Fargo Walk of Fame
Fargo, North Dakota
The Fargo Walk of Fame was started in 1989 by local businessman Mike Stevens after he saw the famous footprints in cement outside Mann's Chinese Theater in Hollywood. Mike subsequently approached any celebrity who visited Fargo -- movie stars, musicians, authors, athletes, preachers, politicians -- with a slab of wet cement and asked for their hand and and/or footprints, which he would then set into a 40-foot long stretch of sidewalk in front of his downtown print shop. It was a way to take a one-night stand at the Fargo Theatre or the Fargodome and make it last forever.
After the Coen Brothers' movie Fargo turned the city into something of a celebrity itself, the Walk of Fame was moved in 2000 to the Fargo-Moorhead Visitors Center on the outskirts of town. 120 of the known and lesser-known are preserved in a crescent ringing a lawn (Fargo's replica woodchipper is in the middle), and although some have snubbed the honor (former Fargo busboy Bob Dylan among them) many have agreed to cement the bonds of fellowship in what has to be the most democratic Walk of Fame in the world.
Unlike other civic celebrity shrines, which are usually limited to local notables, the only requirement at the Fargo Walk of Fame is that you have to be somewhat famous and somehow find yourself in Fargo.
It's a unique commune of celebrity diversity: Jesse Ventura and Metallica, Richard Simmons and Barney the dinosaur, Chuck Yeager and Debbie Reynolds, Bill Gates and The Monkees. Where else on earth would Ted Nugent and Tiny Tim be neighbors?
Any walk of fame that draws no distinction between George W. Bush and Jimmie "J.J." Walker is worth a visit. Remember, if climate change drowns our coastal cities and destroys civilization as we know it, future generations will rely on the Fargo Walk of Fame to teach them who was important in our time.