7 Towns in Pennsylvania With Unique Traditions

Pennsylvania spans nearly a dozen distinct geographic and cultural regions. They range from laid-back Lake Erie in the northwest to fanatic Philly in the southeast to pugnacious Pittsburgh in the southwest to the playful Poconos in the northeast. Distilling those diverse regions into unique traditions are communities like these seven. They are pearls of Pennsylvania zaniness that you should string during your next vacation.

Phoenixville

Phoenixville was named for Phoenix Iron Works, a defunct but long-running iron manufacturer that was itself named for the fiery bird from Greek mythology. To honor the borough's heritage and mythological connection, local artists founded the Firebird Festival in 2004, whose climax is the ceremonial burning of a 20-foot-tall wooden phoenix. In the two decades since, the fest has grown from roughly 150 attendees to 12,000. This year's edition is scheduled for December 14, but the phoenix has already started to rise (construction takes about three months).

Believe it or not, another fictional creature is honored in Phoenixville. As a filming location for the 1958 monster movie The Blob, Phoenixville has been hosting Blobfest for 25 years. Each July, thousands of people ooze into town for a street fair, marathon, concert, and "blob ball," plus screenings of The Blob and reenactments of the famous "run-out" scene at the place where it actually happened: the Colonial Theatre.

New Bethlehem

New Bethlehem is home to about 1,000 people and, since 1965, a Smucker's peanut butter factory. Following a devastating flood in 1996 (from water, not peanut butter), then-manager of the factory Julia Sabin helped organize a festival to boost morale. Twenty-eight years later, the Peanut Butter Festival is still smoothing strife and crunching conflict in New Bethlehem.

Attendees enjoy a parade, rubber duck race, concert, half marathon, tractor show, queen and princess crowning, and cooking contest for creative PB-based dishes. The nuttiest foods have included peanut butter pie, peanut butter ice cream, peanut butter hotdogs, peanut butter syrup, and peanut butter perogies. The fest has even featured peanut butter body soap! Attendees can also buy jars of good ol' Smucker's butter.

Noxen

Noxen is the name of a township and a census-designated place within the township. Since 1973, both Noxens have filled with toxins for an annual Rattlesnake Roundup, where residents and out-of-towners hunt snakes and bring them to the grounds of the Noxen Volunteer Fire Company, which has organized the event since 1986. Unlike the most famous rattlesnake roundup in Sweetwater, Texas, Noxens' snakes are not killed. Rather, they are caught, measured, marked, displayed, and released where they were caught—each step sanctioned by the Pennsylvania Fish & Boat Commission.

This year's roundup resulted in 105 snakes, 63 of which were rattlers. The longest was a 79-inch black rat snake. In addition to snake entertainment and education, the event offers live music, games, food, fireworks, and a parade. Out-of-towners can stay in nearby Tunkhannock's Hampton Inn or Dallas's Beaumont Inn.

Kutztown

Though it boasts only about 4,000 residents, Kutztown has enough culture for a medium-sized city. On one side of the spectrum is the Kutztown Folk Festival, which began in 1950 and is considered the "oldest continuously operated folklife festival in America." It draws approximately 130,000 people with quilts, square dances, pot pies, sausages, folk music, farming demonstrations, funnel cakes, and other paragons of Pennsylvania Dutch pageantry. On the other side of the spectrum is the Kutztown Oktoberfest, a highly-rated event that runs at the fairgrounds, featuring music and distilleries from across the state.

Tionesta

Tionesta is a tiny borough surrounded by a slightly more populous township of the same name, both of which are surrounded by the Allegheny National Forest. Each June, this forest comes alive with mating fireflies and, since 2013, lucky guests of the Pennsylvania Firefly Festival. To prevent overcrowding and overstomping, the fest operates on a lottery system. Out of the 2,500-plus people who registered for this year's edition, just 150 were selected. Then, in June, they file into the Kellettville Firefly Farm for two days of firefly exhibits, art displays, campouts, music, and general wonderment.

Register for a chance to enter next year's festival and explore the twin Tionestas. Though remote, they provide plenty of dining and sleeping options like Kiwi’s Diner and the Double R Campground, respectively.

Monroeville

In contrast to Tionesta, Monroeville is a crowded municipality and suburb of Pittsburgh. Still, with a population of about 29,000 and a festival dedicated to zombies, Monroeville is small enough and weird enough for this list. Join the weirdness by dressing in tatters and speaking in grunts for Living Dead Weekend, an annual celebration/simulation of the undead.

So why a zombie fest in Monroeville? Dawn of the Dead, the 1978 film that helped zombify the zeitgeist, was primarily shot in the Monroeville Mall. Naturally, that same mall hosts Living Dead Weekend, attracting cosplayers, celebrities, and vendors each June. Guided tours of the mall's many filming locations are also part of the fest. Attendees can visit such zombie-themed businesses as the Living Dead Museum and Zombieburgh Lazer Tag.

Punxsutawney

It may not seem unusual anymore, especially not to Americans, but Groundhog Day is one of the world's weirdest traditions. Each February 2, countless North Americans gather in various locales to see if a shadow is cast by a plump subterranean rodent removed from its burrow. A shadow means six more weeks of winter. No shadow means an early spring. The most famous Groundhog Day locale is Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania, a borough of about 5,800 people that is ground(hog) zero. It held the first official Groundhog Day in 1887. Over a century later, it gained further attention as the setting of the Groundhog Day movie. Now Punxsutawney's ceremony is a multi-day extravaganza featuring food trucks, craft vendors, live music, and the climactic forecast from Punxsutawney Phil. After seeing the real Phil at Gobbler’s Knob, attendees can search for the Phantastic Phil statues scattered around town.

Observe the quirkiest traditions in Pennsylvania by visiting Phoenixville, New Bethlehem, Noxen, Kutztown, Tionesta, Monroeville, and Punxsutawney. You do not have to go in that order, though. Chronological might be best, so sample peanut butter in September, burn a phoenix in December, gawk at a groundhog in February, see zombies, rattlesnakes, and fireflies in June, and get folksy in July. You will be liable to return year after year.