I live in a small town in northeast Arkansas that’s only known to those select few who have discovered our highly effective speedtrap. I’m somewhat close to Memphis, which is famous for all the things mentioned by ** Rushgeekgirl**. I’m also sort of close to Jonesboro, which has the big ASU campus, the Razorbacks, the Indians, and is the center of a big rice producing area. Another nearby city, Trumann, has made national news in the past because of the incredible number of STD cases there–I’m not sure, but I think it may have been the venereal disease champ as far as percentage of the population goes.
The city I lived in the longest was Rockford, Illinois, the Forest City and the screw capital of the world. A couple years it was some magazine’s worst place in America to live. I forget the magazine–Success or Money I think. Bad things taken into account were property values, crime, pollution, unemployment, the school system, etc. You may have heard of our women’s baseball team, the Rockford Peaches–they did a movie about them. Rock band Cheap Trick hail from Rockford as well. Some of you may have heard of hometown girl Ginger Lynn. Semi-famous Native American Chief Blackhawk is from the region and they have a big statue of him.
I lived in San Antonio for a while–Fort Sam Houston, actually. I guess San Antonio’s famous for its Riverwalk, the Alamo, and military bases.
Originally posted by wolfman
Actually I am curious what Denver is known for other than our sports teams, I have no idea what most people think of when they think of Denver.
You forgot mudslides, tree slides, rock slides, Burnside Street - the only urban snow zone in the state…
But then there’s:
“Big Pink” - The USBank Building
The Rose Garden - the one with the flowers
The Rose Garden - the one with the Trailblazers
The Wilamette (say it with me everyone “will - AM - it”) cesspool, er, river
BICYCLES!!!
The Sellwood, Ross Island, Marquam, Hawthorne, Morrison, Burnside, Steel, Freemont and St John’s Bridges - to name a few
Widmer, Henry’s, McMennimans and the rest - more importantly, THE BREWERS FESTIVAL!!
Forest Park
OMSI
MAX - Light rail, deepest transit station in North America a the Washington Park/Zoo stop
New trollies from the Czech Rebulic (or is it Hungary…?)
But trust me on the rain
and the mudslides, tree slides, rockfalls, …
The Capital of Florida (no it’s not Orlando or Miami)
The world’s largest phallic symbol (the new Capitol Building)
The 2000 Presidental election scam. We’re the folks that brought you Dubya as our president, thanks of course to his brother JEB! and Katherine “do I have enough make-up on” Harris.
Florida State University
Bobby Bowden
Florida A&M University, the largest historical black college in the US
Canopy Roads
Ted Bundy sorority murders
Not looking like the rest of Florida: we have hills, trees, natural areas and very few old people.
The oldest courthouse still in use in the United States.
Only one way out of town to the west.
The first Confederate casualty during the War Between the States. (Peyton Anderson, if you are interested.) (John Marr was the first commissioned officer injured for the Rebs, and that evidently is an important difference.)
One of the earliest guerrilla warfare groups, Maj. John S. Mosby, and his “Rangers” were active, capturing a Union General not a hundred yards from my home. (I am in the “Mosby Building” as a matter of fact.)
George Washington’s last will and testament. (I think the courthouse loaned it to Mount Vernon, though)
The County:
Mount Vernon (George Washington slept there, a whole lot.)
Little River Turnpike (oldest paved inter-city highway in the US)
George Mason the guy. (Wrote the VA Bill of Rights, from which the US Bill of Rights was copied.)
George Mason, the University. (OK, it’s not famous, but you can get into a famous school if you do well there.)
Tris
“The road to truth is long, and lined the entire way with annoying bastards.” ~ Alexander Jablokov ~
Eugene, Oregon- Unusually large number of burned-out hippies and crazy bums. No kidding, it’s well known enough that I heard Futurama had a gag about it.
Unfortunately, the flag controversy
A university evidently existing for the sole purpose of what was, until recently, a really awful college football team. Now, merely an obnoxious one.
The tallest building in the state - I believe it’s a whole 25 floors.
A very nice zoo
Heat
Humidity
old people
1st US Anthrax attack last year
old people
birthplace of IBM PC
old people
Florida Atlantic University (most famous alum: Carrot Top!)
old people
Marilyn Manson went to high school here (maybe)
old people
heat/humidity
did I mention old people?
Owensboro, Ky has the International Barbecue Festival, which is pretty well known in food circles. We have, as I believe someone’s already mentioned, barbecue mutton, the tastiest food on the face of the Earth. We’re also home to various Nascar drivers, and within about a 30-mile radius of the birthplaces of both Bill Munroe and the Everly brothers. Oh, and that stupid guy from The Real World, who I assure you no one likes.
You know, that bit about Trumann being the VD capital of the world was current lore when I was in high school in Harrisburg (another small town in northeast Arkansas) twenty years ago. I’ve never seen any reference in print or online to it, however, nor have I ever heard it repeated by anyone not from the area. Certainly, STDs and teen pregnancies and other consequences of ill-considered behavior among the local kids are rampant in that part of the world, but the particular bit about Trumann smells a lot like something that once contained a grain of truth but has been repeated and amplified over time until it’s scarcely recognizable.
As for Jonesboro, the Razorbacks are of course in Fayetteville, while the Arkansas State University Indians are in Jonesboro. If it has no other distinguishing characteristics, it probably has the largest mosque for a city of it’s size anywhere in the US – the Islamic Center of Jonesboro, an anomaly that’ s explicable when you find out that the U.S. Customs Service set up a training center on the ASU campus to train Saudi customs officials. Not long after I left NE Ark, this program got started, and made for some interesting clashes of cultures. One in particular involved a large number of teenage girls from surrounding towns who suddenly found themselves with hot new cars, courtesy of wealthy Saudi boyfriends (see previous paragraph).