Photo Credit: Dan Maloney
The good fortune of being Director of Business Development for Premier Travel Media means I get the opportunity to travel across this country and enjoy the wonderful history that’s made us a great nation. In my travels, I take every opportunity to read the markers and plaques that have been laid to signify events and places of significant historical interest across America.
Recently, I had the opportunity to be a part of history when a new marker was laid at the base of Snake Alley in Burlington, Iowa. Complete with crowds of townspeople, cheerleaders from the local high schools and a massive American flag flying from the extended ladders of a local fire engine, this event felt like a scene out of a movie. In fact, it was timed to coincide with the arrival of the Fireball Run, an Amazon TV series that arrived in Burlington on its way across the Midwest in its mission to heighten the awareness of Missing Children in America.
Photo Credit: Dan Maloney
Snake Alley is a unique cobblestone street that is 275 feet long and winds down a steep hill in Burlington, a quaint town in southeastern Iowa that overlooks the Mississippi River. Built more than 100 years ago, it was the precursor to another similar, more publicized winding avenue in San Francisco: Lombard Street. Ripley’s Believe it or Not! was on-hand to dedicate the street with the marker as the first of its new category of One Hundred Odd Spots Across America.
“The uniqueness of this street makes it the perfect place for our very first Ripley’s ‘Odd Spot,’” said Edward Meyer, VP of Exhibits & Archives for Ripley’s Believe It or Not! “We are looking for locations that have a cultural and historical significance to the town and state, and Snake Alley is an ideal location—a perfect match, odd and unusual, and a must see if you are in the area.”
–Dan Maloney
