In Urbana, Ill. Monsters must be licensed!
This one has grown to legendary status online in various forms along the lines of "Monsters are not allowed inside the city limits of Urbana." But that's not entirely true: Monsters are allowed; they just need to be licensed.
The basis for this strange city requirement can be found in an act from 1872, which states that "exhibitions of freaks of nature or monsters" staged for profit within city limits must first receive a license from the city clerk.
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In Clinton, Indiana no baths were allowed in the winter
In the mid-1800s, laws regulating when and how people could bathe were all the rage.
In Boston, people were prohibited from bathing on Sundays, and a doctor's note was needed on other days. Florida and Portland, Ore., once had laws requiring bathers to wear a bathing suit or other clothing. And Virginia law forbade bathtubs in the house, relegating them to the yard instead.
At that time most doctors thought that people became sick when they got wet or chilled. With some researchers calling for more frequent baths to wash away germs, doctors disagreed and pushed for the bathtub laws.
If you do bathe -- and find yourself in Pennsylvania while doing so -- just don't sing in the tub. That used to be illegal too.
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In Lexington, KY. you can't have ice cream cones in your back pocket.
You might think it strange today that lawmakers would seek to protect you from a melty mess in your jeans, but there once was a good reason for such laws.
Besides Lexington, this was also once the law of the land in states such as Alabama and Georgia. The reason? Very simple: To stop people from stealing horses.
As anyone who's ever seen a western can attest, horse thieves were just about the lowest no good, dirty, rotten scoundrels around. Some sunk even lower by using the promise of a pocket ice cream treat to lure horses away. If caught, they could always claim the horse simply followed them home.
You can lead a horse to ice cream, and not only make it eat it, but give it a brain freeze in the process. A cold and sticky butt isn't ideal today, but it was once apparently a small price to pay for a gently used horse.
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