About America’s bogus ‘world capitals’

I’m convinced that, one day, I’m going to pick up a newspaper (yes I still read them) to discover that Portland, Maine, or some such place, is the official Haggis Making Capital of the World.  Or that they hold an annual mince and tatties ceremony in Omaha, Nebraska.

So-called ‘world capitals’ are everywhere in the United States. Even in the sporting world the American Football team that wins the Super Bowl is crowned World Champions, and the final games of the baseball season are known as the World Series. The fact no other countries take part seems to make no difference.

It is a bit like saying that Lovat, Newtonmore, Kingussie, and Kyles Athletic have been shinty world champions because they have won the last four Camanachd Cup finals.

So where is the Golfing Capital of the World? It can only be St Andrews, Scotland, right? Wrong. Even though American golfers go all misty-eyed at the prospect of playing on Scotland’s hallowed links, the country holds up Naples, Florida, as the world’s golf capital. The area may have 90 golf courses but only 30 are public. You may also have seen news stories about a giant alligator that roams the fairways – give me the midges at St Andrews or Royal Troon any day.

A few years ago a friend of my wife left Arizona to live in a small town in Arkansas called Alma. It’s a nondescript place – a podunk town as they say here – but in the town centre stands a huge bronze statue of Popeye on top of a fountain holding a can of spinach. Alma had a spinach canning plant that canned more than half the spinach in the US so it became the Spinach Capital of the World.

Bizarrely, Crystal City, Texas, made the same claim. But even more bizarrely both claims are utter nonsense. The US produces only 1.4% of the world’s spinach. China produces more than 90% so there are most likely umpteen Chinese communities that could justifiably lay claim to the ‘world capital’ title.

Ashburn, Georgia, claims to be the Peanut Capital of the World; so does Smithfield, Virginia; and Suffolk, Virginia; and Sylvester, Georgia, and at least three other towns and cities in the US. At least America is the world’s leading peanut producer. For some reason the village of Galilee, Rhode Island, is labelled the Tuna Capital of the World. Try telling that to the people of the Philippines and elsewhere and you would be laughed out of court.

Some of the nicknames derive from flowers or trees that are locally abundant; others from food or clothing factories the towns were once known for. Most are simply bogus. Sheboygan, Wisconsin, is well known for its large German immigrant population but how can it possibly be the Bratwurst Capital of the World? It’s like saying Chicago is the world’s Guinness Capital because it is heavily populated by expat Irish.

Huntsville, Texas, is known cheerfully as the Execution Capital of the World, or Death Penalty City. It may be the place to die in Texas but it has a long way to go to catch up with the execution centres in Pakistan, Iran, Saudi Arabia and a few other countries. As for the claim by Fallbrook, California, to be the Avocado Capital of the World – complete baloney. The US is light years behind Mexico and a couple of other nations in avocado production.

So why do American towns and cities do this? It’s difficult to argue that the American people have an inferiority complex. Quite the opposite. Perhaps it’s a sense of insularity – so if it’s the biggest in America, it must be the biggest in the world?

But at least one town has kept its long-held claim to fame, years after the closure of the factories that gave rise to it – if you’ll pardon the pun. Dothan, Alabama, revels in the title of the Condom Capital of the World because of the presence of the Durex and Ansell rubber factories which turned out millions of protective sheaths every week. Now there’s something the town can justifiably blow its trumpet about.