Rosebud, Alberta is a hamlet of 88 whose theatre pulls 40,000 visitors a year, an estimated 4 million dollars into a town with no gas station.
Copper Harbor, Michigan, a Lake Superior town of barely 100 year-round residents, draws tens of thousands of mountain bikers a year to its IMBA Silver-level trails.
Steubenville, Ohio traded steel for spectacle, building the world’s largest nutcracker village and 25 downtown murals to lure 40,000 holiday visitors yearly.
Devon, Alberta turned Leduc oil money into Biketown, a 6,545-person town near Edmonton with paved trails and a youth-won bike park. Big brand, modest payoff.
Canmore, Alberta turned a dead coal mine into the Rocky Mountains’ Nordic and mountain-biking capital, anchored by a 1988 Olympic legacy and a booming tourism economy.
Emporia, Kansas turned its dirt roads into Unbound Gravel, the world’s premier gravel race, and rebranded itself Gravel City, USA.
Bentonville, Arkansas turned Walton money and 130-plus miles of trail into a real downtown. Here is how the mountain biking capital actually works.
Fredericksburg, Texas turned German Hill Country heritage, 150-plus Main Street shops and a 75-winery wine trail into one of the South’s stickiest tourism economies.
Crazy Horse Memorial, South Dakota: the world’s largest mountain carving, 75-plus years in the making, privately funded, fiercely debated, and still unfinished.
Rothsay, Minnesota is home to the World’s Largest Booming Prairie Chicken, a 9,000-pound roadside statue that turned a 498-person town into a brand.
