Editing Why, Arizona (section)

==History==
The town derives its name from the fact that two major [[highways]], State Routes [[Arizona State Route 85|85]] and [[Arizona State Route 86|86]], originally intersected in a [[Three-way junction|Y-intersection]].<ref>{{cite web | url=https://www.theactivetimes.com/travel/oddest-named-town-every-state | title=The Oddest Named Town in Every State | publisher=The Active Times | date=April 19, 2018 | access-date=July 3, 2019}}</ref> At the time of its naming, state law required all city names to have at least three letters, so the town's founders named the town "Why" as opposed to simply calling it "Y."  The [[Arizona Department of Transportation]] (ADOT) later removed the old Y-intersection for traffic safety reasons and built the two highways in a conventional [[T-intersection|intersection]] south of the original intersection.<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://arizonaoddities.com/2014/01/why-why-is-why/|title = Why Why is Why|date = January 25, 2014}}</ref>

It has frequently been noted on lists of [[Place names considered unusual|unusual place names]].<ref>{{cite book | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=29zh3dIgmv8C&pg=PR12 | title=Welcome to Horneytown, North Carolina, Population: 15: An insider's guide to 201 of the world's weirdest and wildest places | publisher=Adams Media | author=Parker, Quentin | year=2010 | page=xii | isbn=9781440507397 }}{{Dead link|date=February 2023 |bot=InternetArchiveBot |fix-attempted=yes }}</ref><ref>{{cite web | url=http://www.bbcamerica.com/mind-the-gap/2014/01/13/american-place-name-pronunciations-guide-brits/ | title=No, Arkansas Doesn't Sound the Way It Looks: A Guide to Pronouncing U.S. Place Names | publisher=BBC America | date=January 13, 2014 | access-date=July 14, 2014 | author=Hargis, Toni}}</ref>