Grand Forks, ND
Cream of Wheat: The Grand Forks Telegram That Told a Mill to Forget the Flour
Before it was a familiar box in American cupboards, Cream of Wheat began as a pale, grainy handful of possibility in a worried flour mill.
Today’s storyMuskegon, MI
Snowboarding Started as a Christmas Toy in Muskegon—and Mom Gave It Its Funny Name
The first Snurfer was not born in a factory or a stadium. It began with the scrape of skis, the squeak of a rope, and the kind of snowy Michigan yard where a child can turn a small hill into a whole…
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Bentonville, AR
Walmart: The part where Sam Walton put on a grass skirt because his associates earned it
A grass skirt on Wall Street is not what people expected from a famously frugal Arkansas businessman. Add a lei, a public hula, and a promise kept, and the financial district had itself a very…
Bynum, MT
Jurassic Park’s dinosaur expert and the Montana shopkeeper who handed him a “good mother”
The bones were the opposite of showy: small enough to miss, easy to overlook, the kind of fossils that could sit quietly in a box while bigger dinosaur dreams stomped past.
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Cheraw, SC
Dizzy Gillespie's Bent Trumpet Wasn't Planned; It Started With a Party Mishap He Decided to Keep
The trumpet bell was supposed to point straight ahead, neat and obedient, but after one Manhattan party it looked as if it had spotted something interesting on the ceiling.
Onward, MS
The Teddy Bear: The Mississippi Guide Who Gave a President a Shot and Accidentally Started a Toy Aisle
Before the teddy bear was tucked into cribs or propped on Valentine’s Day shelves, it was tied to a tree in the Mississippi woods.
Loveland, CO
Valentine’s Day Has a Colorado Postmark: The Loveland Man Who Let Strangers Borrow His City’s Name
The envelopes came for the name first: Loveland. Before ink pads and special verses, people were already sending valentines to a Colorado town because the postmark sounded like a wink.
Seligman, AZ
Pixar’s Cars Has a Fictional Town; Its Arizona Heart Began in Angel Delgadillo’s Barber Shop
Before children knew Radiator Springs, there was the smell of aftershave in Seligman, Arizona, and the soft snip-snip of scissors near a highway that never seemed to stop moving.
Centreville, VA
Stonehenge and the Virginia April Fools’ Joke That Refused to Disappear
On a hillside near Natural Bridge, Virginia, Stonehenge appeared with a wink: huge gray “stones” that looked ancient from the road, but were actually carved from Styrofoam.
Tupelo, MS
Elvis Presley's First Guitar: The Tupelo Hardware Birthday Gift That Wasn't a Rifle
A boy walked into a hardware store hoping for a rifle and walked out with a guitar. That’s the funny little hinge in the story: the louder future came from the safer present.
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