But no place is without issues, and apparently, every small town has an “incident” that residents will never forget. Reddit users who grew up in rural areas have beensharingabout the infamous incidents that occured in their towns, so we’ve gathered some of their most shocking stories below. Enjoy reading through and getting your dose of small town gossip, and be sure to upvote the stories that you can’t believe are true!

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35 Small Town “Incidents” That The Locals Still Talk About Years Later

My lunch ladies won the Powerball when I was in 9th grade. Each took home 1.1 million dollars. Each week, they each put in a quarter and bought Powerball tickers and one week they won. There were news teams there for days doing interviews. It was cool that most of the lunch ladies stayed working there. The older ones retired, but almost all of them continued to work. It was a really big deal for a long time.

35 Small Town “Incidents” That The Locals Still Talk About Years Later

Wind storm broke open cages of bunnies from the 4H program and ton of them got loose. Several years later you can’t seem to go around a corner without seeing several wild rabbits.

35 Small Town “Incidents” That The Locals Still Talk About Years Later

A guy robbed the bank then ran to his home to hide… that was down the street. Took the cops an embarrassingly long time to get him

35 Small Town “Incidents” That The Locals Still Talk About Years Later

35 Small Town “Incidents” That The Locals Still Talk About Years Later

A slasher movie was filmed here and before production began the town cleaned up and painted one of the main areas that was going to be used in the movie. The studio then had to bring in a team to undo all of the cleaning and painting because it no longer looked authentic.

35 Small Town “Incidents” That The Locals Still Talk About Years Later

It was hushed up, but the former sheriff of my hometown stole people’s lawnmowers and sold them for scrap for close to a decade.Weird place.

35 Small Town “Incidents” That The Locals Still Talk About Years Later

This old lady would helplessly walk around busy parking lots with her walker. She looked so dirty and homeless, and people would drive up to her and give her stuff. Then her family came out and told everyone to stop doing that because she was actually very rich and was pretending to be homeless.

35 Small Town “Incidents” That The Locals Still Talk About Years Later

The county sheriff shot himself through the leg while training. He claims it was a faulty holster and he was re-holstering the gun. I’m pretty sure he just had his booger hook on the bang switch at the wrong time.

35 Small Town “Incidents” That The Locals Still Talk About Years Later

35 Small Town “Incidents” That The Locals Still Talk About Years Later

Local cop was taking multiple highschool girls out of town to take advantage of. The thing was each girl thought she was the only one. Then they all figured it out about each other then got mad and turned him in.

35 Small Town “Incidents” That The Locals Still Talk About Years Later

Fighter pilot drew a d**k in the sky.

35 Small Town “Incidents” That The Locals Still Talk About Years Later

Depends on what incident you want:People were convinced the high school was cursed because no less that 4 kids every year died (I’m talking grad classes of maybe 40 each year loosing 4-8 kids for various reasons)Most of my graduating class ended up getting caught drinking in class the one day I didn’t show up.The field party where some dumbass was smoking behind a dried hay and caught the whole veils on fire.And the soccer coach murdered his girlfriend and tried to kill her two children but thanks to lockdown training they knew to play dead until he left. The subsequent trial, and then the kids coming back to school.And half the town, including at one point the sheriff had a heroin problem.

A Walmart employee quitting over the store intercom and calling out the store manager for being a pervert, and posting the video of her doing so on social media. It spread like wildfire.

35 Small Town “Incidents” That The Locals Still Talk About Years Later

A little over 30 years ago, the police and fire departments played in a charity basketball game that raised funds for DARE. Shortly after the game, some of the cops that played gave short anti-drug speeches for the crowd. Early the next morning, state police came into town and arrested a lot of those cops for being part of a local drug ring.A more lighthearted one happened only 5 years ago. The town’s getting ready for its annual Christmas tree lighting when the organizers noticed the wiring for the lights had been damaged. They report it to the police, who then put out a bunch of public notices about how “vandalism will not be tolerated in our family-friendly town” and beefing up security around the area. It ended up being a squirrel that chewed through the wire.

A light shining into the sky a couple times from out in the woods. Police went out to check it, found a man no one knew in a cabin no one knew of, LOADED with guns and ammunition. When asked why he had so many, what he was doing shining a light into the sky…He was sending a beacon to the aliens bc they told him to shine a light to guide them, when he had things ready for them…. Yeah.

35 Small Town “Incidents” That The Locals Still Talk About Years Later

Teacher at the local elementary school had a nervous breakdown while her class was at recess. When they came back in she was completely naked and just scribbling on the white board while mumbling to herself.

35 Small Town “Incidents” That The Locals Still Talk About Years Later

We had a super duper senior .. he was mentally slow and maybe 20years old. He was pretty beloved at the school actually.One day he stole his moms car and drove it through the glass the front doors of the school . Luckily not on a school day, nobody was hurt /arrested or anything but it was widely talked about.Also a girl was sleeping with a boy in her class and her dad caught them having sex. the guy jumped out the second story window naked . He fell into the car and the windshield wiper blades caught his balls on the way down and he had to get one testicle removed. I knew this to be true bc I knew everyone including the dad, daughter and the guy it happened too.

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Remember when the animals got loose in Ohio? That oneI knew the guy. He was nuts.

35 Small Town “Incidents” That The Locals Still Talk About Years Later

The thing I was most aware of was that a teacher was sleeping with one of the high school students, then he (the student) got her pregnant and she kept it. She was fired, don’t know what she does now, and the dude who knocked her up is the local drug dealer now. I was in the same year as the kid that resulted from that, he was a nice guy. Felt bad for him cause everyone was always trying to figure out who the kid was, since everyone knew he’d be at the school that year but didn’t know who it was. If you ask me, kind of f****d up to stay in the same town and make your kid go to the same high school that happened in.

Teacher swinger-sex ring got exposed. Everyone in the school and their parents found out pretty quick. Middle School Vice Principal ended up divorcing his wife due to later swinging incident.

35 Small Town “Incidents” That The Locals Still Talk About Years Later

35 Small Town “Incidents” That The Locals Still Talk About Years Later

The Farmington Mine DisasterI live in a small town in West Virginia and before I was born this happened. So one day the coal miners went into the Mines as per usual but something was off. It smelled like gas the coal miners found out to late that there was a gas leak. As they were using their pickaxe’s sparks started flying and the gas was lit aflame. 78 of 99 people died that day people that were fathers, sons, grandparents, uncles, and cousins. All of this happened because the mine had low safety protocols or protection for their employees. Hollywood caught wind of this story and even made a movie about it thr movie is called miner 9 and is based off of the farmington mine disaster the incident even pushed the government to change the coal Mines to make them more safe.

A little girl had a seizure (or hit her head. Nobody knows for sure) in the YMCA swimming pool, went unconscious, and drowned during a youth swim team practice. My sister and her friends were also on the team. They saw her at the bottom of the pool and thought she was just messing around. Lifeguards and instructors weren’t even paying attention.

35 Small Town “Incidents” That The Locals Still Talk About Years Later

35 Small Town “Incidents” That The Locals Still Talk About Years Later

Our high school principal cheated on her husband with another married staff member and that guys wife sent him flowers with a card that said “Happy Valentine’s Day, Adulterer”. The kids that worked as assistants in the front office saw it and told everyone

35 Small Town “Incidents” That The Locals Still Talk About Years Later

In 2016, a girl who was in my high school class died suddenly in her sleep. No rhyme or reason why. She just died. Rocked the entire town and especially me and my classmates since she was in our class. Still don’t know why she died six years later

After homecoming a car full of students were driving home and got a flat tire. They were just over a hill and not all the way out of the road. The two girls were inside the vehicle but the two boys were standing at the back blocking the tail lights. Another student driving home rear ended them and both boys lost both legs. On a happy note both went on to play in the Paralympics at least.

“The incident”A girl from my hometown was texting and driving. As she was in the Highway, she swerved into the side of the road and killed a cyclist. This was one of those “known” small town girls (3 sport athlete, famous last name, etc etc. if your from a small town you know what I mean).Long story short, she basically got off with little repercussions because of her popularity. I know her punishments were losing her phone and license until she was 19, 200 hours community service, and I think she served a day or two in jail on his death anniversary.It literally tore half the town apart. One side was like “she’s so innocent, has a promising future, etc etc” while the other side wanted her in jail for years. While her punishments were absolutely not severe enough, I know for a fact her social punishments were far worse. People would make a “skrrrt” noise around her in the halls of our high school, people would chant stuff at her while she played sports, and I’d say about half of her friends completely abandoned her.Overall, a really s****y situation for all parties involved.

One old guy thought he could drive one of those huge dump trucks and ended up dropping the damn thing down the stone stairs and seats from the towns community basketball court, nobody got hurt but the truck ended upside down. People from the neighbouring towns even came to take pictures. The old guy was my grandpa. He also survived.Why he though he could drive the thing ? He used to be an engineer. An agricultural engineer…

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In 1992 two girls, 11 and 12, were found murdered. Police rounded up a husband, wife, and stepson trio local to the area. They were a little slow and confessed to the crime. A few years later a man was convicted of a different murder, a blood test revealed that he was the main perpetrator. I’ll spare the horrible details, but you can read them here: (warning, his confession makes me want to vomit)https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https://mycrimelibrary.com/william-sapp-ohio-death-row/&ved=2ahUKEwjBsrmo6v_7AhWhjIkEHeSeCOI4ChAWegQIBhAB&usg=AOvVaw0A-0MnLO-nFWeQsUb5KkTjIt rocked my small town, and the fact that a serial killer was responsible and not discovered for almost five years made it even worse.After he was sentenced, he gave up parental rights to his three kids. His wife gave them up as well. He is on death row now, I doubt he’ll be missed.

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