Shows / Strange Country
Strange Country
Welcome to Strange Country, a podcast devoted to bizarre, surreal and extraordinary stories that make America the weird place it is. Co-hosts Kelly and Beth are former newspaper reporters turned school librarians who have always had a soft spot for a good story--the stranger the better. Discover the first woman to survive a barrel ride over Niagara Falls and the man who invented "complex marriage" in one of the most successful utopian experiments. Things get weird pretty quickly around here.
Episodes
Strange CountryStrange Country Ep. 80: John Brinkley
On this very special Valentine's Day episode, Beth and Kelly discuss the life and work of John Brinkley, a man who put goat testicles where no goat testicles…
Strange CountryStrange Country Ep. 79: Women Troubles
In this Strange Country episode, friends Kelly and Beth talk about what smoking meant to women in New York City's Bowery district one New Year's Day in the…
Strange CountryStrange Country Ep. 78: Madeline Pollard
In 1893, Madeline Pollard did the unthinkable. She went public with her ruin by filing a lawsuit against her older, married lover Congressman Willie…
Strange CountryStrange Country Ep. 77: Lord Timothy Dexter
Lord Timothy Dexter was a lucky kind of eccentric from the 1700s. His life in one quick summary: married for money, made ridiculous money through luck, tried…
Strange CountryStrange Country Ep. 76: Leopold and Loeb
Nathan Leopold Jr. and Richard Loeb set out to commit the perfect crime in 1924. Spoiler alert: they got caught. Join Strange Country co-hosts Beth and Kelly…
Strange CountryStrange Country Ep. 75: The Feather Thief
Why can't we just kill everything? It's a good question that Beth asks the world, along with who bought TrumpyBear for the holidays…
Strange CountryStrange Country Ep. 74: Amy Archer Gilligan
Amy Archer Gilligan was a good Christian woman who ran a good Christian nursing home--if you substituted "good Christian" for "serial killer" that is. Strange…
Strange CountryStrange Country Ep. 73: Jack Parsons
Jack Parsons helped take rocketry out of the realm of science fiction and into reality. But his involvement with a sex magick cult led to him being shuttled to…
Strange CountryStrange Country Ep. 72: Warren Jeffs
So as you know, you ain't getting into heaven unless you have at least three wives. Warren Jeffs took that to heart marrying between 50 to 80 women, many of…
Strange CountryStrange Country Ep. 71: John Harvey Kellogg
Why is there a Rooster on every box of Corn Flakes? In ep. 71 of Strange Country, co-hosts Kelly and Beth look into the life of J.H. Kellogg, his emphasis on…
Strange CountryStrange Country Ep. 70: Poison Squad
How much formaldehyde would you allow in your glass of milk? What about your meat? Is an ounce of floor shavings too much for your container of nutmeg? Well in…
Strange CountryStrange Country Ep. 69: Women Pirates
Arrgghh. It's time me maties to talk about the poop deck or the cockswain...wow could these words be more loaded? Anyone in episode 69--ha! 69!--Kelly and Beth…
Strange CountryStrange Country Ep. 68: Donora Smog
For five days in late October 1948, a toxic smog encased the town of Donora Pa, sickening nearly half the population and killing around 20 people. The…
Strange CountryStrange Country Ep. 67: Viola Drath and Albrecht Muth
Viola Drath and Albrecht Muth's union was labeled "The Worst Marriage in Georgetown" in a NYT magazine article, written a a year after Drath's lifeless body…
Strange CountryStrange Country Ep. 66: Lydia Pinkham's Vegetable Compound
Lydia Pinkham was one of the most recognizable women of the 1800's. Her visage peered from the boxes of Vegetable Compound she created to cure female troubles…
Strange CountryStrange Country Ep. 65: Cemetery Picnics
Would you like some gravestones with your potato salad? In the late 19th century, many people did opting, to picnic in the cemetery at the foot of a loved…
Strange CountryStrange Country Ep. 64: Amityville and Other Hauntings
The Lutz family spent 28 days at 112 Ocean Drive before fleeing in terror. Was it evil spirits or a money-making opportunity? Strange Country co-hosts Beth and…
Strange CountryStrange Country Ep. 63: Damnation Island
Those considered insane, poor, sick, and criminal were committed to Blackwell Island. It was designed to help, to be a safe haven, but became a nightmare…
Strange CountryStrange Country Ep. 62: Heaven's Gate
Marshall Herff Applewhite and Bonnie Lu Nettles believed they were heavenly messengers sent from outer space to Earth to recruit humans and help them reach the…
Strange CountryStrange Country Ep. 61: Joseph Smith, the Live Show at APT
Strange Country's second-ever live show features Mormon founder Joseph Smith and his seer stone and many wives. Learn about Missouri's hidden secret and…
Strange CountryStrange Country Ep. 60: Holy Rollers
Edmund Creffield was the second coming of Christ or at least that's what he told his followers in 1903. He would whip them into such a frenzy that they would…
Strange CountryStrange Country Ep. 59: The Osage Murders
The Osage people were stripped of their homes and land and relocated to a stamp of untillable land in Oklahoma. There they struck black gold, making them…
Strange CountryStrange Country Ep. 58: Kitty Genovese
The murder of Kitty Genovese in 1964 became the story of urban apathy, but did 38 neighbors really standby and watch the young woman get brutally murdered? In…
Strange CountryStrange Country Ep. 57: The American Plan
The American Plan sounds super American like apple pie and wealth inequality, but it's really about locking up women suspected of having STDs. Without due…
Strange CountryStrange Country Ep. 56: Greenbrier Ghost
The story of Greenbrier Ghost may put you in an everlasting faint, but that's way better than worm fever. Elva Zona Heaster married a bad man, but got her…
Strange CountryStrange Country Ep. 55: Stanford Prison Experiment
Are we defined by the social roles we assume and the circumstances we find ourselves in? Stanford Psychologist Philip Zimbardo thinks so after witnessing…
Strange CountryStrange Country Ep. 54: PTL
Jim and Tammy Faye Bakker formed PTL in the 1970s. They were beamed into millions of homes telling viewers that they could pray their way to materialistic…
Strange CountryStrange Country Ep. 53: Bohemian Grove
The Bohemian Grove is where the rich, powerful, mainly white dudes go to unwind, drink and pee on the glorious Redwoods that they would likely chop down just…
Strange CountryStrange Country Ep. 52: Mothman
Is it a bird? A demon? An alien? Most likely a bird. Definitely looks more like a bird than a moth. The Mothman haunted the small town of Point Pleasant, West…
Strange CountryStrange Country Ep. 51: Linda Hazzard
Dr. Linda Hazzard was the only licensed fasting specialist in the state of Washington. Her methods caught the eye of two English sisters Claire and Dora…
Strange CountryStrange Country Ep. 50: AC/DC, the Live Show at APT
Strange Country's first-ever live show features the War of the Currents, Thomas Edison and George Westinghouse's fight for electric domination. One of its…
Strange CountryStrange Country Ep. 49: SS Morro Castle
Ever get the creeps from someone? Trust that instinct because sometimes that guy is the one who sets a ship on fire, makes a bomb and murders. In Ep. 49…
Strange CountryStrange Country Ep. 48: Spirit Photography
Spiritualism meets photography in episode 48 of Strange Country. William Mumler found a way to connect people with their loved ones by staging live/dead…
Strange CountryStrange Country Ep. 47: Zombie Apocalypse
Are you ready for the zombie apocalypse? The United States is. CONPLAN 8888-11 has all the know-how for defeating eight different type of zombies. Strange…
Strange CountryStrange Country Ep. 46: Elmer McCurdy
Elmer McCurdy died in 1911 but wasn't put to rest until 1977. What was he doing all that time? In our shortest episode to date, Strange Country co-hosts Beth…
Strange CountryStrange Country Ep. 45: Robert the Doll
There's really no telling when you will learn the next disturbing thing about love, life, or one of the cohosts of Strange Country when you listen in each…
Strange CountryStrange Country Ep. 44: Witch of Lime Street
If there's something strange in your seance room. Who you gonna call? No, not ghostbusters. Harry Houdini. Houdini, the great escape artist, made it his…
Strange CountryStrange Country Ep. 43: The Cult of the Great Eleven
May Otis Blackburn and her daughter Ruth were going to write the book that would knock the world's socks off in the 1920s. The Angel Gabriel dictated it to…
Strange CountryStrange Country Ep. 42: Karl Tanzler
Springtime is in full bloom and we feel it is time for a lov...a glove story. On this episode of Strange Country, join Kelly and Beth down a path of discovery…
Strange CountryStrange Country Ep. 41: Shirley Mason
Before the book Sybil, there were only a handful of cases of Multiple Personality Disorder. After the book, the number exploded. But was Sybil's story all it…
Strange CountryStrange Country Ep. 40: Barbara Newhall Follett
Barbara Newhall Follet was a child prodigy, banging out her first novel by the age of 9...accomplished enough to make the rest of us feel inadequate. But her…
Strange CountryStrange Country Ep. 39: Cat Spies
Project Acoustic Kitty is not the name of a 1990s band, but a CIA surveillance program involving cats as spies. . . until CIA researchers realized that they…
Strange CountryStrange Country Ep. 38: Cardiff Giant
Strange Country digs deep into the muck and mire and humbuggery that was the Cardiff Giant. Co-hosts Beth and Kelly discuss how people were hoodwinked by the…
Strange CountryStrange Country Ep. 37: Ota Benga
In September 1906, the Bronx Zoo unveiled its latest exhibit--a Congolese man named Ota Benga. His cage was right next to the orangutans in the monkey house…
Strange CountryStrange Country Ep. 36: Morgellons disease
Is Morgellons disease real or is it one of those women diseases caused by our wandering uteri? Strange Country co-hosts Beth and Kelly look into this alleged…
Strange CountryStrange Country Ep. 35: Ghost Stories from Wells College
Breakout your switchblades and grab a fire extinguisher, it's time for ghost stories from Wells College. Strange Country co-hosts Beth and Kelly share some…
Strange CountryStrange Country Ep. 34: Radium Girls
Radium was beautiful to Marie Curie even though it killed her, and radium made the teens and young women employed at United States Radium Corp. shine in the…
Strange CountryStrange Country Ep. 33: Victoria Woodhull
Victoria Woodhull is probably best known as the first woman to run for president, but her life encompassed so much more at a time when ladies were told to do…
Strange CountryStrange Country Ep. 32 - The ABCs of Ladydom
Do you ever wish you could find the perfect rule book to guide your behavior as a young lady that happened to be in perfect alphabetical order? Well look no…
Strange CountryStrange Country Ep. 31: Boston Corbett
You likely can easily name the assassin of Abraham Lincoln, but what about the guy who killed John Wilkes Booth? Strange Country Ep. 31 focuses on the strange…
Strange CountryStrange Country Ep. 30: Centralia
Centralia, Pa., a small mining town, caught on fire in 1962 and that fire smolders underground today and will continue to rage after we've left the Earth…
Strange CountryStrange Country Episode 29: Maria Halpin
Grover Cleveland was one of those nondescript walrus-mustached presidents that everyone forgets about, but he made an impact on the life of Maria Halpin…
Strange CountryStrange Country Ep. 28: Mike the Chicken
Maybe listening to this podcast makes you feel like a chicken with its head cut off. But that means you're likely in line to make some serious cash unlike the…
Strange CountryStrange Country Ep. 27: The Hills
Do you believe in UFOs? Alien abductions? In the 1960s, there were a slew of these reports, the most famous being Betty and Barney Hill who claimed they were…
Strange CountryStrange Country Episode 26: Warren G. Harding
Warren G. Harding is usually the first on the list of worst presidents....until now. But what is really strange is his death. Or is it? Co-hosts Beth and Kelly…
Strange CountryStrange Country Episode 25: The Loomis Gang
Hang onto your muffs! Or at least hide it on your leg so Cordelia Loomis can't get to it. Strange Country Episode 25 is all about the Loomis Gang, a family of…
Strange CountryStrange Country Episode 24: New England Vampires
When you feel a slight cold coming on, do you have the desire to dig up a dead family member and burn his heart for your cure? If so, then this episode is for…
Strange CountryStrange Country Episode 23: Patricia Hearst
Nothing…not too much wine or Hermione the cat laying on the computer keyboard and pausing the show mid word can stop co-hosts Beth and Kelly from diving into…
Strange CountryStrange Country Episode 22: Lizzie Magie
What kind of capitalist are you? Did you play Monopoly for hours with your family in hopes of owning all the land and hoarding all the money? Guess what?…