More than half of Maine, spread across 429 separate townships, has no town government at all. The state fills in for a town, piece by piece, through a different department for almost everything a town would normally handle. These are the things that work differently in the half of Maine with no town government. 1….
West Virginia didn’t finish paying off its share of Virginia’s Civil War-era debt until 1939, according to West Virginia’s state encyclopedia. That’s 76 years of unfinished business. These are the arguments Virginia and West Virginia have never settled. 1. Statehood’s Legal Cloud Virginia and West Virginia’s 1863 split still bothers anyone who reads the fine…
A Missouri appliance technician on a routine service call checks behind the washing machine before anything else. There’s a good reason: State Farm paid out nearly $30 million in 2020 alone for water damage caused by failed washing-machine hoses, an average claim of $10,200. Hoses are only the start. These are the things Missouri appliance…
Being born in Oregon used to come with an unwritten promise: You’d probably stay for good. That promise is breaking. The nonpartisan Common Sense Institute Oregon studied U.S. Census Bureau migration data and found the state’s national migration ranking fell from second in 2016 to 45th by 2023. These are the reasons Oregonians are leaving…
Mississippi has led the entire country in one industry since the late 1980s, and out-of-staters rarely name it on the first guess. These are the Mississippi myths locals are tired of correcting. 1. Not the River’s Delta Locals call the stretch of farmland between Memphis and Vicksburg “the Delta.” Out-of-staters hear that word and picture…
Ask a Nutmegger where Connecticut’s nickname came from, and the story changes depending on which town you ask in. Even the Connecticut Historical Society admits nobody can prove colonial peddlers ever carved fake nutmegs to trick a buyer. It’s not Connecticut’s only endless argument. These are the things Nutmeggers argue about that have no right…
The Vermont Cheese Council says the state’s cheesemakers won 33 medals at the 2025-2026 World Cheese Awards in Bern, Switzerland, and two of them went to cheddar alone. None of that happens by accident. These are the Vermont cheddar rules Vermonters won’t bend. 1. the No-Annatto Standard Cheddar comes out of the vat pale, and…
Texas has more state-permitted billboards than every state except one, according to Scenic America’s count of roadside signs. Along the highway, the signs for a single stop can start miles before the exit, each billboard promising something bigger than the last. Not every promise survives the exit. These are the Texas roadside stops that aren’t…
October turns a handful of sleepy Florida towns into somewhere else. It happens fast. A fishing dock goes from empty to elbow-to-elbow, and a crossroads with one gas station needs parking for a few thousand extra cars. These are the Florida small towns that change completely in October. 1. Live Oak Outside October, Live Oak…
Ohio’s food-safety code gives a festival kitchen five days at most before it has to operate like a full, year-round restaurant. Church festivals stay inside that window. Parish crews set up once a year on that five-day clock, using recipes that live nowhere but a family’s kitchen the other 360 days. These are the Ohio…
