6 Quirky Little Towns In Kentucky

Fried chicken, bluegrass, bourbon, racehorses, baseball bats. Only Kentucky has such an eclectic mix of mainstays. It should come as no surprise, then, that the state's smallest settlements are quite quirky. What they lack in people, they make up for in oddities that put the aforementioned mainstays to shame—or else put them in the pantheon of peculiarity with weird statues, festivals, or shrines. See such spectacles in six quirky little Kentucky towns.

Fort Mitchell

Fort Mitchell is a city of about 8,800 humans and over 1,200 dummies. Virtually all the dummies inhabit Vent Haven Museum, which is dubbed "the world's only museum dedicated to ventriloquism" and holds the Guinness World Record for the "largest museum collection of ventriloquist dummies." Vent Haven, presently occupying a quaint building in a residential neighborhood, opened in 1973 for W.S. Berger's collection of 500-some dummies. Having increased, at last announcement, to 1,242, the dummy stock is joined by around 1,500 books, over 5,000 photos, and many other items about ventriloquism.

But Vent Haven is not just for preservation. It is for celebration, especially via annual events that bring ventriloquists from around the world. In June, Vent Haven hosts the Dummy Run 5K, reportedly the only race started by a puppet. And in July, it sponsors the Vent Haven International Ventriloquists' ConVENTion, which attracts star voice-throwers like Jeff Dunham and Ronn Lucas. 2026 will be the ConVENTion's 50th anniversary.

Slade

Slade is a tiny unincorporated town that, though bereft of residents, is an intersection for creepers, crawlers, and climbers. Enmeshed in the Daniel Boone National Forest, Slade is home to wild critters like black widows and rattlesnakes, but also exotic creatures displayed at the Kentucky Reptile Zoo. Among the zoo's 85-plus species are the green mamba, coastal taipan, and horned viper. Its long-exhibited king cobra, Puppy, passed away in 2025. Besides exhibiting snakes, the zoo "milks" snakes for life-saving anti-venom, and it even offers milking demonstrations.

Climbers join creepers and crawlers on their way to the Red River Gorge, located just east of Slade and considered the best rock climbing spot east of the Mississippi. Yes, those are primarily human climbers, who overnight in Slade at one of the oddest base camps: Miguel's Pizza.

One creepy crawly climber, bestowed with prophetic powers, centers an annual event in nearby Beattyville. Dubbed the Woolly Worm Festival, it treats the titular caterpillar as the groundhog is treated elsewhere in America. Only the woolly worm predicts the weather with its colors, not shadow, and it does so in October, not February.

Williamstown

Not all museums and zoos are scientific. Some are biblical, like Williamstown's Ark Encounter. Standing 51 feet tall, 85 feet wide, and 510 feet long, the replica Ark cannot fit two of every animal, but can comfortably fit every resident of Williamstown. In 2010, Answers in Genesis, a young Earth creationist organization, chose this small town for its giant attraction, putting it near its other revisionist repository, the Creation Museum in Petersburg.

Having since attracted millions of visitors, Ark Encounter comprises not just the Ark, which is considered the world's largest free-standing timber-frame structure, but Noah’s Village, Emzara’s Buffet, Screaming Eagle Ziplines, and the Ararat Ridge Zoo, among other attractions. Though seemingly contrary to its cause, Ark Encounter also has a Fossil Find.

Clermont

Another tiny town with huge oddities, Clermont is crammed between the James B. Beam Distilling Co. to its north and the Bernheim Forest and Arboretum to its south. The former makes world-famous Jim Beam whiskey from its backwoods Kentucky campus, consisting of the American Outpost, Baker Beam Home, Jim Beam Statue, Cocktail Grove, and the Kitchen Table restaurant. Various tours are offered. Bernheim Forest and Arboretum is a 16,000-plus-acre preserve with "a million things to see and do," including a Canopy Tree Walk and meeting Thomas Dambo’s Forest Giants.

More massive oddities sit just outside Clermont. They range from the 120-foot, 68,000-pound baseball bat outside the Louisville Slugger Museum & Factory in nearby Louisville to Fort Knox, the 109,000-acre Army installation with a city-sized population.

Corbin

Kentucky Fried Chicken began in a North Corbin service station that has been restored and expanded as the Harland Sanders Cafe and Museum. Though designed like the bygone cafe and filled with artifacts, it is a functional KFC, which means you can feast on finger-lickin' good chicken while touring a veritable shrine to Colonel Sanders. If visiting in September, you can keep worshiping Sanders at nearby London's World Chicken Festival, where guests compete in a Colonel Sanders look-a-like contest and eat fried chicken cooked in the "World’s Largest Stainless Steel Skillet."

If too chicken for those events, pinball back to Corbin to see the Pinball Museum of Corbin, whose playable machines date from 1969 to 2022. But the flashiest Corbin-area oddity sits in neighboring Cumberland Falls State Resort Park. On certain nights, the namesake waterfall produces a moonbow, which is a rainbow made with moonlight rather than sunlight.

Cave City

Cave City is a community dedicated to caves. Mammoth Cave, the world's longest known cave system, winds west of town in Mammoth Cave National Park, while south of town shines Crystal Onyx Cave, a wonderfully lit cavern with uniquely shaped formations like "Potato Patch" and "Gene Simmons Tongue." Such subterranean spectacles funnel millions of tourists through Cave City. But tourists tend to find that the most unique Cave City attractions are not underground.

One above-ground title contender is Dinosaur World, which boasts hundreds of life-sized sculptures of prehistoric creatures. Another is the Mammoth Cave Wildlife Museum, a hub of exotic, taxidermied animals. Even accommodations contend for Cave City's quirkiness crown, especially Historic Wigwam Village No. 2.

Littler means quirkier in Kentucky. Though the state has big cities with big oddities, like Louisville's Louisville Slugger Museum & Factory, its smaller communities have the biggest quirks. Big is not exclusive to size, though. Kentucky's little towns elicit big reactions, whether it is a dropped jaw from a Cumberland Falls moonbow, a scratched head from Ark Encounter, or a spine shiver from a dummy museum. See how you will react to such colossally unique attractions in small-town Kentucky.