Fun Fact about your hometown/state

[fireheart]

Share something different or unusual about your hometown or state that would fall into a trivia book (i.e. in Rand McNally, hamburgers eat people )

I'll kick it off with a couple about my hometown:

-All around the city centre, there are a lot of buildings with the sign "POLITES" hanging over them. The reason behind it? A guy with the last name of Polites owns a lot of the buildings in the city centre. So he just labelled them with huge honking signs saying "I own this building!"

-We are the only state surrounded by all other states (this is Australia). Northern Territory does not count-it is a Territory, not a state.

-The film "December Boys", which involved Daniel Radcliffe and Teresa Palmer, was shot almost entirely on Kangaroo Island. That is one of our few claims to fame as far as "great" films go. (We've had a few films shot around the area, however they were kids films: Selkie and Sally Marshall is Not An Alien! were both filmed in my state, Selkie in fact was filmed not that far from home)

-We were the first colony (we became a state in 1901) to allow women to vote in Australia. We were also one of the first states to decriminalise homosexuality, due to a very prominent politician by the name of Don Dunstan. (he actually entered Parliament one day wearing pink shorts that ended above the knee)

-We created Farmers Union Iced Coffee and it is still the best Iced Coffee out there. (Although we didn't create the ad )

[Gumby30]

My old hometown is known for being the burial place for most of the Kray family - East End gangsters.

My current hometown is the last resting place of a King of England, even if no-one is EXACTLY sure where he is buried.

[RecoveringKinkoid]

Our state capitol building, which is very old and made of granite, has big chips in it and a busted stone windowsill on the side that faces the river.

This is because General Sherman sat across said river and used the building as a target to calibrate his cannons during the Civil War.


We have a scary creature called the "Third Eye Man" living underneath the University downtown.

One of our theaters (plays, not movies...One of the two I used to build sets for) predates the Civil War and has been a church, an armory, a hospital, a morgue, and gymnasium, and (get this) an olympic swimming pool. It's now a Shakespearean (in the round) theater, a scene shop, and a costume shop.

We have a fountain downtown that looks like a two story high busted fireplug, made by local artist Blue Sky. It's ugly. But it's fun.

There are two huge historic mansions downtown facing each other. One was built as a big "fuck you" to the builder of the other one.

Back in the eighties, we were a pretty important rock hub. In fact, Hootie and the Blowfish are from here.

The team mottos here are "Go Cocks", "Can't Beat Our Cocks", and my personal favorite, "Cant' Lick Our Cocks."

I couldn't make this stuff up, folks.

[FormerCallingCardRep]

I will give you facts about both where I live and where I work

Where I live (Metro Area wide):

Where Aaron Burr meet to plan his new republic

The first public high school in the State

The first public schools in the state for the African Americans

Largest high school in the state

Runner up for the title of Titletown USA

Home of one of the best high school choirs in the world. Last spring at the world championships, our Women's Ensemble placed first in the world.

Where I work:

The first settlement in the Northwest Territory

[chikenlady]

t's the home of the Edmonton Protocol, a pancreatic islet transplantation process hailed as a possible cure for diabetes.
While Edmonton may have the worlds largest shopping mall it was in the Guiness Book of World Records for the largest parking lot in the world (at said mall).
Edmonton is also home to North America’s largest urban green space known as River Valley. It’s 22 times the size of New York’s Central Park making Edmonton have the largest per capita area of parkland of any other Canadian city.
known as “the Festival City” Edmonton is host to over 30 different festivals throughout the year including the Edmonton International Fringe Festival taking place for over 30 years now, every August. The Fringe Festival is the biggest of its kind in North America and is the second biggest in the world next to the Edinburgh Fringe Festival in Scotland.
Was the home of Wilfrid "Wop" May, a famous bush pilot who fought the Red Baron in his last dogfight of WW1.
NASA's Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity located a rock on the south slope of the Endurance Crater on Mars. The 1 metre (3.3-foot) rock was given the name wopmay after the legendary Canadian bush pilot.[5]

*sorry, I found it easier to copy and paste these facts

[taxguykarl]

Site of the invention of the flyswatter and radar gun.

First Illinois residence of Abraham Lincoln (he was born in Kentucky).

4 count them 4 Main Streets (North, South, East and West Main)...these meet at the site of an log cabin courthouse (since relocated) where Lincoln first practiced law.

A block north of the 4 Mains (as us natives refer to that intersection) lies a theater listed among the Travel Channel's Most Terrifying Places in America.

HQ for various soy bean processors, hence its nickname Soy City. A radio station call letters are literally WSOY (AM-news/talk; FM-top 40).

Original home of the Bears, before George Halas bought the team and moved it to Chicago.

[Treasure]

STATE:
our Capitol building is made from native (pink) granite, and stands taller than the White House
Have been our own nation (and are damn proud of it)
the only state to join the union via treaty

CITY:
motto - Keep (city) Wierd!
at least 3 separate and distinct downtown "bar" districts - 6th street, Red River, and the "warehouse district"
we have a cross-dressing homeless man that runs for Mayor every so often.... he has his own Wikipedia entry....
we claim to be the "Live Music Capitol of the World"
also home to the largest "Mexican free tail Bat" colony - they live under the South Congress Bridge, and is a "maternity" colony - comprised of mature females and their babies...

[Lady Legira]

My city has the largest Gothic cathedral in northern Europe. York Minster

The Roman Emperor Constantius I died in 306 AD during his stay in York, and his son Constantine the Great was proclaimed Emperor by the troops based in the fortress.

In 1644 the city was held in siege by the Parliamentarians from 22 April - 16 July. Lord Fairfax was made Governor of York by Parliament. He earned the thanks of the city by refusing to allow religious zealots in the victorious Scots and Parliamentarian armies to vandalise the many churches. This is one reason why we have a great deal of stained glass left when other churches in the country do not from the same period.

I could go on and on...

[FormerCallingCardRep]

As far as State:

Our state capital dome is plated in gold

The first land battle of the Civil War was fought in Phillippi, WV over a covered bridge

We seceded from Virginia and became a state during the Civil War

Famous people from the state include Pearl S Buck, Don Knotts and Mary Lou Retton

Mother's Day originated in my state

[Kheldarson]

We're also the only state where the Armed Forces have been used against the citizens.

Pepperoni rolls were invented here.

[Food Lady]

My hometown has the first orange tree ever grafted to produce navel oranges. It's been around at least 100 years. It's at the diagonal cross of 2 major streets and surrounded by a little wrought-iron fence.

[FormerCallingCardRep]

We're also the only state where the Armed Forces have been used against the citizens.

I forgot about that one.

We were also the butt of the hillbilly jokes due to the Hatfield and McCoy fued.

What part of the state are you in? I am in the Mid Ohio Valley.

The Lilly Family reunion held in Flat Top is listed in the Guiness Book of World Records for being the larges family reunion in the world and lasts 3 days

[NateTheChops]

I'm from the town where Robert Frost is buried.

Shirley Jackson wrote The Lottery at Bennington College.

Southern Vermont College once belonged to Rupert Everett, who was the owner of the largest glass factory in the country during the 1800's.

Dom Deluise ate pizza at a place called Anne Marie's. You can see his autograph if you're ever in town.

Although the Battle of Bennington did not take place in the town, the Bennington Battle Monument was built to honor the fallen veterans of that battle. It is interesting to note that Ethan Allen's wife is reported to have said, "Tonight I go to bed a widow," the night before the battle.

[firecat88]

In the next town over from us, there is a festival honoring a chicken who lived for four years without its head (the farmer who owned said chicken was going to make it into dinner, but the darned thing was still alive after having its head cut off).

About 6 hours' drive from here, in Estes Park, is the Stanley Hotel, which is where Stephen King got the inspiration to write The Shining.

My hometown is home to the Grand Mesa, which is the world's largest flat-top mountain.

Colorado has more microbreweries per capita than any other state.

Colorado has the highest mean altitude of all the states.

The highest suspension bridge in the world is over the Royal Gorge near Canon City. The Royal Gorge Bridge spans the Arkansas River at a height of 1,053 feet. (I have been there. It's beautiful, but freaky if you're like me and don't do well with heights.)

[Antisocial_Worker]

A selection of fun facts about my city:

1. My city is mentioned in The Great Gatsby as a playground for the rich.

2. It is also mentioned on an episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation, wherein one character distracts a guard by asking if that guard attended high school with her in my city.

3. In an episode of The X-Files, Mulder and Scully visit my city to conduct an autopsy on two victims found in a nearby county. This is problematic because there isn't enough left of the victims to perform an autopsy. It was also problematic because the show's producers incorrectly identified the county in which my city is located when naming the county morgue where this autopsy took place, and they didn't do their research -- there is no county morgue here. There is a pathology morgue at the hospital, but thanks to my state's centralized death-investigation system, autopsies are carried out in only four cities in the state. None of them are mine.

4. The Philippine government operated out of a hotel in my city for a time during WWII. Also during WWII, the US Federal Government commandeered all of my city's fancy resort hotels as well as a downtown shopping arcade. The hotels were used as prisons for captured Axis diplomats and POW's, and the arcade was used as the federal building. A few federal agencies also moved to my city because of its safe, isolated location and one, the National Climatic Data Center, still remains.

5. My city is home to the biggest private home in the US. This house boasts 250,000 square feet of floor space -- about four acres' worth. And in keeping with that WWII theme, this house also did its part for the war effort when the treasures of the National Gallery were transported here for storage, out of fears that Washington, DC might be bombed.

6. Of the two rivers that flow through my city, the larger is thought to be the third oldest river on the face of the earth. My city is the largest to be located on that river.

7. Robert Morgan, pilot of the Memphis Belle was born and raised here. During a bond drive tour of the country during WWII, Morgan banked the Belle at a 90-degree angle and flew it between city hall and the county courthouse -- which are less than 100 feet apart from each other.

8. Swannanoa, New Zealand is named after a community located just outside my city. it was named by a native from here who moved there and established a farm. Later, that man moved back here and built himself a castle called Zealandia, which still stands and which is known to be perhaps the most haunted location in town.