The Last Really Cool Jobs

Before baristas, energy futures traders, online auction consultants, and pet psychologists roamed the Earth, what were the great jobs to have??  Here are two that just don't exist anymore, that must have been cool:

Street Namers

Think about it.  They're all taken.  Main Streets, Oak Streets, Elm Streets.  Must've been either people with a tree fetish, or NO imagination (1st Street, 2nd Street).  I totally get Broadway, but just who exactly are all the King Streets named after, anyway??  King George?  King Kong?  King Vitaman??  [King Vitaman, incidentally, and Captain Crunch, will SHRED the roof of your mouth. You have been warned.] And what's the deal with Boulevard and Avenue??  A sign-maker who charged by the letter??  That would explain the names of two roads near where I live.  "Upper Grassy Hill Road" and "Hoop Hole Hill Road." 

Nowadays, only the purveyors of suburban sprawl get to name their new cul-de-sacs, and they've got NO imagination whatsoever!  They either name the roads after their daughters, or try to sound British, like "Wintonbury Court." 

State Line Makers

Now THIS is a lost art!  And very reflective of differing abilities, hostilities, and geometric approaches--yes, geometric, not geographic.  I'll explain.

Cubist:  Wyoming, Colorado.

Left-right brained:  Texas.  Linear on the western side, groovy on the north and east borders.

Dislexic:  They assigned the same person to do Missouri, and then its up/down mirror image to the South, Arkansas. 

Unable to swim (or lazy):  The folks who stopped at the water's edge.  See Ohio, Kentucky, Vermont, New Hampshire.  And how about the team assigned to map westward from Montana to Idaho.  "Well, we started out good and straight, but look at those mountains, Charlie!   Aw screw it, find a river, draw a line, and just fill in the rest."

Vengeful (or drunk):  No other way to describe the infamous Soutwick Jog/Granby Notch between Massachusetts and Connecticut, and Michgan's Upper Peninsula, perched atop Wisconsin.  Clearly someone wanted to keep their next-door neighbors in Massachusetts.  "Okay, Helen, your Mother can move in next-door, but there's no way she's living in this state!" 

Stoned (or late to the game):  The dudes who did West Virginia and Maryland.  Shape-wise, they're my two favorite states, but those guys either showed up to work really late, after all the surrounding land was claimed... or really stoned, and got really, really creative. 

Either way, those must've been cool jobs.