Tell us what's your hometown/city known for

[Desert Man]

Like what the thread title says...

Each one of 9 cities in the Palm Springs area/Coachella Valley:

1. Palm Springs, CA : The desert resort everyone heard about, but not the largest city in local population.

2. Cathedral City, CA: A larger population city named for a Cathedral-shaped mountain overlooking the city.

3. Palm Desert, CA: The geographic "center" of the valley, it seems to have everything for locals.

4. Indian Wells, CA: Wealthy town (Indio's original name) which has a tennis stadium (the BNP Paribas Open).

5. La Quinta, CA: It means "the fifth" in Spanish, a relaxation spot for Spanish discoverers interacted with indigenous Cahuilla.

6. Indio, CA: My hometown and it has the annual Date (the fruit from local palm trees) Festival-County Fair in mild February.

7. Rancho Mirage, CA: Golf courses, celebrities and a high per ratio of millionaires for CA and US towns.

8. Coachella, CA: Where the valley's got it's misspelled name (conchilla in Spanish for the soil's ancient tiny lake shells).

9. Desert Hot Springs, CA: Worst city to live in the state, but has the best natural tap water in the country.

and 3 unincorporated towns: Bermuda Dunes (shares zip code with an all-senior community Sun City Palm Desert/Palm Springs), Thousand Palms (a natural palm oasis along the San Andreas fault) and Mecca/Thermal (named for its very high summer temps, but on the Salton sea, a saltwater lake shore).

Where we live is famous for something...

[hotdogPi]

Lawrence, Lowell, Haverhill, MA: mill towns. Lawrence is also known for being a bad city, although I haven't had problems with it. (Lawrence is primarily Hispanic, and neighboring Methuen also has a decent number of Hispanics.) Lowell also has a public university.

Salem, Nashua, NH: Tax free shopping, including a huge mall. Salem formerly had a horse racetrack, but it's gone now. Hudson and Plaistow are known for tax-free shopping, but to a lesser extent. (Pelham, NH isn't known for much despite being on the MA/NH border.)

Andover, MA: Phillips Academy. The IRS, Raytheon, and Pfizer employment offices are known to people from the area, but not nationally.

Methuen, MA: For trivia nerds, its official name is "The City Known As The Town Of Methuen" (although this isn't the case anymore).

North Andover: Merrimack College. Also, Lawrence Municipal Airport is in North Andover, but I'm not sure if most people know this or they think it's in Lawrence.

Tewksbury, Billerica, MA: Voted for Trump in 2016, unlike most of metro Boston.

Dracut: can't think of anything

[KCRoadFan]

Kansas City? Well, we're known for barbecue, jazz, the Pendergast political machine, and having that museum with those giant shuttlecocks on the front lawn.

[kphoger]

Atwood, KS (where I grew up from 4th grade through high school):  Hometown of former governor Mike Hayden.  Nothing else, really.  There used to be an RC car track that drew a niche crowd from all around, and its summertime "rod run" of classic cars was likewise pretty good.  However, I'm pretty sure that RC track is long gone, and plenty of other towns have good "rod run" events.

Wichita, KS (current):  Aircraft manufacturing.  Textron, Spirit/Boeing, Cessna, Hawker/Beechcraft, Bombardier, Airbus...  Wichita's nickname is "Air Capital".

Here's Charles Lindbergh in Wichita in 1929:


[WSU Libraries, Special Collections and University Archives]

[Takumi]

Civil War stuff, mainly.

[noelbotevera]

Born in Lumberton, NC: David Lynch's Blue Velvet is "set" here...except it was shot in Wilmington, 2 hours to the east. I don't think Lynch was even aware Lumberton, NC was real.

Raised in Chambersburg, PA: Hmm...burnt down by the Confederates, twice. Apparently we're proud of that. John Brown and Frederick Douglass met shortly before Brown's raid in what is now a strip mall.

Live near Gettysburg, PA: The name ring a bell?

[Rothman]

My hometown area is known for Emily Dickinson, Robert Frost, Calvin Coolidge, Noah Webster, one of the best collections of dinosaur footprints in the world, two of the Seven Sister colleges (Smith College and Mount Holyoke), Amherst College, the Oxbow of the Connecticut River (immortalized by Thomas Cole), Skinner House on Mount Holyoke, the invention of basketball and volleyball...

...just for starters.

[Max Rockatansky]

Detroit is obvious, the domestic automotive industry. 

[Flint1979]

Saginaw - Lumbering town back in the day, auto industry, pretty much a smaller version of Flint not quite rough as Flint but it's not very pretty.

[ozarkman417]

Route 66, Bass Pro, and meth

[Ned Weasel]

So, Overland Park, Kansas.  Hmm.  Sprint, and I'm not sure what else.  People seem to forget it's the second-largest city in the state.

[zachary_amaryllis]

fort collins, co: balloon boy. big news story oh 2009 or so... supposedly, 6yr old kid was trapped in some ballon that flew across good piece of northern colo, then it turned out to be a hox.

granby, colo: the bulldozer guy, don't remember what year. guy got pissed at the city, essentially turned a bulldozer into a tank, and destroyed a good piece of downtown granby.

[KCRoadFan]

People seem to forget it's the second-largest city in the state.

Well, probably because it's a suburb of KC. Aside from a nice downtown they have along Santa Fe Drive, OP just seems like mile upon mile of suburbia - especially the parts south of 435.

[webny99]

Rochester, NY is known most prominently for Kodak! but also Frederick Douglass, Susan B Anthony, trash plates, light traffic, a Great Lakes shoreline, and the original children's museum. And High Falls, which is worth mentioning precisely because it's not as well-known as it should be.

If you're looking for a Rust Belt/Northeast combo, Rochester is it.

[TheHighwayMan3561]

Lift bridge, Bob Dylan, giant ships coming under the bridge, holiday light tour at Bayfront Park.

[Rothman]

Lift bridge, Bob Dylan, giant ships coming under the bridge, holiday light tour at Bayfront Park.

And having the second best curlers in the country.

[Scott5114]

Norman, Oklahoma: Home of OU, the National Weather Center, OU, oh, and did I mention OU? Try the football!

[Ned Weasel]

Well, probably because it's a suburb of KC. Aside from a nice downtown they have along Santa Fe Drive, OP just seems like mile upon mile of suburbia - especially the parts south of 435.

Fun fact:  Overland Park is twice as dense as Kansas City, MO.  3371 people per square mile versus 1559 people per square mile (http://www.city-data.com/city/Overland-Park-Kansas.html, http://www.city-data.com/city/Kansas-City-Missouri.html).  Huge areas of KCMO are mile upon mile of suburbia and undeveloped land.

[NWI_Irish96]

Neither of these things is likely to be "known" very far from Indiana, but it's the best there is:

Bremen is known for being the hometown of Otis Bowen, governor from 1973 to 1981, and Secretary of Health and Human Services from 1985 to 1989.

Munster is known for 3Floyds Brewery, one of the most popular microbreweries in the Midwest.

[DandyDan]

The one thing Mason City, IA is known for is being the basis for the musical The Music Man. Meredith Willson, the creator of The Music Man, was from here and is buried here (and I have been to his grave). Nearby Clear Lake is known for being the place where the music died, where Buddy Holly, the Big Bopper and Ritchie Valens had their last concert before their plane crashed.

[1995hoo]

The town where I was born, Copperas Cove, Texas, is probably best-known as the hometown of Heisman Trophy winner and NFL quarterback (Redskins and Ravens) Robert Griffin III. I don't regard that as my "hometown" because we left when I was one year old and I've never been back.

Other than that, I've lived my entire life (not counting time away at college and law school) in Fairfax County, Virginia. On the national scene, aside from the presence of a portion of the Beltway (as in "inside the Beltway" or "outside the Beltway" as political terminology) because that is not exclusive to this county, I'd suggest Fairfax County is perhaps most famous as the home of George Washington, whose Mount Vernon estate is located here.

[thspfc]

Being the WI state capital and the home of UW-Madison. As for my actual hometown, which is a fairly small suburb of Madison, well, nothing.

[briantroutman]

This is a topic tailor-made for my hometown (Williamsport), because if anyone from outside the immediate area knows of the city, it's almost certainly in connection with Little League Baseball.

Rochester, NY is known most prominently for Kodak!

It's no longer a name in the national consciousness as it once was (then again, neither is Kodak), but I would have added Xerox to that list.

[ftballfan]

Manistee, MI: The two biggest employers are the tribal casino and the state prison. Also the smallest community (by county population and K-12 school enrollment) with a Meijer. Formerly a big lumber boom town and at one point had the most millionaires per capita of any American city. Meth and opioids are a major problem here.

[Henry]

Chicago: The blues, deep-dish pizza, hot dogs, Michael Jordan, Mike Ditka, the Friendly Confines of Wrigley Field, a famous rock band from the 70s and 80s named after the city, Richard Daley, El trains, the best skyline of any American city

Los Angeles: What else? The entertainment industry!

Seattle: Grunge, Nintendo, Microsoft, Starbucks