is located in Appomattox County.
      • For more information, please visit our profile page for the Berkeley County community of Spring Mills.

Curious and Interesting Names Near Spring Mills ...

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.

How Far From Spring Mills to ...

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

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

  • Appomattox, which is the Seat of Appomattox County, lies 9 miles [14.5 km]<1> to the north northeast. If you could walk a straight line from Spring Mills to Appomattox, with an average speed<4> of 2.2 miles [3.5 km] per hour, it would take four to five hours to make the trip. A horse and buggy averaging 3.2 miles [5.1 km] per hour would take a little over three hours.
  • Richmond, which is the State Capital of Virginia, lies 83 miles [133.6 km] to the east northeast (ENE). Driving, with an average speed of 63 miles [101.4 km] per hour, would take less than two hours, a buggy would take most of three days and walking would take 5 days.
  • The White House (Washington, DC) is 153 miles [246.2 km] to the northeast (NE). Driving would take less than three hours, a buggy would take 6 days and walking would take 9 days.
  • The shortest distance<5> to Jerusalem (specifically the Temple Mount and the Dome of the Rock) is 6,049 miles [9,734.9 km] and it lies to the northeast (NE).<6>
  • The distance to the Great Mosque of Mecca (specifically the Ka'bah - or Kaaba ) is 6,751 miles [10,864.7 km] and it lies to the northeast (NE).<7>
  • The distance to Saint Peter's Basilica (The Vatican) is 4,629 miles [7,449.7 km] and it lies to the northeast (NE).<8>'

Footnotes ...

<1>Our distances are not driving distances, but are calculated as a 'straight-line' distance. A straight line distance ignores things like rivers, canyons, lakes, et cetera - it's truly a line from Point A (ie- Spring Mills) 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 Spring Mills 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>While we're fans and frequent users of TripAdvisor, you should know that we're also members of the TripAdvisor affiliate program.
<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 Spring Mills 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 Spring Mills. The point we use is located at these GPS coordinates - Latitude: 37.2444, Longitude: -78.9191       In this case, the coordinates for Spring Mills have been provided by the Geographic Names Information System (GNIS).
<6>The calculated bearing (or angle) to Jerusalem is 309.073 degrees.
<7>The calculated bearing (or angle) to Mecca is 304.536 degrees.
<8>The calculated bearing (or angle) to the Vatican is 306.093 degrees.