Road trips are great, at least for the first 15-20 minutes. Then you have to figure out how to spend the next few hours of your life while the miles roll past. So you look at license plates, you peer into other cars, you sing along to the radio until everyone else in the car begs you to stop, and you read all the signs you pass by.
The folks at the real estate website Estately must have done plenty of staring out the window on road trips, because they’ve compiled a map with the strangest town names in each of the 50 states.
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Some of these town names sure make you wonder who came up with the name, and why.
I suppose that, for at least one of the names, the explanation is right there in the name: Whynot, North Carolina. If nothing else, it has to help sales at the Whynot liquor store or the Whynot, don’t you think?
Some of these places must have been a treat to put on letters back when snail mail was a thing.
I mean, who would want to receive mail if they were living in Satans Kingdom, Massachusetts, Foul Rift, New Jersey, or Okay, Oklahoma (Okay, OK, it’s like getting a from a teenager who’s been asked to clean their room).
A bunch of town names sound like wishful thinking, too.
I’m sure the folks in Waterproof, Louisiana would be only too happy to live in assured dryness, and I do hold out hope for all the Eds in Handsome Eddy, New York, but chasing the promise of Jackpot, Nevada might be dangerous.
And then there are the towns that just seem to defy explanation, like Chugwater, Wyoming.
Not sure if I want the story behind that one, or Chicken Bristle, Illinois, Toad Suck, Arkansas, or the, um, uniquely named Booger Hole, West Virginia. Can’t imagine how that didn’t make the cut for John Denver’s “Country Roads.”
There a a few adjectives that you really have to hope don’t apply to their towns.
Like Boring, Oregon, Dull, Ohio, or Coward, South Carolina. And for a few other places, you really have to hope that that’s what you won’t find there, like Plenty Bears, South Dakota, Flea Hill, Delaware, Frankenstein, Missouri, or Scratch Ankle, Alabama.
There are also a few that seem right on the nose.
Little Canada, Minnesota, for example, or Volcano, Hawaii. Pretty sure there are many other spots that could lay claim to Mosquitoville outside of Vermont, however.
I’m sure I’m not the only one who would have thrown the Ding Dong, Texas sign up on my dorm room wall.
Or Beer Bottle Crossing, Idaho. That one must have a fun story behind it. I’m less convinced about that for Free Soil, Michigan or What Cheer, Iowa, however.
What do you think? Did Estately miss some good ones?
