Originally Posted by
callen
Maybe it's just me & I may have a "sick" mind but INTERCOURSE, PA - are you kidding? Could they not find a more appropriate name than that for their City???
Please turn your mind to pure and honest thinking. It used to be when one was talking to another, there were interacting, thus they were having intercourse with one another. Many books written in the time period of when this town was named used the word intercourse in this way. I've lived in PA all my life and we occasionally use the towns in that area as the butt of our jokes, but we really don't take our jokes seriously. I would take the town of Whiskey Run more seriously. It was a town of bootlegging during the prohibition that was inhabited by the mob. Intercourse is in the midst of the Amish! I'll let you do your own research about them.
Wikipedia says:
Intercourse was founded in 1754. The community was originally named Cross Keys, after a local tavern. Intercourse became the name in 1814. The village website gives several theories for the origins of the name.
"Another theory concerns two famous roads that crossed here. The Old King's highway from Philadelphia to Pittsburgh (now the Old Philadelphia Pike) ran east and west through the center of the town. The road from Wilmington to Erie intersected in the middle. The joining of these two roads is claimed by some to be the basis for the town 'Cross Keys' or eventually 'Intercourse'.[SUP]
[1][/SUP] A final idea comes from the use of language during the early days of the Village. The word 'intercourse' was commonly used to describe the 'fellowship' and 'social interaction and support' shared in the community of faith, which was much a part of a rural village like this one."[SUP]
[1][/SUP]