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American towns have been renaming themselves in honor of corporate brands for longer than viral marketing has even been a thing. Ismay, Montana was briefly Joe, Montana when the future NFL Hall of Famer joined the Kansas City Chiefs in 1993. Halfway, Oregon renamed itself Half.com at the height of the dot-com boom. Hot Springs, New Mexico renamed itself Truth or Consequences to attract the love of a 1950s game show—and has stuck with the new name for almost 70 years. That's still the only rebranding to stay permanently in the road atlas—unless this tiny Florida town is serious about being named for condiment.
Mayo, Florida is not named for mayonnaise.
Mayo was founded after the Civil War in the eastern part of Florida's Big Bend region. It is the county seat—and indeed, the only town at all—in Lafayette County, the second-least populous county in Florida. A former Confederate colonel named James Mayo had been surveying in the area at the time the town was founded, and was asked to favor the settlers with a Fourth of July speech, which apparently went over very well. This is a town named for a random passerby, not for a sandwich spread.
A condiment-themed Twilight Zone episode begins.
One month ago, on Saturday, August 25, the 1,200 or so residents of Mayo awoke to find themselves in a strange new world. The town water tower now read "Miracle Whip." A man on a ladder was covering up the word "Mayo" on the old firehouse, so the sign now read "Miracle Whip Fire Dept." T-shirts reading "Proud to Be from Miracle Whip, Florida" and "#NoMoreMayo" were on offer, and a picnic featured lots of items made with the tangy zip of the town's new namesake product.
Mayo sells out.
The town's mayor, Ann Murphy, explained the mysterious parallel universe with an official proclamation: Kraft Foods had agreed to donate more than $15,000 to municipal beautification projects in exchange for the renaming. Miracle Whip, as you may or may not be aware, has been locked in a faux-serious battle with "boring" mayonnaise for decades. (Miracle Whip has less oil than real mayonnaise, and was launched in the 1930s as a discount alternative to mayo. More recently, it's pivoted to being a hipper alternative to mayo). "We believe no town should live under the shadow of such an uninspiring moniker," announced Miracle Whip's brand director Molly White, "which is why we’re happy to lend our name to the town and help put Miracle Whip, Florida on the map."
Is Miracle Whip unconstitutional?
As Kraft videographers swept Mayo trying to get funny footage of locals surrendering now-contraband mayonnaise from their fridges, a Florida First Amendment lawyer wasn't chuckling. The city council had kept their Kraft negotiations secret to make sure the publicity stunt would be a surprise for residents—but that probably violates Florida's open meeting laws, says Barbara Petersen of the First Amendment Foundation. "I hate to be a Debbie Downer," she told USA Today, "but seriously, I don't think they thought this through.”
Explore the world's oddities every week with Ken Jennings, and check out his book Maphead for more geography trivia.