Carter Lake

Carter Lake, Iowa

I'm going over our expenses for our road trip to Iowa and I come across a hotel receipt for the night the kids flew into Omaha, except the receipt doesn't say Nebraska, it says Carter Lake, Iowa. How can that be?
     Notice the lake bordering the northern half of the town (above). That lake used to be part of the Mississippi River, until the river decided to take a short cut and cut off this bit of land from Iowa, to which it was formerly connected. This happened in 1877 and has been confusing people ever since.