Bristol - Places in the USA

Every time I did a search on the web for 'Bristol' I would get millions of hits (over 2 million in fact) lots of these were companies but a lot were from places named Bristol in the USA. I decided to take a break from the research for my history pages and investigate these other Bristols. I've always known there were places called Bristol in the US, but I thought there were about five of them, I managed to find 28 of them in North America and a few in other countries as well.

The Bristols I've visited are marked in blue, the ones I've yet to see are those in red.

There are people who visit all of these Bristols. I hope to, but not all in one go. Here's the site of someone who did it.

Starting from New York, this is way I would plan the route. It's only a suggestion of course, but it seems a reasonable way to set about visiting all of them.

Start point	Destination	Time (Hours)	Main roads	Distance (Miles)	Direction
New York	Bristol, Connecticut	2	I 95 N / CT 8 N	109	NE
Bristol, Connecticut	Bristol, Rhode Island	2.5	I 95 N	132	E
Bristol, Rhode Island	Taunton, Massachusetts (*1)	0.5	RI 24 N	30	N
Taunton, Massachusetts (*1)	Bristol, New Hampshire	2.5	I 93 N	142	N
Bristol, New Hampshire	Bristol, Maine (*2)	4	I 95 N / US 1 N	191	NE
Bristol, Maine (*2)	Bristol, Vermont	6	I 95 S / I 89 N	310	E
Bristol, Vermont	Bristol, New York (*3)	6.5	I 90 W	317	NW
Bristol, New York (*3)	Bristol, Michigan	9	PR 402 W / I 69 W	525	W
Bristol, Michigan	Bristol, Indiana	3.5	US 131 S	183	S
Bristol, Indiana	Bristol, Illinois	3	I 80 W	168	W
Bristol, Illinois	Bristol, Wisconsin	2	I 88 E / I 294 / I 94 W	95	N
Bristol, Wisconsin	Bristol, Minnesota	6	I 90 W	313	NW
Bristol, Minnesota	Bristol, Iowa	2.5	I 90 W	96	SW
Bristol, Iowa	Bristol, South Dakota	6.5	I 90 W / I 29 N	353	NW
Bristol, South Dakota	Bristol, Washington	24.5	I 94 W / I 90 W	1,479	W
Bristol, Washington	Bristol, Nevada	17.5	I 82 E / I 84 E / US 93	889	SE
Bristol, Nevada	Bristol, Colorado	19	US 50 E	867	E
Bristol, Colorado	Bristol, Kansas City, Missouri (*4)	10.5	I 35 N	498	E
Bristol, Kansas City, Missouri	Bristol, Texas	10	I 35 S	585	S
Bristol, Colorado	Bristol, Texas (*5)	14	US 270 / I 35 S	647	SE
Bristol, Texas	Bristol, Louisiana	7	I 20 E / I 49 S	398	SE
Bristol, Louisiana	Bristol, Florida	8.5	I 10 E	482	E
Bristol, Florida	Bristol, Georgia	5.5	US 84	209	NE
Bristol, Georgia	Bristol, Tennessee / Virginia	10	US 1 / GA 15	441	N
Bristol, Tennessee / Virginia	Bristol, Ohio	6	I 77 N	327	N
Bristol, Ohio	Bristol, West Virginia	2.5	I 77 S	111	SE
Bristol, West Virginia	Bristol, Maryland	4.5	I 68 E	278	E
Bristol, Maryland	Bristol, Pennsylvania	3	I 895 N / I 95 N	159	NE
Bristol, Pennsylvania	Bristol, New Jersey	2	I 95 S / NJ 42 S	104	N
Bristol, New Jersey	New York	2.5	US 9 N	148	NE

The total round trip would be just short of 10,000 miles and take at least 200 hours of driving. Taking the "side" trips to Canada would add around 4,000 miles. I used the MapQuest Road Trip Planner to help prepare the above table.

*2 - From Bristol, Maine you can continue into Canada to visit the Bristols in New Brunswick and Newfoundland & Labrador, but add about 3,000 miles to the round trip.

*3 - From Bristol, New York you can continue into Canada to visit Bristol, Quebec, but add another 600 miles to the round trip. Another problem with this stage is that to get from Bristol, New York to Bristol, Michigan you can either go south around the Great Lakes or cut through Canada, saving a couple of hundred miles off the trip. This trip assumes cutting through Canada, incidentally this way you go through London, Ontario.

State	Population (1990)	Population (2000)
Connecticut	60,640	60,062
Massachusetts	50,623	N/A
Tennessee / Virginia	41,847	42,188
Tennessee	23,421	24,821
Rhode Island	21,625	22,469
Virginia	18,426	17,367
Pennsylvania	10,405	9,923
Illinois	5,598	N/A
Wisconsin	1,850	4,538
Vermont	1,801	3,788
New Hampshire	1,483	3,033
Maine	825	2,644
New York	2,071	2,421
Indiana	1,133	1,382
Georgia	1,361	N/A
Florida	937	845
Minnesota	385	499
South Dakota	419	377
Iowa	258	202
Ohio	173	N/A

Some of these places seem to be very small and only a few of them have any web presence at all. Although I haven't set out to systematically visit all of them the following pages contain photographs of the ones that I've been to. The first I managed to get to was the one in Indiana. In October 2000, Patty and I visited a friend in Chicago, on the way back to Terre Haute we stopped off to visit the town.

Patty's parents are "SnowBirds", that is they live in one part of the country, in this case Illinois, and move somewhere warmer in the winter. In their case it's southern Florida. In January 2002 we visited them in their winter home, on the way down we visited the Bristols in Tennessee/Virginia and Georgia and on the way back the one in Florida. Getting close to Bristol, Georgia I was going a bit fast and got stopped by the police. He asked for my ID and driving license when I gave him my British passport and UK driving license I think I surprised him a bit. He asked if my driving license was valid in the US, I said yes. I'm fairly certain it is, but don't know for sure. Luckily for me, after warning me that he could actually jail me while they check out my documents he let me go on my, much slower, way.

In July 2002 we visited Patty's brother in Minneapolis, Minnesota. On the way we went to the Bristol's in Illinois, Wisconsin, Minnesota and Iowa. One day her brother and wife both had to work so we took a trip to Bristol, South Dakota. It was quite a daytrip as it's over 250 miles each way.

Bristol, Rhode Island, was founded in 1680, by four wealthy Boston merchants: John Walley, Stephen Burton, Nathaniel Byfield and Nathaniel Oliver. Together they bought the Mount Hope Lands from the Plymouth Colony. These lands extended from Mount Hope on the east to Narragansett Bay on the west, and six miles to the north. This peninsula of 21 square miles cost them eleven hundred pounds.

At that time New England was a colony of England. It was Charles II of England who granted permission for the purchase of the Mount Hope Lands. The document was signed at Windsor Castle on June 12, 1677. The four owners of Bristol immediately set about to develop an urban plan. They traced perpendicular streets and avenues and divided the land into lots for houses, farms, schools, churches, parks, cemeteries and government buildings. Apart from the four founders lots were also purchased by Benjamin Church, the Indian fighter of the Plymouth Colony

Most of these places are named after Bristol, England but Derek Bailey who now lives in Colorado, USA emailed me to say that the Bristol there in Prowers County, Colorado, is named after a man named C. H. Bristol who was the Superintendent of the Santa Fe Railroad.

A small, tidy community we visited in January 2002, on the way back from Florida to Indiana. The population, in 1990, was 937, quite a bit smaller than Bristol, England and its half million.

We passed through this tiny little place on the way from Indiana to Florida in December 2001. It was, unfortunately, dark at the time and the only photo that I managed to take that came out properly was this one of an advertisement for the Thanksgiving service from November.

State	Founded
Rhode Island	1680
Pennsylvania	1681
Maine	1765
New York	1778
Connecticut	1785
Vermont	1789
Ohio	1804
Indiana	1834
Tennessee / Virginia	1850