Tell us a strange fact about your hometown

[Capn Flukie]

Here in Schenectady NY is the zip code 12345, which is the location of the main General Electric plant. For years kids would be sending letters to Santa at the North Pole, whose zip code was, you guessed it, 12345, so all those letters got sent to GE and they had to hire an extra team just to answer all those letters.

What's a strange fact about your hometown?

 

[RoJoHen]

It was the KKK Headquarters for the state of Illinois, while simultaneously having many safe houses for the Underground Railroad.

Also, it has its own board game.

 

[ITL]

An early 18th century "King Of The Gypsies" is buried in my hometown. Well, not town. Village.

 

[scotpens]

I was born and raised in Los Angeles.

’Nuff said?

 

[Brent]

Not really strange, but our town was named after Daniel Boone.

 

[Miss Chicken]

The tallest building in Hobart (and also the tallest building in all of Tasmania), the 19 storey 73m (240 ft) high Wrest Point Casino is shorter than at least 16 Tasmanian trees including a tree called Centurion which at 101m is the second tallest tree in the world.

 

[Kestra]

"Near the tiny town of ________, Illinois is perhaps one of the strangest houses in northern Illinois. It was originally located far off the beaten path and remains secluded today along a quiet and mostly deserted country highway. George and Sylvia _______ built this English country house in the middle 1800’s. They chose such an isolated place for the peace and quiet and for their spiritualistic activities. Both of them were said to be accomplished mediums and they wanted to host parties and seances for their friends. The seclusion offered by the Illinois countryside made the perfect setting.

As devout practitioners of Spiritualism, the _________’s insisted on adding distinctive features into the design of the house. These features, they assured the architect, would assist them when holding seances and gatherings at the property. Since the seances would be held quite often, they specified that the house should have no square corners in it. They explained that spirits have a tendency to get stuck in these corners, which could have dire results. It has also been suggested that the _______’s believed that corners attracted the attention of evil spirits as well, a common belief in Spiritualist circles of the time."

 

[Rii]

- First freely settled British colony of Australia.
- Origin of the cancerous growth known as NewsCorp.

Since the seances would be held quite often, they specified that the house should have no square corners in it. They explained that spirits have a tendency to get stuck in these corners, which could have dire results.

*takes notes furiously*

 

[TribbleFeeder]

Philadelphia has a series of blocks called the Italian Market. Naturally, is ran by mexicans.

I don't mind. they're very friendly. : )

 

[RJDiogenes]

 

[PlainSimpleJoel]

I don't have a hometown, as I moved around a lot as a kid. Sometimes I wished that my family stayed in one town, but it made how I saw life better.

 

[MetalPants]

Shamefully, the Klan advertises their meetings in the local newspaper of my hometown.

 

[od0_ital]

I don't have a hometown, as I moved around a lot as a kid. Sometimes I wished that my family stayed in one town, but it made how I saw life better.

Same here...there's where I was born, but didn't live...the place where we lived 'til Mom died...the place I hated...and then where I went to high school, plus the cities I've tried to make my home since then.

When folks ask me where I'm from, I just tell 'em Texas. Its the easiest answer.

 

[Vendikarr]

Not my home town, but my father was born and grew up on Beaver Island, once home to a Morman kingdom. The Morman presence on the island ended when the Mormans were forcibly evicted from their home by mobs, consisting mainly of Irish fishermen.

Beaver Island

 

[Finn]

Same here...there's where I was born, but didn't live...the place where we lived 'til Mom died...the place I hated...and then where I went to high school, plus the cities I've tried to make my home since then.

When folks ask me where I'm from, I just tell 'em Texas. Its the easiest answer.

Yeah, I see where you are going. I was born in New Hampshire, grew up in Massachusetts, and went to school in Connecticut, and now my parents built a house in the White Mountains in NH (not the same part where I was born), so I had taken up saying I'm from New England lately.

Let me see.... There is no J street(s) here in DC because the city designers back then deemed "J" too similiar to "I". That's all I can think of.

 

[Miss Chicken]

I have finished reading the book and I was shocked to learn about how absolutely horrible the injuries of some of the survivors and some of the dead were. I guess, before reading the book, I sort of thought the dead were just smothered/drowned in the molasses.

 

[C.E. Evans]

I'll give more than one about St. Louis, because it's a strange kind of town (big in some ways, small in others):


-Most cream soda is red instead of gold.

-There are no less than 25 chop suey restaurants within a fifteen-minute drive of one another in one part of town (carrots and peas in fried rice is a no-no, and you really won't find a St. Paul sandwich in any chop suey outside of St. Louis).

-On average, you can only drive about fourteen seconds before having to stop at a stop sign or a red light in most residential areas.

-There is a strange proliferation of possums, and they make up the majority of roadkill on both city and county streets.

 

[Kommander]

Mount Clemens, Michigan used to be, apparently, world-famous for its bath houses. Mineral water springs located within the city and used in these baths was purported to cure various skin conditions. This is odd because nowadays bath houses are associated with the spread of skin conditions and other diseases because of all the butt sex.

While butt sex probably occurred in these Mount Clemens Baths, it wasn't covered in my middle school/high school history classes, so I'm not sure how common it was.

 

[Danoz]

Birth of American football and home of the Pro Football Hall of Fame. The original team, Canton Bulldogs were founded there.

 

[B.J.]

Childhood hometown - Poultry Capital of the World
Current hometown - lots o' big-ass rockets!