6 of the Quirkiest Towns in Washington

Washington is a beautiful mix of hippies and hicks who combine cultural richness and weirdness unsurpassed in most regions. Stir them into a pot with Asian, Scandinavian, and Indigenous ingredients and garnish with geographic wonders. You have one of the quirkiest states in America. As such, Washington's small towns are bursting with far-out flavors for tourists who are brave enough to taste them. Is that you? Keep reading to decide whether rural Washington is the right kind of wrong or the wrong kind of right.

Long Beach

True to its name, Long Beach has a 28-mile beach claimed to be the longest one in the world that can be crossed by car. That may be apocryphal (Bangladesh also has a substantial drivable beach), but the 1,700-person "city" has a long list of other items to boast about. These include 30-foot chopsticks and a 15-foot frying pan, which was reconstructed from the one used to make a giant clam fritter at the 1941 Long Beach Razor Clam Festival. If you are longing for something with normal proportions, check out Marsh's Free Museum. Although its size may be standard, its contents are anything but. A two-headed calf, cycloptic lamb, and shrunken head are just a few of Marsh's oddities. But the main attraction is Jake the Alligator Man, a supposedly mummified half-man, half-alligator who has become part of Pacific Northwest lore. His unbelievable backstory has been published in Weekly World News, while his believable backstory is a creation of prolific oddity artist Homer Tate.

Edison

Home to 240 people in Skagit County, Edison is said to be named after the famous inventor. A less electric but more likely source is Edison Slough, which runs through the town and into Samish Bay. Appropriately, the tiny settlement has hosted a slew of oddities, starting with the Equality Colony. Founded in Maine on utopian principles laid out by novelist Edward Bellamy, the Brotherhood of the Cooperative Commonwealth (BCC) expanded to Washington in 1897, breaking ground near Edison and naming the colony after Bellamy's newest book and a pretty great idea. The socialists farmed, logged, fished, sewed, smithed, and even printed a newspaper called Industrial Freedom. Some 300 people had joined the colony by 1898, but after strife with the BCC and their leader dying from a fallen tree, Equality Colony collapsed in 1907.

Fast forward 120 years, and the clucks marching through Edison actually cluck. Each February, Edison hosts a Chicken Parade where real chickens and people dressed as chickens waddle down Main Street. Are you too chicken to join? Maybe Edison's fantastic restaurants and bakery will feed your courage.

Prosser

Prosser is a community of 6,000 in south central WA whose main quirk lives about 10 miles north of downtown. In fact, it is part of a backcountry road that is hard to find but worth the search. After coming upon an abandoned grain elevator and a line on the road that says "start," people put their vehicles in neutral and, with amazement, roll up the road. This anomaly is called Gravity Hill. Though there are many supernatural explanations (often connected with the creepy elevator), it is likely an optical illusion. Despite the road looking like an incline, scientists say that it is actually part of a more considerable decline that drivers cannot perceive; thus, their vehicles behave as they should by sliding downhill. People remain unconvinced, though, as evidenced by graffiti of an alien near the starting line. Another quirk of this farming community is the Great Prosser Balloon Rally, where dozens of hot air balloons float over the orchards and wineries and perhaps even the alien sketch. Live long in Prosser.

Forks

If you come to a Forks in the road, stay for the restaurants, stores, and museums, then go east to Olympic National Park. This near-million-acre preserve is like a fairy tale forest for all its weirdness and wonder. Olympic's northwest patch contains the Hall of Mosses, a natural corridor flanked by twisty trees flowing with moss. Keep trekking east, and if you look closely, you will find One Square Inch of Silence, a red pebble marking the allegedly quietest place in America. Lastly, a trip to the western coast will reveal the Kalaloch Tree of Life, which appears to levitate above its splitting foundation.

If you still do not feel like a storybook character, head back to Forks and look out for vampires and werewolves. The 3,300-person "city" is the setting for the Twilight series of novels and films. Paradoxically, Twilight's release was the dawn of a tourism boom in Forks, which persists as the annual Forever Twilight in Forks Festival, held in September and full of fans and actually featured players from the films. Do not expect to see Pattinson or Stewart, though, unless the community can fork up a ton of cash.

Vashon

Vashon is a community and island in Puget Sound between Seattle and Tacoma. Hidden among the 11,000 residents and lush land are some of the weirdest landmarks in the state. The Vashon Island Bike Tree, located in the woods off Vashon Highway and SW 204 Street, is a bike lodged seven feet up a tree. Allegedly, the natural synthesis of a bicycle abandoned in 1954 and the sapling that grew under it, Bike Tree has had countless visitors and inspired the children's book Red Ranger Came Calling by Berkeley Breathed. Unfortunately, many of the bike's exposed parts have been pilfered. Due north on the same highway is Cool Gary, a statue that is said to pay tribute to a chainsaw-carrying schizophrenic who jumped in front of a car in 1998, though it may simply be a caricature of a typical island resident. When you have vanquished Vashon, hop off to nearby Port Orchard, which is about 50 minutes away and has a fully explorable Hobbit House behind the Brothers Greenhouses. Who needs New Zealand?

Snoqualmie

Snoqualmie has a quirky name and the community to match. Its meaning is contested, but we know that it comes from sdukʷalbixʷ in the Lushootseed language and broadly refers to the area's first peoples, supposedly created by a god named Moon. Today, however, Snoqualmie moonlights are a different town: Twin Peaks, the fictional setting of arguably the quirkiest media franchise in American history. The Twin Peaks TV series and movie Fire Walk with Me were filmed in Snoqualmie. The Great Northern Hotel, where FBI Special Agent Dale Cooper stays while investigating Laura Palmer's murder, is the highly rated Salish Lodge & Spa. The bridge where Laura's friend Ronette is found wandering after Laura's death is the stately Reinig Bridge. And the imposing waterfall shown in the opening credits is 268-foot Snoqualmie Falls. Whether you are a fan of Twin Peaks or not, you are liable to fall for eerily scenic Snoqualmie.

Discover Washington's Wonders Beyond the Quirks

There you have it: rural Washington at its wackiest and niftiest. Now you know there is little to fear from the oddities peppering its highways, forests, beaches, and small towns. Most are explainable, and the ones that are not are beautiful. But they comprise only a single bent pine needle in the Evergreen State.