Tell me about your favorite small towns

[Evie]

So, as part of the worldbuilding for the universe I'm creating (might be for a novel, might not be), I'm trying to come up with interesting, quaint, weird, mysterious or otherwise intriguing small- to mid-sized towns in North America.

Now I know a few already myself, obviously. A good number in the North-East, but less and less once I spread out from there. Seeing as I need to cover the whole continent, and researching every town until I find an interesting one is slow (and not as effective as asking the locals), I'm turning to you, Civfanatics (and to other sources) for suggestins of cool quaint towns.

(PS, it's perfectly fine to nominate your hometown. Lots of places on the list by sole virtue of being a friend's hometown).

The requirement list is
-In North America
-NOT big cosmopolitan cities (Toronto, New York)
-At least a couple thousand inhabitants.
-Somewhere between two thousand-ish and a million inhabitant (Ottawa and NOLA are pretty much as large as I'm willing to go for).
-EAST of the continental divide. I have other plans further west.
-Bonus points for cool, interesting obscure historical trivia.
-Bonus points for being near impressive natural features or wilderness areas

Spoiler: the following places have already made the cut:

Spoiler :

CANADA
Alberta: Cochrane, Drumheller, Legal, Rocky Mountain House, Slave Lake
British Columbia: Fort St. John,
New Brunswick: Caraquet, Edmundston
Ontario: Bowmanville, Kingston, Little Current, Mississippi Mills, Ottawa, Sault Ste. Marie, St. Catharines, Windsor
Quebec (1): Amos, Cap-Chat, Coaticook, Gaspé, Ile d'Orléans, La Malbaie, Les Escoumins, Magog, Pohénégamook, Rivière-du-Loup, Saint-Élie-de-Caxton, Saint-Georges, Saint-Hilaire, Trois-Rivières

Arkansas: Fayetteville
Connecticut: New Haven
Florida: St. Augustine
Georgia: Savannah
Illinois: Alton, Peoria
Louisiana: New Orleans
Maine: Bar Harbor, Brunswick, Old Town, Portland
Massachusetts: Bridgewater, Hadley, Orleans, Salem
Michigan: Saugatuck, Traverse City
New Hampshire: Berlin, Concord, Hanover
New Jersey: New Brunswick, Wildwood
New York: Albany, Bethel, Ithaca, Plattsburgh, Sleepy Hollow
Pennsylvania: Derry
South Carolina: Charleston, Columbia,
Tennessee: Gatlinburg
Vermont: Burlington, Newport
Virginia: Chincoteague,
West Virginia: Matewan,

 

[Omega124]

As an Albany native, I have to volunteer Albany. Albany itself is just shy of 100K people, and my specific bedroom community is like 16K.

Fun facts about Albany!

It's the oldest continuously charted city in America. Meaning that the city government is the oldest of all the city governments in America

Albany also has the oldest municipal airport in America as well

This bridge is really whacky, and I have to cross it every time I want to go to the city proper

The Egg. Just everything about The Egg. So many things went wrong for this monstrosity to exist. Even TMBG wrote a song about this, which has the lyric "what were they thinking?"

we have what I believe is the largest tulip festival outside of the Netherlands

Albany also had the longest running mayor in the entire country, with Mayor Corning 2nd running continuously from 1942 to 1983. Uncoincidently, Albany was one of the last cities for its political machine to break up.

Fun facts about my bedroom community (East Greenbush) in specific

Citizen Genet, when he decided he wasn't returning to France, settled and eventually died in East Greenbush. I'm in walking distance to his grave actually.

second most likely town in USA to go bankrupt!

That's about it. East Greenbush isn't fun

 

[shadowplay]

What do you like about Bowmanville? I usually describe Bowmanville as the place where all the people in Toronto who complain about immigrants move to.

 

[Evie]

That one falls under the "sole virtue of being the hometown of a friend" rule . That's a good reason for me to turn it into something interesting.

(though the fact that it saw the only WW2 land fighting on Canadian soil helps!)

That, and the "Let's screw Toronto over" rule that, as a proud Montrealo-Ottawan, I'm kind of morally obliged to follow.

we have what I believe is the largest tulip festival outside of the Netherlands

As an Ottawan, I must inform you that this laying claim to that title count as declaring war on us.

(But Albany could make the cut)

 

[MilesGregarius]

Bonus points for listing Brunswick, ME.

I nominate Scituate, MA for the American Army of Two.

Under a million inhabitants covers a lot of cities.

I vote Pittsburgh, PA - interesting history (founded by the French, taken over by the Brits - not before George Washington lost his first battle retreating from there - and named after an English PM, gateway to the West down the Ohio - see Mike Fink, industrial powerhouse - see the Homestead Strike and Andrew Carnegie, decline and rebirth), culturally distinct (not exactly East Coast, not exactly Appalachia, old Rust Belt, but with many educational/cultural institutions, large populations of East Europeans with Russian Orthodox, Syriac Catholic, and other less common denominations), one of the prettier skylines around, its own dialect. Not to mention french fries and cole slaw in the sandwich.

 

[Evie]

The town that began and ended the Civil War, and the town where two of the "big three" creators of American folklore went to school? Brunswick was always a shoe-in

Scituate is interesting (and the Bates sister definitely warrant inclusion), but I'm not sure how much more room I have in MA.

Pittsburgh isn't so obscure and is a little on the large-ish side (the urban and metro areas population are on the huge side), but the history does make it interesting all the same.

 

[civvver]

There's a lot of really great places in Michigan, specifically west Michigan though.

Traverse city the whole area is great. If you want quaint you go out on the pennisula. There are a ton of wineries and breweries. http://leelanau.com/dining/

There's beaches and dunes too. You also can't go wrong with Saugatuck michigan. Just another quaint town, but it's pretty expensive cus it's popular. http://www.saugatuck.com/index.asp

They're all similar, wineries, breweries, shops, water. Saugatuck has a canal that goes right through it that leads to lake Michigan. Holland Michigan is also nice.

Grand Rapids has a really great downtown. It's safe and clean, tons of bars and micro brews, a couple event places that get some headliner acts.

There's also Mackinaw island. I haven't been there since I was a kid. You have to take a ferry to get to it and there are no vehicles on the island, only horses and bikes. I've heard they have some night life, day time is quaint shops and candy stores cus they are famous for fudge and taffy.

I also think this may be too large, but the Canadian side of Niagara falls is awesome. Tons of stuff to do, tours, carnivals, restaurants, bars. And the wineries nearby there are quaint.

 

[Farm Boy]

At least 2,000 but less than a million? That's quite the spread!

Alton, Illinois, is somewhat interesting and clocks in at about 30,000. Top two things that spring to mind are the the martyrdom of Elijah Lovejoy and the union prisoner of war camp during the Civil War. Lots of local ghost stories to research and delve into.

I also find Peoria, IL, home of Caterpillar and a surprisingly good legacy of theater, to be interesting but it is perhaps too large, clocking in at about 120,000 for the city and 300,000 for the metro area.

 

[Commodore]

How about Derry, Pennsylvania? It the town where my wife grew up and is south of Pittsburgh. It has a population of 2,688 as of the 2010 census. Here's some stuff from the Wikipedia article on the town:

Derry, originally known as Derry Station, was created in 1852 to serve the Pennsylvania Railroad. It was named after the village on PA Route 982 originally known as Derry and now known as New Derry (even though it is older than the community being discussed here).[2] The original "Derry" in Westmoreland County, Pennsylvania was named after the city Derry in Northern Ireland, because the area’s first non-Indian inhabitants were Scotch-Irish.

Derry was ideally suited for major railroad facilities because of its ready access to water from McGee Run (essential in the era of steam locomotives) and because it sits atop a slight summit along the railroad right-of-way. In Derry's heyday in the late 1800s, it had four hotels, mainly to serve railroad workers, as well as a roundhouse for locomotive maintenance and a massive railroad yard.[2] Derry was incorporated as a borough on October 22, 1881.[3]

Also, Derry served as the terminal for Pittsburgh commuter trains until 1964, when the Pennsylvania Railroad ceased operating its commuter service. The annual Railroad Days Festival serves to remind residents of Derry's railroading heritage.[4]
Bird's-eye view of Derry Station in 1900

Little remains of Derry's railroading boom, although some might notice an unused railroad right-of-way that extends from Derry westward to PA Route 981, running slightly north but parallel to the currently-used railroad tracks. This was an ill-fated project known as the Derry-Donohoe-Jeannette (DDJ) bypass, in which the Pennsylvania Railroad attempted to build a new main line that would avoid the curves and slopes of the existing main line, bypassing Latrobe and Greensburg.[2] Construction of the bypass began in the 1920s, including a large trestle near Bradenville, but the new route was never completed.

Derry and Latrobe were also linked by the Westmoreland County Railway Company which was an interurban (long-distance trolley) operating from 1904 to 1932.[5]

A helicopter crash into a crowd assembled for a festival at St. Joseph's Catholic Church in Derry killed eight people and injured 18 others on Labor Day, 1978. The railroad crossing in downtown Derry has also been the site of other fatal accidents.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Derry,_Pennsylvania

 

[Evie]

Ohhhhh, Alton is where the Piasa is. Great idea! Derry sounds nice, too, as does Peoria.

The following have been added to the list (from here and other sources of advice)

Alberta: Cochrane, Drumheller, Legal, Rocky Mountain House, Slave Lake
British Columbia: Fort St. John
Ontario: Little Current, Mississippi Mills, Sault Ste. Marie
Quebec: Cap-Chat, Coaticook, Gaspé, Ile d'Orléans, La Malbaie, Pohénégamook, Rivière-du-Loup, Saint-Élie-de-Caxton, Saint-Georges, Saint-Hilaire

Illinois: Alton, Peoria
Maine: Bar Harbor
Michigan: Saugatuck, Traverse City
New York: Albany
Pennsylvania: Derry
Tennessee: Gatlinburg
West Virginia: Matewan (Smaller than I wanted, but being close to the heart of the most legendary feud in American history matters)

 

[warpus]

Stratford, Ontario is a cool little town with a population of 30,000 or so, about 45 minutes from here. They like to think they are "Canada’s Premier Arts Town", which may or may not be accurate, I have no idea, as I know nothing of effect about theatre. They put on the Stratford Festival, a theatre festival which focuses mainly on Shakespeare. This festival seems to be internationally recognized in some ways, and seems to have a long history of this sort of thing: (Christopher Walken bolding mine)

Alec Guinness and Irene Worth were within the cast of Stratford's inaugural performance of Richard III on July 13, 1953, Tony Award-nominee Scott Wentworth has performed within the festival's stage productions on numerous occasions since 1985, beginning with The Glass Menagerie, the festival has helped Sara Topham found herself with a career in acting, performing from 2000 to 2011, and a young, unknown Christopher Walken appeared in Stratford's 1968 stage productions of Romeo and Juliet and A Midsummer's Night Dream, portraying Romeo and Lysander respectively.

Season preview:

Spoiler :

Link to video.

Here is the festival page.

The city centre is nice but nothing too special to be honest, and personally I have only driven through it, so I can't really comment.. Either way it's pretty popular here and probably throughout most southwestern Ontario and possibly the rest of Canada. I thought I'd nominate it even though I don't necessarily think it will win in the "best small town" category or even "warpus' favourite towns" category.

Here is a video of another annual thing they seem to do there

Spoiler :

Link to video.

edit: interesting tidbit about Stratford not involving Christopher Walken:

In 1933 a general strike, started by the furniture workers and led by the Communist Workers' Unity League, marked the last time the army was deployed to break a strike in Canada

 

[sophie]

-Somewhere between two thousand-ish and a million inhabitant (Ottawa and NOLA are pretty much as large as I'm willing to go for).

You have a very funny definition of "small"

Fewer than a million describes every city in USA/Canada except:

NYC, LA, Chicago, Houston, Philly, Phoenix, San Antonio, San Diego, Dallas, San Jose, Toronto, Montreal, and Calgary.

 

[Evie]

1)Small or mid-size, as the initial post says.

2)Generally speaking, I'm considering urban and metropolitan population for big core cities. Hence why NOLA (city population below 400k, Metro 1.2m) and Ottawa (city 880k, Urban 930k, Metro 1.2m) are listed as "about as big as I'll take" despite their city population being a fair bit short of the million.

In addition to the ones you listed, this make Boston, Washington, San Francisco, Miami, Detroit, Atlanta, Seattle, Tampa, Denver, Cleveland, Orlando, Minneapolis-St Paul, Cincinnati, Vancouver, St. Louis, Salt Lake City, Charlotte, Portland (OR), Pittsburgh, Las Vegas, Sacramento, Kansas City, Indianapolis, Hartford, Columbus, Austin, Providence, Nashville, Milwaukee, Jacksonville, Memphis, Louisville, and Virginia Beach notably off-limit. May be others I've missed.

On top of which I'll add that even in the NOLA/Ottawa size range, it would take a very, very, very solid case for me to add a town. (some of the last few on that list might qualify in the same way).

 

[CavLancer]

Cody Wyoming. Lots of dang good reasons that don't seem to be coming back at the moment. Been there 3 times, starting when I was a kid. Went to a rodeo. Think its on the continental divide.

 

[Evie]

It seems pretty close, but is probably too close to the continental divide to work (let's just say the continental divide is a very nasty place to get too close to in the setting in question).

 

[warpus]

To work for what?

 

[GoodEnoughForMe]

I echo Saugatuck from Michigan and would also nominate South Haven. It swells up in summer from all the Chicago tourists but it's a really beautiful beach town with some nice restaurants and fun shops and cafes. I go all the time in summer to swim and watch the sunset on the beach. It's a really weird mix in summer (in a good way) of oldtimers and college age adults.

It is good that New Orleans has also made the cut because that's a fantastic city.

 

[Evie]

To work for my worldbuilding project, Warpus (Stratford works perfectly, though, and has been added to the list). (To be more specific, they're the towns with communities of magic-users).

The obstacle of the continental divide is an aspect of world-building that...oh, see for yourself. The blog's not supposed to be public yet, but it will be launched sooner or later (working out the major features of the map is the big step I need before that) : https://witchedworld.wordpress.com/2016/03/19/crossing-the-divide/

Saugatuck would normally be too small to make the cut but it looks cool enough to warrant an exception.

 

[warpus]

Wait, magic users?

 

[Evie]

It's a world-building project (as it says right in the first post).

I'm trying to figure out good (real) towns where my fictional (obviously) magic users might live in my fictional setting that is based on the very real North America.