County seat war

ELI5: Imagine you and your friends are playing a game and you're supposed to pick a leader. Everyone wants to be the leader because it's fun, but only one person can be it. So, you have a big argument about who should be the leader and lots of people get mad. That's kind of like a county seat war.

In the past, when people were creating new counties, they had to decide where the government buildings would be located. This place became known as the county seat. Usually, there was a big argument about where the county seat should be because everyone wanted it to be in their town or city.

Just like you and your friends, people fighting over the county seat would argue and get angry because they all really wanted it for themselves. The government would have to decide what place would be the county seat and sometimes this decision made people unhappy.

County seat wars used to happen a lot, but now they happen less often because the government has rules and guidelines to help decide where the county seat should be.