What Do ‘Dead Horse’ And ‘Devil’s Backbone’ Have In Common? — A Misguided Guide to Unusual Place Names in America.
By Victoria Elizabeth

Zap, North Dakota sign by David Mart, North Dakota State University
It is said that England has more than a few rather quaint place names such as Bodmin, Grimbister, Ipswich, Nobottle, No Man’s Land, Pie Corner, Pratt’s Bottom, Scrabster, and Twatt but, they pale in comparison to the plethora of picturesque place names in the “New World.”
For those with precious little to do, why not take a peek at a few of the curious and entertaining place names found in the United States (like Zap, North Dakota and Knockemstiff, Ohio)
This state of affairs naturally begs several questions.
1. Just who might be eager to visit these out-of-the-way, off-the-beaten-track, and some might even say, downright peculiar places like Nothing, Arizona or Floyds Knobs, Indiana?
2. What do real estate agents say and do to attract new property owners to King of Prussia, Valentine or Santa Clause?
3. Who lives in Nags Head or Lynchburg?
4. Why would anyone name a place “Punxsutawney” unless, of course, one had nothing better to do on “National Groundhog Appreciation Day”?
5. Where are Frostproof, Funkstown, Pottawattamie, Romeoville, and Willacoochee anyway?
So grab yourself an atlas or a map and whatever you do, drop by and say hello to the folks in:
Chicken, Deadhorse or Eek, Alaska
Burnt Corn, Intercourse, Muck City, and Rooster, Alabama
Fannie, Greasy Corner, Grubbs, Hooker, Okay, Possum Grape, Smackover, Toad Suck, Turkey Scratch, Weiner, or Yellville, Arkansas
Blunt, Bummerville, Deadwood, Doghouse Junction, Frying Pan, Hellhole Palms, Hells Kitchen, Hooker, Last Chance, Mormon Bar, Needles, Ono, Prunedale, Rescue, Relief, Scarface, Squabbletown, Sucker Flat, Timbuctoo, Toad Town, Volcano, Weedpatch, Wimp, You Bet, and Yreka Zzyzx, California
Climax, Last Chance, No Name, Parachute, Purgatory in Colorado
Giants Neck, Mianus, or Moosup in Connecticut
Howey-in-the-Hills, Kissimmee, Okahumpka, Sopchoppy, Two Egg, Weeki Wachee, and Yeehaw Junction in Florida
Between, Chickasawhatchee, Climax, Enigma, Hopeulikit, or Talking Rock, Georgia
Good Grief or Beer Bottle Crossing in Idaho
Bald Knob, Devil’s Backbone, Grand Detour, Kickapoo, Paw Paw, or Roachtown, Illinois
French Lick, Gnaw Bone, Loogootee, Naked City, Roachdale, and Toad Hop, Indiana
Diagonal, Gravity, or What Cheer, Iowa
Perdition or Ransom in Kansas
Beaver Lick, Bugtussle, Chicken Gizzard, Crummies, Do Stop, Monkeys Elbow, Mousie, Mud Lick, Oddville, Ogle, Spring Lick, Rabbit Hash, or Typo in Kentucky
Belcher, Cut-Off, Fort Necessity, Grosse Tete, Mudville, Tickfaw, and Waterproof, Louisiana
Bald Head, Dickey, Beans Corner Bingo in Maine
Accident, Assawoman Bay, Boring, Crapo, Cockeysville, Maryland
Belchertown, Cow Yard, Mashpee, Sandwich, Swampscott in Massachusetts
Bad Axe, Climax, Hell, Jugville, Kalamazoo, Podunk, Slapneck, Michigan
Climax, Embarass, Nimrod, Nowthen, Savage, and Sleepy Eye, Minnesota
Bobo, Chunky, Dragon, Possumneck, Sanatorium, Soso, or Yazoo, Mississippi
Conception, Cooter, Enough, Frankenstein, Licking, Peculiar, Roach, Sleeper, and Tightwad, Missouri
Bitter Root, Elmo, Hungry Horse, Rocky Boy, Square Butte, Two-Dot, and Yaak in Montana
Colon, Fort Crook, Road, Wahoo, Weeping Water, or Worms in Nebraska
Bunkerville, Incline Village, Lovelock, Owyhee, Pahrump, Searchlight, Verdi-Mogul, Weed Heights, and Winnemucca in Nevada
Bungy, Contoocook, Hell Hollow, Lost Nation, or Sandwich Landing in New Hampshire
Bivalve, Brick, Ho-Ho Kus, Little Egg Harbor, Love Ladies, or Succasuna in New Jersey
Elephant Butte, Tingle, and Truth or Consequences in New Mexico
Cat Elbow Corner, Climax, Coxsackie, Hicksville, Horseheads, Peekskill, Neversink, Yaphank Yonkers in New York
Climax, Gum Neck, Horneytown, Lizard Lick, Meat Camp, Tick Bite, Toast, and Whynot in North Carolina
Concrete, Hoople, Voltaire, and Zap in North Dakota
Blue Ball, Climax, Fly, Knockemstiff, and Three Legs Town, Ohio
Bowlegs, Frogville, Hooker, Okay, Pumpkin Center, Slapout, or Slaughterville in Oklahoma
Boring, Drain, Halfcom, Idiotville, and Zig Zag in Oregon
Balltown, Bird-in-Hand, Blue Ball, Climax, Drab, Experiment, Fear Not, Gobbler’s Knob, Hempfield, Intercourse, Loyalsockville, Panic, Porkey, Scalp Level, Uno, and Virginville in Pennsylvania)
Mooseup Valley, Quidnick, Quonochontaug, and Woonsocket in Rhode Island
Coward, Due West, Ninetimes, or Sugar Tit in South Carolina
Bath, Igloo, Lemmon, Peever, and Red Shirt, South Dakota
Bugscuffle, Bucksnort, Defeated, Difficult, Duck Town, Finger, Nameless, Only, Smartt, Sweet Lips, Static, and Yum Yum, Tennessee
Cut-n-Shoot, Dime Box, Ding Dong, Frognot, Gun Barrel City, Hoop and Holler, Leaky, Loco, Looneyville, Muleshoe, Notrees, Pointblank, Possum Kingdom, Run and Shoot, Tarzan, Trophy Club, Turkey, Twitty, and Uncertain in Texas
Bald Knob, Hurricane, Lovelock, Orderville, Utah
Bread Loaf, Mosquitoville, Notown, Satans Kingdom, Vermont
Bumpass, Croaker, Frogtown, Goochland, Goosepimple Junction, Mutt, Nuttsville, Ordinary, Virginia
Enumclaw, Humptulips, Klickitat, Kooskooskie, Tumtum, and Tumwater in Washington
Big Ugly, Crum, HooHoo, Looneyville, Lost City, Nitro, Odd, Paw, Pinch, War in West Virginia
Embarrass, Footville, Imalone, Spread Eagle, Ubet, or Wanderoos in Wisconsin
Bill, Camel Hump, Meeteetse, and Muddy Gap in Wyoming
And, if you want to find these places on a map, go to: http://geonames.usgs.gov/
Copyright © Victoria Elizabeth 2004. All rights reserved, Updated December 2021.
About the Author: Victoria Elizabeth. “The Quipping Queen”, enjoys musing about mirthful things in Life, the Universe, and Everything In between from the pages of her blatherskating blog at www.quippingqueen.blogspot.com
Readers’ Additions:
- Alligator, Mississippi
- Assinippi, Massachusetts
- Bald Knob, Arkansas
- Bates Motel, Ontario, Oregon
- Big Bone Lick, Kentucky
- Bird-In-Hand, Pennsylvania
- Black Lick, Pennsylvania
- Blue, Oklahoma
- Blue Balls, Arkansas
- Boring, Oregon
- Booger Hollow, Arkansas
- Booger Hollow, North Carolina
- Buffalo Soapstone, Alaska
- Christmas, Michigan
- Coffeeville, Kansas
- Coon Hunter, Pennsylvania
- Dry Prong, Louisiana
- Dildo, Newfoundland, Canada
- Donner and Blitzen River, Frenchglen, Oregon
- Erect, North Carolina
- French Lick, Indiana
- Frog Jump, Tennessee
- Home, Kansas
- Hot Coffee, Mississippi
- Hygiene, Colorado
- Hurt, Virginia
- Ice, Oklahoma
- Jackass Flats, Virginia
- Joe, Montana
- Jump Off Joe Lake, Washington
- Knob Lick, Missouri
- Lake Chargoggagoggmanchauggagoggchaubunagungamaugg, Webster, Massachusetts – Wow, now that’s a mouthful and we couldn’t resist doing a little research on this. The lake is most often referred to by locals as “Webster Lake,” as the actual pronunciation is too difficult. Given the name by the Nipmuk Indians, the name loosely translates to “fishing place at the boundary.” It was considered neutral territory long ago and became a meeting place and powwow site among the Nipmuks and the Narraganssett, Pequot, and Mohegan tribes. However, when the Webster Times ran a humorous article about the lake with a tongue-in-cheek translation of, “You Fish on Your Side, I Fish on My Side, Nobody Fish in the Middle,” it became so popular that many don’t know today what the actual translation is. “Chargoggagoggmanchauggagoggchaubunagungamaugg” is the longest place name in the United States and 6th longest in the world. See more about the lake and its history at History of the Lake.
- Lickdale, Pennsylvania
- Maggie’s Nipples, Wyoming
- Mary D, Pennsylvania
- Monkey Eyebrow, Kentucky
- Oatmeal, Texas
- Panther Burn, Mississippi
- Pie Town, New Mexico
- Piggot, Arkansas
- Pink, Oklahoma
- Possumneck, Mississippi
- Possum Kingdom, South Carolina
- Possum Trot, Kentucky
- Puseyville, Pennsylvania
- Racket, Missouri
- Rooster Poot, Arkansas
- Rough and Ready, California
- Seven Devils, North Carolina
- Shickshinny, Pennsylvania
- Shivers, Mississippi
- Skookumchuck River, Washington
- Shoot, Texas
- Skullbone, Tennessee
- Snow, Oklahoma
- SoSo, Mississippi
- Speedway, Indiana
- Spot, Alabama
- Strawberry, Arizona
- Time, Illinois
- Tookiedoo, South Carolina
- Tum Tum, Washington
- Wapwallopen, Pennsylvania
- Walla Walla, Washington
- Weiner, Arkansas
- Welcome, North Carolina
- Whorehouse Meadows, Oregon
- Wing, Alabama – Pronounced like “wang,” as in pass me some more of them chickin’ wangs.
- Why Not, Mississippi
- Y, Alaska
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