That discussion hook has made the story a staple in English classes in American schools, especially since Stockton was careful never to hint at what he thought the ending would be ( according to Hiram Collins Haydn in The Thesaurus of Book Digests, ISBN 0-517-00122-5 ).

According to the 2000 U. S. Census, the county has a total area of, of which ( or 95. 47 %) is land and ( or 4. 53 %) is water, including various rivers and Stockton Lake.

Since the 1980s, and much like Manhattan's Little Italy, due to a decrease in immigration from Italy and gentrification, the neighborhood has seen its native Italian American population rapidly shrink, while neighboring Chinatown has been rapidly expanding north into the neighborhood east of Broadway and along Stockton Street causing a major demographic shift to a mix of mostly Chinese and young professional population, although some, albeit very few, Italian Americans remain.

In recent years, Stockton has attempted to incorporate French Camp, allegedly in order to tax the current residents of the town.

There has long been a movement in the area to preserve a " greenbelt " as a buffer zone between Lodi and Stockton in order to keep the two cities separate.

Stockton has a few small businesses within its borders.

In recent years the Bay Area has drawn more commuters from as far as Central Valley cities such as Sacramento, Stockton, Fresno and Modesto.

The university's men's basketball team, which did not make its first appearance in the NCAA tournament until 1995 ( more than a decade after NBA Hall of Fame player and Gonzaga alum John Stockton graduated ), has made the regional finals of the NCAA tournament (" Elite Eight ") in 1999, re-appearing in the tournament every year since.

The Yarm ward of Stockton ( which includes Kirklevington ) has three local councillors sitting on Stockton Borough Council.

Stockton has five housing units on campus.

Stockton has six Living Learning Communities ( LLCs ) that are designed to connect students, faculty and staff around curricular and co-curricular themes and interests.

The Richard Stockton College of New Jersey has been ranked in tier 1 among the nation ’ s top public colleges and universities in the 2010 survey of America's Best Colleges.

Today the roles have been reversed and Norton has been demoted to a part of Stockton.

Stockton on Tees has an oceanic climate typical for the United Kingdom.

This road has been numbered the A135 ( and named ' 1825 Way ' in commemoration of the Stockton and Darlington Railway ), replacing the old A135 route which was previously the A19.

Stockton is famous for its associations with the Stockton and Darlington Railway, which operated the world's first steam-hauled passenger train in 1825 and the town also has the world's oldest passenger railway station building.

Since the 1980s Stockton has seen an increase in service industries.

The master plan has been drawn up by environmental design specialists Gillespies, the eventual aim being to bring distinctive high-quality city-scale assets to the centre of the Tees Valley, including the town centres of Stockton and Middlesbrough.

Stockton has a number of public parks and nature reserves.

Stockton Cricket Club was established in 1816, and has been located at the Grangefield Cricket Ground, Grangefield since 1891.

The town also has a local Rugby Union side, Stockton Rugby Club.

The Archbishop of San Francisco, who is ex officio metropolitan bishop of the Province of San Francisco, has limited oversight responsibilities for the dioceses of Honolulu, Las Vegas, Oakland, Reno, Sacramento, Salt Lake City, San Jose, Santa Rosa, and Stockton.

However, since the 1960s, hereditary peerages have generally been eschewed, and life peerages have been preferred, although in 1984 Harold Macmillan was created Earl of Stockton.

The technicians who maintain the Stockton section of the road have been persuaded by a radical social theory, Functionalism, that their role in maintaining the nation's transport infrastructure is more important than that of any other workers and that they should therefore be in control.

Hackworth is believed to have been influential in the development of the first Stephenson locomotive intended for the Stockton and Darlington Railway during his time at the Forth Street factory.

However, all locomotives built to date, including those for the Stockton and Darlington, had been intended for slow freight, with any passenger service handled by single horse-drawn coaches.

The experience on the Stockton and Darlington Railway was well-publicised, and a section of the Hetton colliery railway had been converted to cable haulage.

In the past, Stockton had been classified as a national liberal arts college, but because U. S. News & World Report revised the categories early in 2007, it resulted in placements in a different category for a number of institutions, including Stockton.

Since her defeat in 2005, she has recently been attempting to re-enter the Commons, seeking the Labour Party nomination and being shortlisted in the ' safe ' Labour seats of Stockton North, Houghton & Sunderland South, Wigan, and Stalybridge & Hyde but has not been selected for any of them, despite the support of the Labour-affiliated Unite union.

Unlike the Sacramento River, the San Joaquin River has never been navigable much past Stockton.

Since 1988, much of the centre of Stockton Heath has been designated a conservation area to preserve its character-see http :// www. warrington. gov. uk / Images / 11_St_Heath_tcm31-3129. pdf-but at the same time, there has been redevelopment work with several new bars and restaurants moving into the centre of Stockton Heath.

Although the name Stockton Heath appears to have been conferred on the village at a later date ( indeed the area itself has been described rather as " a hamlet of little consequence and no development until the 19th century "), many secondary references state that a family bearing the name Stockton lived in the area from the end of the 13th century until at least the end of the 15th.

Learning that war with Mexico was underway, Stockton made plans to capture Los Angeles and San Diego and to proceed on to Mexico City.

All the coastal cities were back under Mexican control except San Diego, where the Mexicans had Stockton pinned down and under siege.

While approaching San Diego, Kearny sent a rancher ahead to notify Commodore Stockton of his presence.

Andres Pico were camped at the indigenous village of San Pasqual, between Kearny and Stockton.

In the late 1970s, his two sons, Salvatore and Joe Jr., brought high heat in Northern California after getting involved with Lou Peters, a Cadillac-Oldsmobile dealer, in particularly San Jose, Lodi, and Stockton, California.

The current league was founded in 1941, and contained teams in Anaheim, Bakersfield, Fresno, Merced, Riverside, San Bernardino, Santa Barbara and Stockton.

San Joaquin Regional Transit District provides city bus service within Stockton.

Amtrak's San Joaquins Sacramento-Bakersfield trains stop at the Robert J. Cabral Station which is also used by Altamont Commuter Express trains which originate in Stockton.

Fremont Street in Las Vegas, Nevada, is named in his honor, as are streets in Minneapolis, Minnesota ; River Falls, Wisconsin ; Kiel, Wisconsin ; Manhattan, Kansas ; Portland, Oregon ; Grant City, Staten Island, New York ; Tempe, Arizona ; and Tucson, Arizona, as well as several cities in California: Fremont, Monterey, Seaside, Stockton, San Mateo, San Francisco, and Santa Clara.

United States Army outpost, Fort Stockton, was established in 1858 at Comanche Springs to guard the San Antonio-El Paso Mail.

The copper was sent to Stockton and then on to San Francisco, where it was loaded onto ships and taken around Cape Horn before finally arriving in smelters on the East Coast.

Tracy is the second most populated city in San Joaquin County, California, United States and an exurb of Stockton.

The origins of Tracy are related to the mid-19th century construction of Central Pacific Railroad lines running from Sacramento through Stockton and to the San Francisco Bay Area.

* Stockton Street ( San Francisco )

In 1939, Ernie Renzel, a wholesale grocer and future mayor of San Jose, led a group that negotiated an option to purchase of the Stockton Ranch from the Crocker family, to be the site of San Jose's airport.

Meyer's grave is located at Stockton Rural Cemetery in San Joaquin County, Stockton.

* John Muir Elementary School ( Berkeley, California ; Martinez, California ; Antioch, California ; Merced, California ; Modesto, California ; San Bruno, California ; Santa Monica, California ; Stockton, California ; Hoffman Estates, Illinois ; Parma, Ohio ; Kirkland, Washington ; Madison, Wisconsin ; and Portage, Wisconsin )

Its suffragans include the Dioceses of Honolulu, Las Vegas, Oakland, Reno, Sacramento, Salt Lake City, San Jose, Santa Rosa, and Stockton.

* California: Burbank, Eureka, Fresno, Glendale, Los Angeles *, Oakland *, Sacramento, Inglewood, Long Beach, San Jose, Pasadena, Stockton