Behind the familiar image of America are some seriously weird facts that even many Americans have never heard.
America’s loneliest town
Monowi, Nebraska, is well-known for having a single resident. Elsie Eiler is the mayor of Monowi. As you might guess, with only one resident, she’s the bartender and the librarian too. She owns the Monowi Tavern and operates a small library in memory of her husband, who passed away. She does all the paperwork to run the incorporated village by herself.
A strange design leftover
The Pentagon was constructed in Virginia during World War II, at a time when public facilities in Virginia were racially segregated. So Pentagon planners incorporated additional restroom facilities into the original design. However, President Franklin D. Roosevelt mandated that segregation would not be practiced at the Pentagon. Nevertheless, their unusually large number served as a reminder of the time of the Pentagon’s design.
A name nobody forgets
Yes, there is an actual town named Boring in Oregon. But it wasn’t called that because people who lived there thought it was dull. It’s named after William H. Boring, who lived in the area in the 1800s. Boring would later form friendly ties with the Scottish town of Dull, making for an unbeatable combination of Boring + Dull.
A wild Cold War plan
Project A119 was a top-secret proposal examined by the U.S. Air Force during the Cold War about the possibility of detonating a nuclear weapon on the Moon. During the race to beat the Soviets, America decided to brainstorm grand gestures that would showcase their advancements. The scientists even researched what kind of explosion it would create on the Moon’s surface. Thankfully, they never followed through with it.
When water looks impossible
In February each year, visitors to Horsetail Fall in Yosemite National Park may witness something quite magical. At sunset, when sunlight hits the fall at just the right angle, it illuminates the cascading water orange and red. It often resembles flowing lava or, more impressively, fire. Dubbed the Firefall, this jaw-dropping sight happens only when there’s enough water in the fall and both the sun and sky align just right.
A geographical contradiction
Without question, Alaska is the westernmost state of the U.S. But did you know it can also lay claim to being the easternmost state? Because Alaska’s Aleutian Islands cross the 180th meridian, part of Alaska is actually in the Eastern Hemisphere. Alaska is also America’s northernmost state. One enormous state holds three directional superlatives at once.
She once looked very different
The Statue of Liberty hasn’t always been green. She is plated with copper, so Liberty originally appeared shiny and brown like a new copper penny. Oxygen and moisture in the air combine with other substances over time to cause chemical reactions on the surface of the statue. This results in the green patina you see today. Instead of causing damage to the statue, the thin layer of green protects the copper underneath from corroding.
An engineering giant
Hoover Dam has about 3.25 million cubic yards of concrete in the dam structure itself. That’s so much concrete that engineers couldn’t pour the dam in one single piece. When concrete cures, it generates heat. One continuous mass that large would have required centuries to cool on its own. Instead, they built it in interlocking blocks with cooling pipes that helped draw out the heat. It’s hard to fathom that volume of concrete, even almost a century later.
Where clocks break the rules
Almost all states in America observe daylight saving time, but Hawaii and most of Arizona do not. Hawaii is close to the equator, so there isn’t much difference in daylight hours throughout the year. Arizona doesn’t benefit much from having longer evenings in the summer because it’s already hot. The oddity gets weirder when you realize that an area in Arizona opts into daylight saving time anyway: the Navajo Nation. It can get surprisingly confusing when traveling through parts of Arizona.
A town named after a bird
Somewhere deep in Alaska, there is a town actually named Chicken. According to legend, early settlers wanted to name their home after ptarmigans that lived in the area. Supposedly they couldn’t agree on the spelling of “ptarmigan,” so they compromised with the much easier “Chicken.” What may have started as an embarrassing compromise became one of the town’s greatest sources of pride.
A ZIP Code of its own
ZIP Codes don’t always correspond to regular neighborhoods. In fact, some very large buildings, colleges, and organizations with an unusually high volume of mail have even been designated their own ZIP Codes. Take, for instance, New York City’s Empire State Building, which boasts a ZIP Code of 10118 all to itself.
The fire that won’t go out
Underground, in Centralia, Pennsylvania, burns a coal- seam fire that has been going since 1962. Toxic gases and unstable ground forced people out of town as the fire traveled through old mine tunnels. Almost everyone moved away, and many of the buildings were torn down. Only a few people live in Centralia now. There is enough coal left underground that the fire may burn for many more decades.
Barely enough time to fly
Flying is routine transportation for some residents of Alaska. Remote communities often do not have road access to larger towns, so bush planes transport villagers to town, as well as freight cargo and mail. Scheduled services linking nearby communities may spend only minutes in the air. Tourists might regard a very-short-flight as an excuse for a novelty sightseeing trip, but for rural Alaskans it can be as routine as hopping on a city bus.
A landscape that shouldn’t be there
When you think of Maine, you might think of forests, lakes, and rugged coastline. However, the state is also home to an attraction known as the Desert of Maine. But it is not actually a desert formed by dry weather conditions. This unique landscape is mostly comprised of glacial sand deposits that ended up exposed due to farming and erosion of topsoil. Located amongst thick vegetation, the sea of sand appears oddly out of place and has drawn intrigued visitors for decades.
A B-minus that made history
Seventeen-year-old Robert G. Heft designed the 50-star American flag in 1958 as a high school class project. Heft added two stars to the American flag in anticipation of Alaska and Hawaii becoming states. When his history teacher awarded him a B-minus grade, he allegedly promised Heft that he would reconsider the grade if his design were adopted by Washington. Heft later mailed his design to his congressman, and once the 50-star configuration was adopted as the official U.S. flag in 1960, his teacher awarded him an A grade.
Sources: Please see here for a complete listing of all sources that were consulted in the preparation of this article.
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