In 1967 a Centennial committee in St. Paul, Alberta built a UFO landing pad instead of a park. Guinness calls it the first ever, still unused.

Rhinebeck, New York built a tourism economy on an inn that traces continuous operation to 1766. Dutchess County visitors spent $811 million in 2024.

Douglas, Wyoming built a brand on a jackrabbit with antlers that two brothers mounted in the 1930s, and the state named it home of the jackalope.

New Ulm, Minnesota built its German heritage into the Hermann monument, a Glockenspiel with 37 bells and an Oktoberfest held every October since 1981.

Mackinac Island, Michigan banned motorized vehicles in 1898 and still holds the line. It draws on the order of 1.1 million visitors a year.

Valle Edén, Uruguay is home to a museum that says the tango singer Carlos Gardel was born there in 1887, one side of a long, unresolved dispute.

Matmata, Tunisia, hit by 22 days of rain in 1969, rebuilt its underground houses, and a 1976 film crew shot Luke Skywalker’s boyhood home in one.

Lucas, Kansas built a folk art identity around S. P. Dinsmoor’s concrete Garden of Eden and was named Grassroots Art Capital of Kansas in 1996.

Winthrop, Washington remodeled its downtown into the 1890s frontier West and wrote the look into law. By September 1972 twenty-two buildings were redone.

Carambeí, Brazil, a Dutch dairy colony from 1911 on Kaingang land, rebuilt itself in wood as a heritage park; the community gave 95 percent of its objects.