Rosewood, which the town that got destroyed in a race riot after a white woman lied about being raped by a black guy.
Hey, we’re also known for the Greensboro Massacre!
Then, somewhere down the list is textiles and Guilford Courthouse.
Three places in my experience ,Omagh(northern Ireland ) not long after the bomb I overheard a member of staff at the bus station telling waiting bus passangers that as they had 20 mins before their bus was due why didnt they go and have a look at the site of the bomb ! On a Greyhound in Texas the bus stopped outside of a prison that I believe was in Huntsville ?correct me if im wrong ,where there was a hushed silence after somebody said thats where they execute the murderers ,some poor bloke got on the bus there and everyone did their best to avoid him sitting next to them as our by then ,over heated imaginations had definitely identified him as a psychokiller released from death row on a legal tachnicality ! Lastly Bermuda,where they sell tee shirts to the tourists saying "It takes Balls to cross the Bermuda triangle "
Oxford, Mississippi, on the cultural map for William Faulkner’s writing, but also, darkly, for the riots of 1962, when James Meredith enrolled as the first Black student at the University of Missisissippi.
Very turbulent times, then,with federal troops called in, two people killed, many more injured, prompting Bob Dylan to write the song Oxford Town. A scathing song, but when Dylan finally at last played in Oxford in the 90’s, and started the intro to the song, the crowd cheered in a “Yayyyyyy!!! Our town!” way…one of the most :smack: jeezus-stupid shit moments I’ve ever witnessed.
That said, I lived in Oxford, MS for 13 years, and can say it has overcome that past bad rap rather well. It’s quite alive artistically, musically, and intellectually. The mayor for the past few years is the owner of the wonderful local bookstore, Square Books, and he was a past prez of the Independent Booksellers Association. (Any other towns with that kinda mayor?)
I lived in Oxford before the Dark War Days of Ought '01, though, so not sure what’s going on down there now.
It was the river–the Cuyahoga (Ithink), not Lake Erie. And it’s not so much that Cleveland is known for that, just that it tends to be something you think of when you hear the name of the town. Right–have several universities, a great art museum, a great symphony orchestra, nobody mentions it. But let your river catch fire and oh boy! You’ll never hear the end of it.
In Honolulu back in April, we had a guy fall into a polluted stream and DIED from the toxins therein. There was flesh-eating bacteria from a sewage overflow. The sad thing is, the Ala Wai Canal is right by hotels in Waikiki.
Watergate- a building I guess? But still.
Emporia, Kansas. A nice little university town in that eastern end of Kansas that has hills and trees. It has connections to two famous murders:
- Local minister Tom Bird and his secretary murdered their respective spouses just outside the town in 1982. This was made into a TV movie titled Murder Ordained (Murder Ordained (TV Movie 1987) - IMDb), which was partially filmed on location in Emporia and which you can catch occasionally on Lifetime.
When I was at grad school there, we went out once or twice to see “the murder bridge,” where Mrs. Bird was killed and her car pushed off into the river to make it look like an accident. There are concrete barriers up at either end of the bridge to prevent other cars from going over now.
- Emporia is also where Perry Smith and Richard Hickock purchased the rope they used to tie up the Clutter family. As I recall, downtown Emporia also appears briefly in the film version of In Cold Blood.
“The Big Lake they call Gitche Goomie”
Also home of Clearwater Christian College, which is a very Jerry Falwell style college.
Bath Township, Michigan, is hardly known at all. But it ought to be.
In 1927, the school board treasurer there was very upset over the fact that a new school building had been funded through a property tax. So upset, in fact, that he didn’t say a word about it. He chose instead to blow up the school, killing 38 kids, several teachers, the district superintendent and himself.
As is so often true of mass killers, he would accept no blame. Society was the problem, and they had to pay.
A high-class hotel.
Babi Yar, one of the most brutal mass exterminations of WWII. Proof that the Nazis did not need industrial camps to kill a lot of people in a short amount of time.
Pearl Harbor.
Normandy, France.
Ypres and Passchendaele, particularly Flanders Fields
Gettysburg
Fort Sumter
Little Bighorn River
Newark, NJ is most often mentioned with reference to the race riots. And I’ve never heard anybody say anything nice about Elizabeth (aside from Ikea and the outlet mall), or Camden.
Ford’s Theater of course. Texas School Book Depository and The Grassy Knoll. The Biograph Theater.