Kingman Reef

Interesting times politically.  Some people are happy, some unhappy.  But there is certainly change in the air.  One thing that happens with every new administration is that political appointees are expected to tender their resignations.  Which are almost always accepted.  Ah, but what about other government employees, the theoretically non partisan ones?  It can be a lot more work to move them out.  It's simply hard to fire people in Washington D.C.

So, many of them just keep their jobs.  But if the new administration really does not like you or your work, they can always reassign you somewhere else.  Alaska gets mentioned.  As does Iowa.  I've been to both places and they are just fine.  Well, not Alaska in the winter I guess.

But if you want to send a pesky bureaucrat off to the farthest reaches of American territory, off somewhere so remote that you won't hear from them again, I suggest Kingman Reef.

Never heard of it?  Well, its the smallest piece of real estate under the US flag.  It has much nicer weather than Alaska, and sandy beaches that would be the envy of Iowans.

It is about halfway between Hawaii and American Samoa.  So my Off the Map tag is apt.

Even for an out of the way spot it did not get noticed for a long time.  An American sea captain discovered it in 1798.  I assume this was related to whaling, back in the Moby Dick era its about the only reason people were out that far into the South Pacific.  Another captain named Kingman got around to actually describing it in 1853.  He named it after himself.

Now, I've mentioned the Guano Act a few times before.  Big thick layers of seabird droppings were a serious commodity in the 19th century.  Great stuff for fertilizer.  Also for high explosives.  So its no surprise that the United States Guano Company claimed Kingman Reef in 1856.  The fact that there was no actual guano there was considered a technicality.

Not much happened after that.  Occasionally a ship would run aground.

Then in 1922 a certain Lorrin A. Thurston showed up and read a Proclamation declaring the Reef to be American territory.  He seems like a bit of a character.  In addition to various business ventures he was a "volcano enthusiast" and was deeply involved in the overthrow of the Hawaiian monarchy.  One assumes he brought along a flag to raise.

And that's about it.  It was very briefly used as a stop over for Pan Am clipper "flying boats" until a fatal crash.  Today it is a wild life preserve.  Nobody lives there or in fact, is allowed to visit.  

The entire island is 3 feet above water and a little over seven acres in size.  

It seems a pleasant enough place to relocate pesky bureaucrats whose job performance is deemed execrable.  They certainly can't cause much mischief there, and at last there would be a bit of guano being generated, although the United States Guano Company has long since gone bankrupt.