Cities, Towns, and Village Sobriquets 5 Quiz

Answer: Mitchell

The present Corn Palace was erected in 1921. Each year it is decorated with harvested corn products on the exterior. The attraction draws 500,000 visitors a year. It costs about $130,000 to decorate each year. The building also houses civic and sporting events.

Sturgis is famous for holding its annual "Motorcycle Rally". Motorcycle enthusiasts from all over the country convene in Sturgis each August for over seventy years. Crowds of 400,000 to 630,000 are general. During the rally there may be 1200 calls for police assistance and sometimes over 400 arrests.

Western history is rich in Deadwood, named for Deadwood Gulch where it is located. It is the city of the "Deadman's Hand" as the legend goes that Wild Bill Hickok held two aces and two eights when he was murdered in Deadwood. Calamity Jane was another renowned citizen of Deadwood. The TV series "Deadwood" was fiction although real names were used for characters.

Pine Ridge Reservation includes Oglala, a small village. Robert Redford used Oglala in his documentary "Incident at Oglala". It tells the story of Leonard Peltier, a Native American activist, who was accused of the murder of two government employees at Oglala and sentenced to life imprisonment. The government has one story; the Native Americans have another. The facts are hard to discern but seem to be primarily circumstantial. Peltier's last appeal was rejected in 2009.

Answer: Oak Ridge

Oak Ridge was where much of the initial research on the atomic bomb was conducted. The government appropriated land on which to build its research facility during World War Two. Farmers and land-holders are stressed to this day about the displacement as they are about the TVA intrusion a decade before. Scientists and their families were persona non grata in local communities. Oak Ridge, however, survived. It has a museum that tells the story and is well worth a visit.

-- Lynchburg is known as the "Home of Jack Daniels" and is a popular tourist venue in Tennessee. The Jack Daniel's label for quality whiskey is world-wide although the county it is located is a 'dry' community.
-- Memphis has a number of nicknames but "Birthplace of Rock and Roll" is most popular. The city houses Graceland, Elvis Presley's home, and has a rich blues and jazz history.
-- Knoxville still is known as the "Underwear Capital of the World" even though most of those mills closed during the 1950s.

Answer: Huntsville

Prior to 1923 Texas counties handled executions via hanging. With the purchase of an electric chair in 1923, Texas began to have executions under state control in Huntsville. In fact, five men were executed immediately. From then until 1962, 361 offenders were executed in Huntsville. A moratorium on the death sentence came in 1964 and lasted until 1982 when the moral and ethical debate continued on the death sentence. When the moratorium was lifted, lethal injection began. Texas typically accounts for more executions than any other state.

-- Austin, in addition to being the Capital of Texas, also is the "Live Music Capital of the World". The PBS program "Austin City Limits" confirms this. Two other Austin nicknames are "Violet Crown" and "Keep Austin Weird".
-- In 1915 a circus train stopped in Hutto, Texas. A hippopotamus escaped from the train and got stuck in a nearby creek. It required three fire and police in addition to the circus workers to free the animal. Thus, Hutto became "Hippo City". Today the local high school teams are still called the 'Hippos'.
-- Waco, perhaps because of the presence of Baylor University, the largest Baptist college in the world, is sometimes referred to as the "Buckle of the Bible Belt". It is also the home of the "Texas Ranger Museum" and the "Dr. Pepper Museum". Waco was in national headlines some years ago with the affair of the Branch Dravidian Compound.

Answer: Salt Lake City

Salt Lake City and much of Utah was established by the Mormon Church or the longer name of "Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints". Hence Salt Lake City is the City of Saints. Salt Lake is known as the geological center as family history.

-- Kanab is "Little Hollywood". Near Bryce Canyon, it is the scenic host to "Daniel Boone", "Gunsmoke", "Planet of the Apes", "Outlaw Josey Wales", "Lone Ranger", "Stagecoach" and various other film and television productions.
-- Orem is the "Family City" after Forbes Magazine named it the fifth best place in the US to raise children. Oren is named for a pioneer railroad builder but was previously named "Provo Bench" and "Sharon".
-- Provo is located in what is called "Happy Valley". Several local businesses use the name. It was the site of a film called "Happy Valley" a documentary of drug abuse and its effect on individuals and the community.

Answer: Barre

Nearby Barre is a vein of granite four miles long, two miles wide, and ten miles deep. This granite is considered one of the best and arguably the best deposit of granite in the world.

Rutland is the "Marble City" but hardly rivals Barre although it has an extensive Marble Museum. St. Albans is the "Rail City" as it is the northern terminis for Amtrak. Winooski is called the "Onion City" as Winooski is a Native American word meaning 'wild onions'.

Answer: Bristol

In 1998 the US Congress proclaimed Bristol and its sister city Bristol, TN as the "Birthplace of Country Music". Early in recording history researchers recorded the folk music of the area. The area began to produce recordings of classic tunes from groups like the Carter Family. There are a number of country music, bluegrass, and Celtic music festivals in the area. Nearby is Bristol Speedway that hosts two NASCAR races each year on a quarter-mile high-banked track.

-- Williamsburg is the "Colonial Capital" as it was the capital of Virginia when Jamestown was burned. Nearby is an extensive restoration of Colonial Williamsburg which consists of authentic replicas of homes, shops, businesses, and atmosphere of colonial days that draw 700,000 to 1,000,000 visitors and tourists each year.
-- Because it is built on the foothills of the Blueridge Mountains, Lynchburg is known as the "City of Seven Hills". It served briefly as the capital of Virginia when Richmond fell during the Civil War. The Virginia State Colony for Epileptics and Feebleminded in Lynchburg carried out sterilization of "unfits' for decades up till 1972.
-- Each spring Honikor explodes in the color of pink as it is the "Rosebud Capital of the World" The town hopes to develop as a tourist mecca for its celebration of the rosebud.

Answer: Seattle

Given that neither the climate nor the soil is conducive to coffee growth, Seattle claims the title due to being the birthplace of Starbucks. What is Starbucks? There are over 17,000 Starbucks Coffee shops in 49 countries. There is probably one on a corner near you.

-- Aberdeen in the early 1900s was one of the most dangerous places on the west coast. It earned the title of "Port of Missing Men" due to its high murder rate. Another name that was applied was "Hellhole of the Pacific".
-- Walla Walla calls itself "The City So Nice, They Named it Twice". Actually, it is a Native American name meaning 'the meeting of waters'.
-- Because historically Ilwaco economy depended on the lumbering (land) and is located on the ocean (sea), its slogan is "By Land or Sea". At one time logs were sent down to form floating 'log booms' ready for processing.

Answer: Bluefield

Bluefield with its relatively high elevation is the "Summit City". Its coal yards made Bluefield a boom town. When coal declined as a fuel source, so did many coal-mining communities such as Bluefield. Remnants of more prosperous days are found in older buildings and decaying mansions. It once claimed to have more millionaires per capita than anywhere in the world.

-- Because of coal, oil, and salt deposits in the area, Charlestown is called "Chemicalville" as these resources are used in the manufacture of many products.
-- Petersburg is the "Home of the Golden Trout" since the Petersburg Trout Hatchery is located nearby.
-- Weirton was "Forged by Steel" but like many one industry communities, its fortunes declined when steel operations were curtailed.

Answer: Madison

In 1978 Lee Dreyfus, Governor of Wisconsin, speaking with frustration, called Madison "Seventy-seven Square Miles Surrounded by Reality". He felt that Madison was out of step with the rest of the state. The name stuck. The local paper, the Wisconsin State Journal, weekly runs a supplement called "77 Square" about weekend and up-coming events. Madison is also the "City of Four Lakes" as its downtown isthmus is only six blocks wide. Besides being the capital of Wisconsin, it is also the home of the University of Wisconsin. Camp Randall Stadium packs nearly 80,000 fans for home football games. The eight blocks surrounding the Capitol Building host a Farmer's Market each Saturday Spring through Fall and free musical concerts during the Summer. The city was once called the "Athens of America" by Life Magazine.

"Brew City" is the moniker for Milwaukee. With a strong German heritage, Milwaukee has sustained a reputation for brewing. It is also the largest city in Wisconsin, and Harley-Davidson builds its motorcycles there.

Even people who can't locate Wisconsin on a map have heard of the Green Bay Packers, the National Football League's smallest city. It is "Title Town", if not this year next year for sure. Games are sold out for decades. The stockholders are the owners although they get no dividend checks. Packer tickets are passed on through wills to the next generation.

Bloomer became the "Jump Rope Capital" in 1960 when a coach named Wally Mohrman became the PE teacher in Bloomer. Wanting to make exercise fun, his emphasis was on jumping rope. This excerpt from the Milwaukee Journal explains it better:

Bloomer - For all the traveling I do, I still pick up souvenirs from time to time. I like logo golf balls from the courses I play. My "Simplify, Simplify" T-shirt from Walden Pond is a favorite, and you would have to go a long way to top the souvenir ruler with an embedded straw of bull semen I picked up years ago at World Dairy Expo.

The other day, though, I picked up a souvenir that carries with it not mere memory but daunting challenge. In addition to the $1 "Jump Rope Capital of the World" bumper sticker and the $3 "Jump Rope Capital" pizza slicer (talk about an impulse buy) I bought at the Bloomer Chamber of Commerce, I dropped another buck on an official jump rope made by Bloomer Rope Jump Inc., a "7 1/2 ft. durable free swinging rope with unbreakable vinyl handles - used by the Champs."

So, said a woman at the newspaper office when I stopped for information, are you going to come back for the contest?
Was I? I don't actually jump rope.
No problem, she said.
"You just start jumping and then you just show up at the contest."
"It's that simple?" I said.
"It's that simple."

Then again there is the basic rule of getting older - beware any new activity described as just "that simple".

Answer: Douglas

A taxidermist, as a joke, placed a set of antlers on a stuffed jackrabbit and called it a jackalope, a creature created by the unlikely mating of a jackrabbit and an antelope. You can buy a jackalope hunting license in Douglas but it is only good for one day--July 31st. Ronald Reagan in a 1980 tour of his ranch. pointed to a rabbit head with antlers and claimed he had shot the jackalope himself.

-- Cody, named for 'Wild Bill' Cody, holds one of the more prestigious rodeos in the nation when many of the top riders compete. It proclaims to be the "Rodeo Capital of the World".
-- Tiny Meeteetse, population 351, is the "Ferret Capital of the World". The last known population of black-footed ferrets was found there.
-- During the early 'boom town' days of Rock Springs, many laborers from many countries came to work in the mines and the community. This diversity helps Rock Springs to be the "Home of Fifty-Six Nationalities".