People Are Sharing Small-Town Things They Witnessed or Experienced (2024)

A little while ago, I wrote a viral Reddit thread sharing the "small town" things people witnessed. The list really spoke to people from small towns, villages, and settlements because it inspired more responses from the BuzzFeed Community. Here are a few that show that coming from a really small community is an eye-opening experience.

1. "My husband and I grew up in the same small town but didn’t start dating until we were adults and living elsewhere. Since then, we have found 3 different ways we are related, fortunately, all by marriage. 🤣"

—kcamp2

2. "Our local newspaper ran a story on page one about 'A dead sheep found on Dam Road.' Indeed, a dead sheep had been found on the road leading to the dam. Verified by the picture on page two of the dead sheep on its back with all four legs straight up. No reason for the death was discovered."

— Anonymous

3. "I work at a community college in a small town (just under 2,000 people) that used to be a hospital about 15-20 years ago. I've only lived here for a couple of years, so I never knew it was a hospital. However, a lot of my coworkers will just tell stories about the building as if it were still a hospital. 'My grandpa died in the lunchroom,' 'I had all of my babies here,' 'My daughter's best friend bled out across the hall,' etc. Several of my coworkers are also convinced the building is haunted, and I'm like, yeah, there were two morgues. Just because they're the bio lab and furniture storage now doesn't mean the ghosts forgot."

—ciwa00

4. "The town my ex grew up in has a single stoplight. It has its own holiday, and the town throws a party in the street."

—thood2254

5. "In my small town, I was the DD and taking my friends home after a night at the bar. They all lived within a 1/2 mile radius of the bar. I had a headlight out, and after leaving the bar, I got pulled over five times by five different officers for the same headlight in the space of 30 mins. I got pulled over after dropping off each friend. It was hilarious and obvious that the cops that night had nothing better to do than pull over the same person FIVE TIMES."

—dinocat923

6. "One school Pre K-12. All moms know each other. As kids, we would be chased by sheep, hens, etc. I took my best friend from outside of town, and on the road, I said 'bump.' He instantly missed it and asked me how I knew that. The next stop was to let the chickens and a dog cross the road. He was surprised."

— Anonymous

7. "The town I live in is so small that the bank tellers have account numbers MEMORIZED. I moved here for my partner, and when he made a deposit of $ I gave him for our house, the banker called his mom to tell her that her son has a lot of money in his account. 😳"

—angelinapepperPhD

8. "My town is so small the 4th of July parade had the local septic tank hauler truck as the final 'float.'"

—jfh21

9. "Our local newspaper publishes a monthly crime report gathered from the police department's public records. One reportable crime, documented in the paper, was a frozen lasagna casserole being stolen from a garage refrigerator."

— Anonymous

10. "My mum grew up in a little English village where a lot of her family still lives. When my great-aunt who lived there died, there was a funeral procession through the village, and it was led by one of her grandsons driving a tractor."

—gemface

11. "Many years ago, I married someone from a very small town. A few days after we married, we went to buy a washer and dryer, but we didn’t have our checks from our joint checking account yet. The salesman tore a piece of paper from a spiral notebook and DREW a check on it. It didn’t even have our account number on it. He had us sign it, and that was that."

—censusprincess

12. "I'm in a town of about 1000. I was hanging clothes out on the line when a few cattle wandered down the alley. So I called the sheriff and they knew who the cows belonged to. Another time, a few pigs were rooting around the neighbor's lawn. The sheriff knew their owner, too. Everyone also knew each family's car, and when a strange car was in town, that same sheriff would run plates to see if they had a purpose here."

— Anonymous

13. "My husband is from a very small village in upstate New York. We got married on his parents' farm and everyone immediately knew who my parents were because they were the only two new faces in the entire little village. Random strangers (to me and my family, not my in-laws) kept congratulating them."

—melissaschreiner

14. "Where I grew up, there were only five names in the City phone book. I was related to all of them by blood or marriage. When I first brought my husband home to meet my family. The first thing one of my uncles said was, 'You ain’t from round here? Are ya boy?' My response to him was 'at least I know I’m not related to him.'

—pastellatte94

15. "My grandparent's town has a 'roadkill list' that you can add yourself to. If someone hits a deer and, in the opinion of responding officers, the dead deer is not too damaged, they call the next person on the roadkill list, who can have the deer to butcher. But they must arrive in an hour, or the deer is no good. If you miss the call or aren't available, they go to the next person on the roadkill list, and you have to wait until your name comes up again for your next chance at a deer."

—lawyerlady

16. "When we moved to a small town, we got the local newspaper. The front page news was that a local lady put her Hibiscus outside because it was warm enough now."

—melllvar

17. "I live in a remote rural Alaskan village (meaning there is no road that connects it year-round to any other community). The population varies from around 140 in the winter to maybe 300 maximum during summer or festivals. On snowy days in the winter, we often find ourselves driving on a long, sometimes winding strip of white where we hope the summer road we remember is still located."

—smellysnail34

18. "You know how some people played the license plate game growing up, where you yell out if you see an out-of-state license plate? My brother and I used to just play 'car,' where we would yell out 'car!' If we saw another car on the road."

—jeanielouise

19. "When my dad and his siblings were teens in the late '60s and '70s, they’d go to the 'downtown' area of their hometown and often get called into stores by one of the shop workers telling them their mother, my grandmother, wanted them to bring this home for her; and it was charged to her account so she or my grandfather could just go in at the end of the month and pay the tab off. 😂😂"

—prophetic_mind

20. "I drive my golf cart around my town of 800 to get to the mall, to the bar, to get groceries, or just to drive around."

—aliahchappell

21. "Back in the 1960s, my grandparents were the first in their tiny Kansas town (about 1500 people) to have a color TV. When word got around that they had one, since my grandparents knew pretty much everybody, nearly half the town came over to watch programs on it! It's also interesting to see what passed for news in that town when I read through some of the newspaper clippings that my grandmother had saved. Apparently, news like, 'Mr. and Mrs. Smith were invited over to Mr. And Mrs. Johnson's home for Sunday dinner,' or 'Mr. Jones got a call from his son stationed in Georgia,' were apparently considered newsworthy items!"

—jomariem

22. My high school had 'Drive your tractor to school' day. Multiple kids would drive their tractors, park them at the end of the lot, and 'tailgate.' No booze, but someone always brought a grill and there'd be burgers, dogs, sodas, and snacks before school started."

—buttfarts7000

23. "My Grandmother, who lived in a small town of about 500 people, would take plates of food to the widows, shut-ins, and the elderly every holiday. She would have us, her grandchildren, deliver the plates of hot food and her freshly baked rolls. She knew them all by name and where they lived."

— Anonymous

24. "I loved small-time life in our small farming community. You always felt safe and protected wherever you roamed as a kid, and if anyone needed help of any kind, everyone offered and pitched in. We did not need GoFundMe or social media—just one phone call to get the ball rolling."

—adoptcatsanddogs

25. "Unless you’re a total homebody who never goes anywhere anyway, you’d very likely be miserable after realizing you have to either travel out of town or order online for just about everything. And forget having a variety of restaurants to enjoy."

—panda_13

26. "Our local cigar lounge ( very small) is owned by a police officer and a Marine Colonel. When it gets late, and they need to go home because of job obligations the next day, they give us — a few locals — the keys and ask us to ring up any customers that come in, deposit cash in the safe, and lock up behind us!"

- Anonymous

27. "I live in a rural small town in TN, about 700 people. My 15-year-old son's school is preK-12, right by the fire dept. A couple of older senior boys are volunteer firefighters and get called out of class to go fight fires, too."

—rcav29

Responses have been edited for length/clarity.