These 9 Arkansas Towns Are Famous For Super Weird Reasons

There are plenty of places in Arkansas that get national attention, and some of them become famous for really weird reasons. Not for terrible reasons, per se. For example, no one brought home a live landmine and had their neighborhood evacuated or anything (like number two on this list). From ghost lights to earthquake swarms, these nine towns have experienced everything from hard-to-explain natural phenomenon to strange paranormal activity.

Flickr/J. Michael Raby

Murfreesboro is one-of-a-kind. You see, there aren’t any diamond mines open to the public in the whole world, except for the one in Murfreesboro. You can see national news about Murfreesboro any time somebody finds a big diamond there, and that’s more often than you’d think.

Flickr/kelleymcd

Across a one year period, the town of Guy experienced more than 150 earthquakes. While earthquakes in the Natural State are more common than you might think, that many earthquakes over such a small area is extremely unusual, which is why the story of the Guy earthquake swarm was picked up by the national news.

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Fort Smith’s major claim to fame is being a hanging city whose justice was dispensed by a hanging judge. You can see a replica of the Judge Isaac C. Parker’s gallows at the National Historic Site and learn all about the period when Fort Smith was an old west town charged with bringing justice to the Indian Territory. The novel True Grit and both its movie adaptations are mostly based in Fort Smith.

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Dover is a town with a population of under 1500, and it’s right near a perfectly lovely creek called Big Piney. If you’re interested in spending a little time alone in the dark just north of Dover on Big Piney, you might seem some ghastly lights floating in the night. The Dover light are a mystery, and they’ve put Dover on the map for paranormal investigators.

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Eureka Springs has a reputation for being the quirkiest little town in Arkansas and quite a popular place to spend some time checking out attractions, too. Eureka Springs also has an incredibly high number of paranormal sightings, and it’s home to the 1886 Crescent Hotel, the most haunted hotel in America. It’s been covered by the Travel Channel and SyFy because of the paranormal activity there.

Tripadvisor/jmiller12

We don’t call our monster Bigfoot or Sasquatch or Skunk Ape. Arkansas’s very own bigfoot-shaped creature is called the Fouke Monster or the Boggy Creek Monster. You can learn all about the legend of that monster in the community of Fouke, as they have their very own Monster Mart with a museum and store inside.

Flickr/Tribal Pets, Inc.

The Gurdon light is one of the oldest and weirdest mysteries in the Natural State. Residents say a ghostly light hovers near the railroad tracks in the small town. The ghost light isn’t some scary story out of the past, either. Some Gurdon residents report recent sightings of the ghost light.

Flickr/Ruth Hartnup

This story is one of the weirdest ones you’re ever going to hear. In 1911, a traveling salesman named Mike died in Prescott. Thinking his family might show up to claim him, the local funeral home embalmed him and put him on display. That wasn’t an unheard of practice at the time, but things started to go weird... when they kept him on display until 1975, he became a roadside attraction, and the state of Arkansas had to pass a law to make the townspeople bury him.

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Flickr/Carol Von Canon

In 2011, 3,000 blackbirds dropped out of the sky in Beebe, all over a one mile area. The national news reported the event widely, as it coincided with the New Year. Beebe became famous because of what was said to be a great mystery. That incident was found to be caused by professional-grade fireworks. On New Year’s Eve the following year, 5,000 more birds fell to their death.

If you’re feel up to a list of even creepier occurrences, click here. You might also enjoy this list of bizarre stories you’ve probably never heard before.