Source: Futility Closet
When cattle buyers had trouble finding John Byron Plato’s farm, they gave up and went home. “That killed a mighty profitable bargain,” he told a reporter, which “got me thinking about rural addresses.” The buyers had left a note saying “it takes time to find your place.” Plato looked at his watch and saw that it “smiled back the answer.”
Plato’s “clock system” assigns numbers to directions — 12 is due north, 5 is southeast by south, and…