Columbine High School is the perfect example. Everyone says Littleton, Colorado. Columbine High is not actually in the incorporated City of Littleton. It is in the Columbine area of unincorporated Jefferson County. Littleton is basically the postal address and the recognizable nearby city, so “Littleton” became the national shorthand.

Same thing with Flight 93. Everyone says the plane crashed in Shanksville, Pennsylvania. It actually crashed in Stonycreek Township, outside Shanksville. Shanksville was simply the tiny nearby town that gave reporters a usable dateline. “United 93 crashed in rural Stonycreek Township, Somerset County” apparently did not have the same staying power.

Although “Shanksville” becoming the permanent name for the Todd Beamer plane is almost suspiciously perfect. You hear Shanksville and subconsciously picture Todd Beamer and company shanking terrorists in the aisle. Obviously that is not where the name came from. The town existed first. But history occasionally produces nomenclature with the subtlety of a 1990s action movie.

There are tons of these.

The Waco siege was not really in Waco. The Branch Davidian compound was out in rural McLennan County near Elk/Axtell, miles northeast of Waco. But nobody was going to spend thirty years saying “the Elk-area siege.”

Woodstock is perhaps the champion. The Woodstock festival did not even happen in Woodstock. It happened in Bethel, New York, roughly sixty miles away. The name survived because “Woodstock” had already become the brand.

And Three Mile Island gets casually described through Harrisburg even though the plant is outside Harrisburg and associated administratively with other local jurisdictions.

The underlying rule is simple: American place-names have several competing layers. Incorporated municipality. Township. Census-designated place. County. Postal city. Nearest town anybody has heard of. Media dateline. They often do not match.

Then repetition hardens one of them into history.

There may also be a softer psychological component. “Littleton” sounds like the most innocent possible American suburb. Little town. Colorado. School. Mountains somewhere in the distance. It fits the way Columbine was initially understood nationally: unimaginable violence intruding into supposedly safe suburban America. That does not mean journalists collectively sat around deciding to choose the more poignant name. The school literally had a Littleton mailing address. But once the name was available, it certainly did not hurt the narrative resonance.

Likewise, Shanksville sounds infinitely more like the location of Flight 93 than “Stonycreek Township” ever could imho.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5905837&forum_id=2E#50148436)