![Weirdest Small Towns in the United States](http://townsquare.media/site/684/files/2017/02/Building.jpg?w=980&q=75)
Weirdest Small Towns in the United States
It's amazing the crap you can find on Facebook. Today I was perusing this rich and diverse digital social community and stumbled across the website Ranker.com, where they proudly proclaim you can vote on everything. I'm not really sure how much scientific data is actually used in any of their stories, ranking various things like "The Coolest Ghost Towns in America," "The Best Bill Paxton Movies," "The Best Bachelor of All Time" and more, but it sure makes for some interesting entertainment.
The post that caught my eye was a list of "The Weirdest Small Towns in the United States." I was eager to see if any Minnesota towns were listed, because I've passed through more than a few strange towns on my travels through Minnesota, but none of them could hold a candle to this strange list of towns across America. My favorites are Centralia, Pa., and Slab City in California.
There has been a fire burning in the Centralia ore mines, specifically in an ore seam that runs beneath the town, since 1962. The living conditions created by the heat, sinkholes and toxic gas and smoke rising from the ground caused most of the residents to leave, although handful of holdouts still live there. The other town isn't really a town at all but more of a place for squatters to live called Slab City in California. This former Marine Corps base was dismantled in 1956 and the only thing they left behind were the cement slabs on which the barracks had once stood. Anyway, check them out for yourself:
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