Ohio's Most Redneck Towns (Yes, They Exist)

Ohio's most redneck towns, and yes, they exist. The pumpkin shows, tractor pulls, mud bogs, and water towers where the badge is a title you earn. Out in the wider world, redneck is a word people throw to make you smaller. In Ohio, a town earns it, usually by picking the humblest thing that comes up out of its own dirt and throwing a party around it every year until the party becomes the town's name. This is a drive through the places that did exactly that, and it ends at the smallest and most country one of all, a hill town of about nine hundred people that built its whole weekend around a fruit you cannot buy in a single grocery store in America. The road starts at the National Tractor Pulling Championships in Bowling Green, where sixty five thousand people pack a fairgrounds for four days and machines drag a sled that gets heavier every foot until the front wheels stand straight up. Then the festivals. Circleville and its Pumpkin Show, the greatest free show on earth by its own straight faced accounting. Barnesville, which pays a dollar a pound for the winning pumpkin. Marion, which once ran the popcorn business for much of the country. Bucyrus, the bratwurst capital, where the most famous brat in town technically cannot be called one. The sweet corn kettles at Millersport, the mud bogs and demolition derbies at the county fairs, and the farm economy underneath all of it, with Ohio sitting first in the nation in Swiss cheese. Then the monuments, because a real country town builds one and it is never a general on a horse. A seven story picnic basket in Newark. The world's largest cuckoo clock in Sugarcreek. A town named Circleville with no circle left. And a giant apple painted on the Jackson water tower for an orchard county that is down to about one orchard and kept the festival anyway. Watch next:    • Exploring Ohio: Small Towns, Hidden Histor...   Subscribe:    / @ohiouncovered   Which Ohio town did I leave out that had no business getting left out? Make the case below. Festival dates, attendance figures, and details change from year to year. Check with the organizers before you plan a trip. #Ohio #SmallTownOhio #OhioUncovered