25 Facts About These Small Towns that’ll Just Fascinate You

In 2010, a couple purchased the town of 'Wauconda', in Washington, for just $360,000. It came with a café, a gas station, a post office, a four-bedroom house, and their own zip code.

2. The New Zealand town of Brightwater had 5 electric street lights in 1911 powered by a hydroelectric generator which was auto-controlled by a flock of chickens. At night, the chickens would go inside their coop and their weight would close an electric circuit, turning on the street lights.

3. A town in Florida was named Frostproof as a marketing ploy to claim that the town would never have a citrus frost. Less than 2 years after its founding a frost killed most of the citrus in town.

4. In the town of Laguna, Brazil a pod of Bottlenose Dolphin cooperatively fish with fishermen. The dolphin herd mullet toward the shore and signal the fishermen to cast their nets. They do this every day. Town records say that the dolphins and fishermen have been cooperating since 1847.

5. A small town named New Rome in Ohio with just 60 residents and 14 police officers used to raise nearly $400,000 annually from speeding tickets. The town was dissolved in 2003.

The town of Blowout in Texas, got its name when lightning struck a cave and ignited thousands of tons of ammonia-rich bat crap inside it.

7. A Russian town named Luchegorsk was once “besieged” by hungry bears with as many as 30 bears being reported circling the small town.

8. In 2014, a town named Maryvale in Arizona was terrorized by packs of wild Chihuahuas, which defecated everywhere and chased children.

9. Chile has a civilian town named Villa Las Estrellas in Antarctica, complete with a school, hospital, hostel, post office, internet, TV and mobile phone coverage.

10. In 2011, a tiny Spanish town named Grañén on the brink of financial ruin bet on the world's biggest lottery and won.

The town of Harrogate, United Kingdom has been ranked as the highest per capita hazardous drinkers in Britain, but also the happiest place to live.

12. In the Spanish town of Brunete, council volunteers will send dog poo in the mail to dog owners who are seen failing to pick up their dog’s feces in public.

13. There is a town in Ontario called "Swastika". There have been several attempts to change the name but the town fights back saying "To hell with Hitler. We had the swastika first."

14. Saint-Louis-du-Ha! Ha! in Quebec, Canada, is the only town in the world with two exclamation points in its name.

15. The town of Why, Arizona was originally to be named "Y" because two major highways, State Routes 85 and 86, originally intersected in a Y-intersection but the state requires at least 3 letters in its city names.

There is a town named Coria del Río in Spain where 700 people are descended from a 17th-century samurai who stayed there after an embassy returned to Japan. They have the surname "Japón", which was originally "Hasekura de Japón."

17. The town of Larkhall, Scotland, hates the color green so strongly that their Subway is painted black instead.

18. The town of Lauderhill, Florida was supposed to present actor James Earl Jones with a plaque for their annual Martin Luther King celebration. The company in charge of making it printed the name "James Earl Ray" on it. James Earl Ray was the man who killed Martin Luther King.

19. There is a town named Viganella in the Alps that does not get any direct sunlight for 84 days. However, the town fixed that by installing a giant mirror on the side of the mountain.

20. There is an underground town in the Australian outback called Coober Pedy. Half of its population lives below ground to escape the area's high temperatures.

In 1932, a small Austrian town named Wörgl greatly reduced unemployment by issuing a new currency that would automatically lose 1% of its value for each month that it went unspent. Hundreds of towns in the U.S. set up similar systems, but in 1933 President Roosevelt outlawed them.

22. There is a ghost town named Kitsault in northern British Columbia, Canada that was abandoned almost overnight in 1983. Everything is still there and the power is still on. The whole town was purchased by an American who wants to turn it into a resort for intellectuals.

23. Lunik IX, a borough of the Slovakian city of Košice has a poverty rate so high that unemployment is close to 100%. Gas, water and electricity service has been cut off for the entire area, and bus drivers receive hazard pay for taking routes through the district.

24. Auroville is an experimental township in India. It does not have politics, religion or physical currency but has its own sustainable economy. Current residents comprise of people from around 45 nations

25. Every summer since the 6th century, a small municipality named Haro in northern Spain throws a wine fight in honor of the patron saint San Pedro.