In 1991 Ross and Jane Fargher bought the pub at Parachilna, South Australia, and rebuilt it around camel, emu and kangaroo.

In Rowley, Alberta, a hamlet of 8 people in 2013, locals restored Sam’s Saloon, and a 2008 provincial grant restored its grain elevators.

Provincetown, Massachusetts turned a summer painting school founded in 1899 into what many call America’s oldest continuous art colony.

Kiskunhalas, Hungary invented Halas lace in 1902; the council built it a lace house in 1935, and nine women still sew it there today.

Ajo, Arizona’s mine closed in the mid-1980s, and the International Sonoran Desert Alliance, formed in 1993, turned the Curley School into artist lofts.

Gladstone, Manitoba, already nicknamed Happy Rock by the late 1970s, opened a 36-foot fibreglass Happy Rock as a tourist centre on July 1, 1993.

Gettysburg, Pennsylvania built a permanent tourism economy on its 1863 battlefield. Visitors to Adams County spent more than $809 million in 2024.

Villanueva de los Infantes, population 4,785, adopted a 2005 university study naming it Don Quixote’s unnamed village, then built a museum on the verdict.

Desert Hot Springs, California sells the same mineral water as its neighbors, but Cabot Yerxa built a four-story pueblo by hand from 1941.

In Steinbach, Manitoba, a Mennonite historical society founded a museum village in 1964, and it reported about 50,000 visitors in 2023.