LITTLE FALLS — It all began with a mistake.

It was 1892, and Anna Mocko, originally of Myjava, Czechoslovakia — now Slovakia — had just finished a year of service in Minnesota that paid for her ticket to the United States.

Eager to meet up with her friends in Little Falls, New Jersey, she headed to the train station, only to find the staff there couldn’t understand her speech. Determined, she penned “Little Falls, N.J.” instead, and soon she was on her way.

When she arrived, though, her friends weren’t at the station. In fact, she wasn’t in New Jersey at all. The staffer mistook her “N.J.” for “N.Y.”