Shithole, Alabama

Shithole, Alabama is the legendary 'disappearing town'. The town was founded in 1776 in what was then British Georgia by Roger Hubblestubb who named it after the town of his birth - Shitehole, Lincolnshire in England.

The name of the town of Shitehole derives from the Anglo-Saxon placename Schyde-Hall. Schyde was a word that meant 'meadow' and hall has the same meaning as it does today. Schydehall therefore referred to a hall built by a meadow.

Shithole, Alabama however increasingly found itself becoming the object of derision and, in 1872, the town officially petitioned the State government asking for its name to be changed. Unfortunately, the Governor of the day had a grudge against the town having spent an unhappy weekend there with his mistress several years previously and he refused the request.

The decision came to haunt the proud State as a long procession of comedians from the North made the trip to Shithole in search of new ways to make fun of the town. Luckily, the Federal Government came up with a possible solution in the late 1940s when it made the decision to site one of its secret alien-dissection facilities in the town. To cover up the location, the name of Shithole was stricken from all US maps and official records - to this day it remains an offence to give directions to the town. The move was so successful that the only reliable records of the town are to be found not in America but in the British Library in London where the correspondence of Roger Hubblestubb himself is kept.