How the state got their boundaries?

Now that my both GIS classes are over this weekend was ‘assignments free’ after quite a while. I watched couple of movies, went for shopping, had delicious dinner, spent some time with my husband and played United States Map Puzzle. That’s right, played map puzzle for fun. Contrary to my initial thought it was quite a challenge to recognize the states from their shape. Of all the states, California, Texas, and Florida has easily recognizable shape.

 I wondered how all these states got their boundary. My search for my question gave me a book- How the States got their shape, by Mark Stein. Here is the book’s first introductory page.

Now I really want to know, why West Virginia has a finger creeping up the side of Pennsylvania and why Texas and California are so outsized?!