Which town or small town is the oddest you have ever been? (lease, motel)

[jtur88]

Here's one from just the other day. First, a little background. My wife and I are birdwatchers, and every county, we try to compile a bird list of those we can identify there.

Driving alone up I-55 through Mississippi, my wife pulled off the interstate in Pickens, to log birds in Yazoo County, and drove down to the end of the street in town, to get out of the car and walk down to the river bank to look across and see any birds in Attala County, which she would otherwise not be passing through. Pickens is a declining town, a thousand people or so, 90% black, and about half the houses boarded up. 99% of all Americans would probably be scared to be there at all, ever with the car locked and windows rolled up. Not to speak of wandering around on the overgrown riverbank and the subsequent events that unfolded.

Well, it was about 11 AM and she had skipped breakfast, and asked the only person she saw in town if there was anyplace to get anything to eat. He directed her to an easement between two houses, that led to a mobile home with a porch, where the lady prepared meals, mostly takeout. She said breakfast was finished, and dinner was still on the stove, but she was offered coffee and an oven-warm piece of cake. Apologetically she said nothing else was ready. Well, the collard greens were ready, the beans were cooked edible but not yet to her liking, and the corn muffins were baked through, but hadn't browned nice yet. My wife says that'll be fine, and she was served a wonderful meal.

The lady refused to accept any money, being as the dinner was incomplete and substandard. She said earlier in the morning, she had seen two sparrows fussing with each other in the back, which she says is always a sign that something good and unexpected was about to happen, and was just telling her husband about that as my wife appeared, so she was taken as bringing a bit of fortune and good favor to Pickens, Missisisppi.

[biggspc]

Originally Posted by davidals

I haven't been there, but there's a town called Vernon, Florida that was the subject of a very deeply surreal (and great) documentary film in the early 1980s.

The film is called Vernon, Florida and I highly recommend it - it's a bit like some strange collision between David Lynch, Werner Herzog, and William Faulkner, stuck in a one-stoplight town up in the Panhandle. It's truth-is-stranger-than-fiction to the nth degree.

I'll have to check this out

[CookieSkoon]

A few of the strangest towns I've been to:

Addison, New York. It seems so nice and normal and then... after a while... you begin to realize... it's really creepy there (and that's coming from a guy who grew up just a little ways away).

York, Alabama. Just a run down place with a lot of Indian folks. Or so it seems.

Elton, Louisiana. Just... yeah.

I can't remember the name, but there is a town in north-east Ohio where everybody stares at you when you walk or drive by. It's a border Appalachian town real close to Pennsylvania.

Romulus, New York. Yeah another NY town. It's very dead and the people are off-putting and eerie. Has a very in-bred feel to it. It's next to an old military base and I think there's a prison as well.

[BPerone201]

I like Hudson, NY- don't get me wrong, it can be a very charming town during the day.
But, it felt like it could be the perfect setting of a creepy, possibly grusome Halloween movie. Drugs are also a big issue there, especially since it's such a small isolated town.

[CookieSkoon]

Originally Posted by BPerone201

I like Hudson, NY- don't get me wrong, it can be a very charming town during the day.
But, it felt like it could be the perfect setting of a creepy, possibly grusome Halloween movie. Drugs are also a big issue there, especially since it's such a small isolated town.

Most of rural upstate NY is creepy, people wise and natural atmosphere. It's almost always gloomy (Sleepy Hollow anyone?). When I moved out I was surprised at how many people here in LA said they were afraid to go up there. XD

I've heard from several friends that New Hampshire has the creepiest towns in the north though. According to them (and they have been there a lot) the people up there are scary mountain folks with funny accents and deceptively nice houses. To top that off, the only person actually from NH I ever met was even more hillbilly than me. lumberjack to boot. :P

[The Analog Man]

Elton, Louisiana. Just... yeah.

I passed through that creepy town a couple of months ago and decided to stop and grab some lunch for the road. The second I entered the local restaurant, the native patrons all at once stopped eating to stare at us as if we were aliens. The whole town just seemed to have a weird vibe out it and the movie Deliverance quickly came to mind.

There are quite a few towns in Louisiana that are just plain weird, creepy, and unique.

[CookieSkoon]

Originally Posted by The Analog Man

I passed through that creepy town a couple of months ago and decided to stop and grab some lunch for the road. The second I entered the local restaurant, the native patrons all at once stopped eating to stare at us as if we were aliens. The whole town just seemed to have a weird vibe out it and the movie Deliverance quickly came to mind.

There are quite a few towns in Louisiana that are just plain weird, creepy, and unique.

I know it. I go out there every year to visit my best friend's aunt. She's lived there her whole life. Even though I belong there for a reason, it's still unsettling. And the racism there is so thick you can serve it like pudding.

[Greatwoods]

Anyone been to Ward, Colorado? It's a tiny town near Boulder in the mountains. The winters are pretty bad and keep most people out. It looks like there was no planning whatsoever, just some houses thrown up. There is also a tiny restaurant which is supposed to be really good.

[Desert kid]

San Carlos, Arizona: Well actually most of the San Carlos Apache Indian Reservation in general, including the towns of Peridot and Bylas. I live about 25 miles away from it, and you have to go through it to get from Safford to Phoenix. In many ways you wouldn't be able to distinguish it from a third world country, violence and gangs are common there and extreme poverty is rampant, the sewage is generally running alongside some of the houses as well.

McNary, Arizona: This town is nestled between Pinetop and Show Low, smack dab in the middle of the forested White Mountains and the Fort Apache Indian Reservation, this town one had a large black population during the 1930's and now is mostly indian, for a reservation town it is well put together, but the town itself it a grocery store and a gas station but going through there at night, an uncanny feeling looms over the place.

Chinle, Round Rock and Teec Nos Pos, Arizona: All these towns are on the Navajo reservation in far northern Arizona, they aren't so much towns as dots on the map, the landscape is pretty flat for the Southwest, but there is nothing there. Teec Nos Pos, however is actually pretty nice, it has a few gas stations and a trading post, it also recieves tourism because it is bunched up on the New Mexico and Utah state lines in the Four Corners area.

Elephant Butte, New Mexico: Weird, it is a little place off of Interstate 35, nothing but a resevoir from the Rio Grande and swaths of desert with a handful of trailers, if something from the "X-Files" were to ever happen, this is where it would be.

[5Lakes]

Probably the towns around the Salton Sea in California, particularly Salton City and Bombay Beach. It's like how I imagine people might live after the apocalypse.

I was also once in Point Pleasant, WV during the Mothman festival, and there were some interesting characters around there to say the least.