International Banana Festival

Fulton, Kentucky earned the nickname "Banana Capital of the World" in the early twentieth century as a major distribution point for bananas shipped up the Mississippi from Latin America. Though that trade has long since moved on, the town's annual festival keeps the history alive.

The festival's signature spectacle is a banana pudding made in a specially built skillet stretching roughly a mile long, alongside parades, a car show and other small-town Americana — a genuinely unusual festival built around a specific piece of local economic history.