1

Beware of the banana peel!

Image: SHVETS production

It might sound like a scene straight out of The Three Stooges , but we assure you, this was once a legitimate concern. It’s no myth that residents of Waco, Texas are forbidden from eating bananas and tossing the peels into the street. Lawmakers feared horses could slip on the peels and injure themselves.

This is also true for Elmira, New York. A city ordinance from 1899 stated that no person could throw any banana peels—or any other fruit skins—onto the sidewalk. As it happens, back when bananas were introduced to the northern states, they were very cheap and people usually bought them in bulk. The surplus was huge and the waste was becoming a problem. In fact, in 1893 a woman sued the city after slipping on a banana peel, falling on the sidewalk, and breaking her leg.

2

Dueling candidates

Image: various illustrators, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

It may sound old-fashioned, but this law is still in effect in West Virginia. To be eligible as governor, a candidate must not only be at least 30 years old and have resided in the state for at least five years preceding the election, but they must also never have participated in a duel.

According to §6-5-7 of the West Virginia Code, any citizen who sends or accepts a challenge or participates in a duel with deadly weapons "shall ever thereafter be incapable of holding any office of honor, trust or profit in this state." By the end of the American Civil War dueling had become almost obsolete, but for some reason, The Mountain State is one of the few states that still hasn’t repealed its dueling laws.

3

Extraterrestrial exposure

Image: Bradley Dunn

Despite popular opinion, Title 14, Section 1211 of the Code of Federal Regulations did not make it illegal for Americans to have contact with extraterrestrials or their vehicles. Instead, the law was enacted just before the Apollo 11 mission to give the government authority to quarantine astronauts in case they became contaminated with an alien virus during their moonwalk.

This regulation, best known as the Extra-Terrestrial Exposure Law was adopted by NASA in 1969. It stipulated that astronauts be kept in isolation for 21 days after their liftoff from the Moon in case there was a remote possibility that they were harboring "unknown lunar organisms that might endanger life on Earth." The rule was revoked in 1977 and formally repealed in 1991.

4

Women vote

Image: See page for author, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Did you know that although American women were not universally granted the right to vote until 1920, state laws in New Jersey allowed them to vote as early as 1776 ? In 1790, when the New Jersey State Constitution was reformed, it formalized what the previous constitution had only implied: that propertied women could vote.

A few years later, a law expanded the previous election reforms and allowed women without "clear estate" to vote too. So, after the adoption of this 1797 law, the number of women voters at the polls significantly increased. New Jersey women enthusiastically exercised their rights until 1807, when the state finally restricted voting to white men.

5

Keep it classy

Image: Clay Banks

If you want to live in North California, you have to follow some rules of good taste. In 1998, the city of Wilson outlawed the keeping of upholstered furniture on front porches, on the basis that the practice was unsightly and tacky.

A year later, the town of Morganton followed suit, outlawing couches, recliners, and similar indoor furniture from verandas and yards. Mel Cohen, the city mayor at the time, said that outdoor furniture was drawing many complaints, so the city embarked on a quest to "beautify" the neighborhoods. Violators of the ordinance could be fined up to $300 for their offense.

6

Three-second hugging

Image: Mary Taylor

By the beginning of the 21st century, the rules of public displays of affection seemed to be changing and left previous generations in a state of confusion. In 2009, after noticing an increasing number of students embracing in the hallways, school officials in Hillsdale, New Jersey, implemented a "three-second hugging" rule. Apparently, adults were concerned that the constant displays of affection could disrupt the flow of hallway traffic.

Teenagers argued that the gesture was entirely unromantic and merely a way of saying "hello." However, schools preferred to go back to the old handshake in order to maintain an atmosphere of academic seriousness and to prevent any instances of unwanted physical contact.

7

Blue sundaes

Image: Markus Spiske

Ever heard of "blue laws"? Blue laws are rules that once banned certain activities on Sundays, adopted originally for religious reasons. Blue laws often restricted business and recreational activities to encourage observance of the Christian day of worship.

For example, buying ice cream on Sundays was once illegal in Ohio because it was thought to be frivolous and luxurious. To circumvent this law, ice cream vendors began adding fruit toppings to disguise the frozen treat below and make it appear more "nutritious." This clever workaround ultimately led to the creation of the ice cream sundae.

8

Poking turkeys

Image: RDNE Stock project

Finding the perfect Thanksgiving turkey can be an artistry or a real challenge. How can you ensure that the well-rounded breast you pick up in the supermarket’s poultry section will turn into a delicious, juicy treat?

Everyone has their own strategy, but depending on which state you are in, your method might actually be illegal without you even knowing it. For example, did you know that in Los Angeles, California, it is prohibited to poke a turkey for sale in a meat market to check its tenderness? Don’t say we didn’t warn you!

9

Permanent marks

Image: Linda Xu

Carrying a marker in your pocket, purse, or backpack while walking the streets of California could land you in trouble. In the Golden State, it’s illegal to possess "broad-tipped indelible markers" —a.k.a. permanent markers—in a public space. Any person carrying a chisel, an awl, an aerosol paint container, or a harmless felt tip marker can be accused of committing vandalism.

The law is in place to curb graffiti and other forms of unauthorized street art. It is considered a misdemeanor and can be punished with up to 90 hours of community service, typically scheduled outside of school or work hours.

10

Go nuts!

Image: Vladislav Nikonov

Nuts can be a real problem for many people with food allergies. But even so, these laws prohibiting the consumption of nuts in public places may surprise you. For instance, in Boston, Massachusetts, it’s illegal to eat peanuts in church . Meanwhile, in Charleston, South Carolina, eating nuts on a public bus can result in a fine of up to $500 and as much as 60 days in jail.

If you thought it couldn't get any more specific than that, hold your horses! In Ridley Park, Pennsylvania, people are not allowed to eat peanuts while walking backward in front of the Barnstormers Theater during a performance. Probably the craziest law on this list, don’t you think?

1

Edinburgh Manor, Iowa

Image: Yener Ozturk

Thanks, in no small part, to horror movies and documentaries, asylums make great abandoned places. So, we might as well start our list with Edinburgh Manor , a once-bustling institution located in Iowa. Built in the early 1900s, this huge building served as a home for the mentally ill, the elderly, and the indigent, until 2010.

Today, Edinburgh Manor continues to harbor visitors but in the form of thrill chasers who seek to experience the paranormal within the mysterious walls of the immense asylum, even daring to stay the night on its premises. Would you dare to be one of them?

2

Dinosaur Mini Golf Ruins, California

Image: Dan Meyers

Dinosaurs and golf are two entirely different things. But in the cultural melting pot that is California, it seemed like a good idea to build a dinosaur-themed mini golf course in the town of Apple Valley, complete with 15-foot-tall creatures rendered in concrete.

Alas, the economics of the whole endeavor proved too much for its creator, who was forced to abandon his dream to the desert. Today, the deteriorating remains of these dinosaurs can still be visited, as an attraction that lures travelers off the highway.

3

Space Shuttle Fuel Tank, Green Cove Springs, Florida

Image: SpaceX

Picture a humongous 154-foot-long space fuel tank sitting alone in the middle of nowhere. For many years, this tank stood on display at the Kennedy Space Center. But after the Space Shuttle program ended in 2011, NASA announced that they would remove the test fuel tank to make room for the retired space shuttle Atlantis, along with a new exhibition facility. The tank was auctioned off and sold to the Wings of Dreams Aviation Museum in Keystone Heights, Florida.

It took a 200-foot barge, two tugboats, and cranes to transport the massive tank to Green Cove Springs, where it would be temporarily held before moving to its final destination. But the logistics of moving such a massive structure proved difficult, and that temporary staging site seems to have become the fuel tank’s final home.

4

Meigs Field Tower and Terminal, Illinois

Image: Mads Eneqvist

An abandoned airport ranks high amongst the personal goals of any urban explorer worth its salt. And, to anyone close to Chicago, Meigs Field certainly delivers. Built on an artificial peninsula, the airport functioned as such from 1948 to 2003.

Today it no longer works as an airport but the stubby control tower is still very much recognizable as such, standing watch over the breezy park and its native grasses and birds.

While the tower is closed to the public, the old terminal building is not; it houses a Parks Department Visitor’s Center.

5

Old Zoo Nature Trails, Texas

Image: Matthew Cabret

A long-abandoned zoo repurposed as a hiking trail? Sign me up! The Cisco Zoo in rural Texas functioned as such for only a few years starting in the 1920s until it closed its doors due to a poisoned bear, a mysterious deer death, and other factors.

Visitors can walk through the rusted enclosures and concrete shelters where the animals were once kept, and even find the remains of what were once offices used by zoo staff. The ruins form an eerie backdrop to an otherwise tranquil 1.5-mile track still in the shadow of the dam.

6

Redstone Coke Ovens, Colorado

Image: Nadia Jamnik

Picture a mysterious "town" made up of several lines of man-made caves of equal dimensions, with open entrances like dark mouths. Now place it in a mountainous terrain, in the middle of nowhere. Welcome to Colorado Fuel and Iron coke ovens , in Coal Basin.

Built in 1899, the 249 ovens worked only for a few years, until 1908. In recent decades, the site was recognized as a historic one, and nowadays, many ovens remain intact and open to the public.

7

Black River Ghost Ship, Ohio

Image: zhao chen

Another high-ranking site in the books of any urban explorer is a ghost ship . Located on the banks of the Black River outside of Cleveland, lies a bit of a nautical mystery for the residents of Lorain, Ohio. Sinking into the muddy water along the shore and listing to one side, rusting away a little more each season, is a 90-foot-long Canadian automobile ferry that mysteriously appeared docked under the bridge sometime around 2003.

For the last 20 years, the ship has remained where it dropped anchor all those years ago. No one knows what will happen to the ship. But, for now, it serves as a decaying piece of maritime history that is well worth the walk to the top of the bridge in Lorain to view.

8

Lando School, South Carolina

Image: Evgeny Matveev

Going back to your former school as an adult is a recurring dream for many. Going back to your former school and walking through its ruins is a slightly less common dream, but it is also known to happen. And, if you went to school before the year 1955 in the Lando Schoolhouse in South Carolina, you can live the dream.

The school ruins feature classrooms, an auditorium, and balcony seatings above, all on three floors full of eerie corners, dusty blackboards, and forgotten tables. Quite creepy, right?

9

Abandoned Castle Video Games, South Carolina

Image: Chris Anderson

A defunct casino building fashioned as a castle, complete with a stone exterior, an arched wooden door, a looming knight statue, turrets, and other cliché castle features. It doesn’t get much better than that.

Castle Video Games was a video gambling center in the late 80s and early 90s until the Carolina Supreme Court ruled video gambling illegal, thus shutting the casino castle doors forever.

10

Camp Hayden, Washington

Image: Greg Panagiotoglou

Bunkers are gloomy places by design, with very little room for windows, if any, and an oppressive atmosphere. Now, imagine being in a World War II abandoned bunker at the end of a thickly forested road inside the Salt Creek Recreation Area west of Port Angeles, Washington.

One of seven locations in Washington’s system, this bunker featured a fire control radar and harbor entrance radar. Constructed of steel-shielded concrete, the structure was designed to withstand a direct hit. All of the bunkers still stand, and portions of the interiors are accessible to explorers.

1

Josephine Baker

Image: Richie Lugo

Josephine Baker was the first Black woman to star in a major motion picture , the 1927 French silent film Siren of the Tropics . During her early career, Baker was among the most celebrated performers to headline the revues of the Folies Bergère in Paris. Her performance in the 1927 revue Un vent de Folie caused a sensation in the city. Her costume, consisting only of a short skirt made of artificial bananas and a beaded necklace, became an iconic image and a symbol both of the Jazz Age and the Roaring Twenties.

Baker was celebrated by artists and intellectuals of the era, who variously dubbed her the "Black Venus," the "Black Pearl," the "Bronze Venus," and the "Creole Goddess." She aided the French Resistance during World War II, and after the war, she was awarded the Resistance Medal by the French Committee of National Liberation, the Croix de Guerre by the French military, and was named a Chevalier of the Legion of Honour by General Charles de Gaulle.

2

Rudy Vallée

Image: Matt Botsford

Rudy Vallée was the first male singer to rise from local radio broadcasts in New York City to national popularity as a "crooner." He had a thin, wavering tenor voice and seemed more at home singing sweet ballads than jazz songs. But his singing, saxophone playing, and the innovative arrangements he wrote for his band attracted the attention of a rapidly increasing number of listeners, especially young women.

Singers needed strong voices to fill theaters in the days before microphones. Crooners had soft voices that were suited to the intimacy of radio; the microphones, in this case, promoted direct access to "a vulnerable and sensuous interior," or, in other words, "a conjured intimacy." Vallée was one of the first celebrity radio vocalists.

3

Bobby Darin

Image: Jack Sharp

Bobby Darin was an American teen idol and, later, an adult crooner who, in 1958, co-wrote and recorded his first million-selling single, "Splish Splash," followed by "Dream Lover" and his covers of "Mack the Knife" and "Beyond the Sea," which brought him worldwide fame.

In the early 1970s, his health was beginning to fail due to a weak heart. The knowledge of Darin's vulnerability had always spurred him on to use his musical talent while still young. Darin died in 1973 at the age of 37 in a hospital recovery room after having open-heart surgery in Los Angeles.

4

Keely Smith

Image: Harry Shelton

American jazz and popular music singer Keely Smith performed and recorded extensively in the 1950s with her then-husband Louis Prima , and throughout the 1960s as a solo artist. The couple were stars in the entertainment business, including stage, television, motion pictures, hit records, and cabaret acts.

They won a Grammy in 1959, its inaugural year, for their smash hit, "That Old Black Magic," which remained on the charts for 18 weeks.

5

The Ink Spots

Image: Jorge Flores

The first band on the list, the Ink Spots was an American vocal pop group who gained international fame in the 1930s and 1940s due to their unique musical style, which predated rhythm and blues and doo-wop .

On January 12, 1939, the Ink Spots recorded "If I Didn't Care," one of their biggest hits, selling over 19 million copies and becoming the 8th-best-selling single of all time. Since they disbanded in 1954, there have been well over a hundred vocal groups calling themselves "The Ink Spots," with and without any original members of the group.

6

Ella Fitzgerald

Image: zachrie friesen

A frequent collaborator of the Ink Spots, Ella Fitzgerald was a singer, songwriter, and composer, sometimes referred to as the "First Lady of Song," the "Queen of Jazz," and "Lady Ella." She was noted for her purity of tone, impeccable diction, phrasing, timing, intonation, absolute pitch, and a "horn-like" improvisational ability, particularly in her scat singing.

Outside her solo career, she recorded music with Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington, and the aforementioned Ink Spots. These partnerships produced songs such as "Dream a Little Dream of Me," "Cheek to Cheek," "Into Each Life Some Rain Must Fall," and "It Don't Mean a Thing (If It Ain't Got That Swing)."

7

Bing Crosby

Image: Alexander Wark Feeney

A one-man orchestra, Bing Crosby was a singer, actor, television producer, radio personality, and businessman. The first multimedia star , he was one of the most popular and influential musical artists of the 20th century worldwide.

In 1948, American polls declared him the "most admired man alive," ahead of Jackie Robinson and Pope Pius XII. That same year, Music Digest estimated that Crosby's recordings filled more than half of the 80,000 weekly hours allocated to recorded radio music in America.

Crosby is one of 33 people to have three stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame , in the categories of motion pictures, radio, and audio recording.

8

Perry Como

Image: Oscar Sutton

Perry Como was an American singer, actor, and television personality who sold over 100 million records worldwide and pioneered a weekly musical variety television show. His weekly television shows and seasonal specials were broadcast around the world. He recorded primarily vocal pop and was renowned for his recordings in the intimate, easy-listening genre pioneered by our newly acquainted friend, Bing Crosby.

In the official RCA Records memorial in Billboard magazine, his life was summed up in these few words: "50 years of music and a life well lived. An example to all."

9

Nina Simone

Image: Artem Bryzgalov

A bigger-than-life figure, Nina Simone was a singer, songwriter, pianist, composer, arranger, and civil rights activist whose piano playing was strongly influenced by baroque and classical music, and accompanied by expressive, jazz-like singing in her contralto voice .

Early in her career, Simone played piano at a nightclub in Atlantic City, where she was told that she would have to sing to her accompaniment. This effectively launched her career as a jazz vocalist. Simone also became known for her work in the civil rights movement during the 1950s and 1960s, and she later fled the United States and settled in France following the assassination of her friend Martin Luther King Jr. in 1968.

10

Screamin’ Jay Hawkins

Image: Music HQ

The closer of this list is one of the most colorful characters in American music. "Screamin' Jay" Hawkins was a singer-songwriter, musician, actor, film producer, and boxer, best known for his powerful, shouting vocal delivery and wildly theatrical performances with macabre props onstage, making him an early pioneer of shock rock.

Screamin’ Jay’s most successful recording, "I Put a Spell on You," was created when the entire band was intoxicated during a recording session where "Hawkins screamed, grunted, and gurgled his way through the tune with utter drunken abandon." The resulting performance became his greatest commercial success and reportedly surpassed a million copies in sales.