[For previous entries, click the "Most Gothic Place Names" label under Features in the right sidebar.]
Is it any surprise that the homeland of (Grant Wood's) American Gothic sports a slew of terrific place names? Here you'll find Lost Nation (this town's in the state of perdition), Elvira (where B-grade horror movies are bosomed), Voorhies (which just has to be found near Crystal Lake), Payne (masochist paradise), Lore (my, what local legends they have), Faulkner (Yoknapatawpha in Iowa?), Taintor (it will besmirch more than your name), Correctionville (and you thought your hometown was a prison), Hard Scratch (close neighbors, no doubt, with Rake), and Last Chance (to turn around and go). Still, all of these worthy contenders for the title of Most Gothic Place Name in Iowa are overshadowed by...
Hauntown. It sounds like a place that's self-reliant when it comes to frightening (they "haunt" their "own" here). A town where every house is ghost-ridden, and where the residents have plenty of skeletons in their personal closets. In short, the kind of community where the old couple in Wood's famous painting would be right at home.
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