50 Strange U.S. Laws Still on the Books – Part Two (Montana to Wyoming)

0:00 Speaker 1: Welcome back to the Strange History Podcast. I'm your host Amy, and tonight we're wrapping our cross country tour of America's weirdest laws that are still at least technically on the books. In part one, we met bouncing pickles and law abiding elephants. In part two, we'll find outlaw camels, suspicious butter bigfoot with legal protections, and a firm reminder not to lasso fish. Some of these rules are local oddities, some were passed for very specific historical reasons. All of them prove that the United States is not just the land of the free, it's the land of extremely specific municipal concerns.

0:39 Speaker 1: Let's finish the map.

0:41 Speaker 2: Montana, A sheep needs a chaperone in the cab.

0:45 Speaker 1: Montana Ranch country once had a problem cowboys hauling sheep up front in their trucks and making everyone else uncomfortable. So the rule emerged. If a sheep rides in the cab, it needs a human chaperone besides the driver. The point was less scandal and more safety. Livestock in your lap is not a great air bag strategy, and perhaps a wink at frontier propriety. Today, most folks stick sheep in the back where they belong, and a spare ranch hand ride shotgun instead.

1:18 Speaker 2: Nebraska. The doughnut without a hole.

1:22 Speaker 1: A small town Nebraska taboo long discouraged selling wasteful ring doughnuts with holes, make the whole pastry edible, or fill the center. Baker's got creative, jelly filled, cream filled, anything filled, and customers never looked back. What began as a thrifty stance against tossing dough cutouts helped popularize the very pastries people now crave. Nebraska, where fiscal conservatism accidentally invented the best part of breakfast.

1:52 Speaker 2: Nevada, no camels on highways.

1:56 Speaker 1: In the nineteenth century, the US Army tested camels in the desert West. When that experiment ended, a few animals lingered and became hazards on dusty wagon roads that later became highways. Nevada's solution was simple, no camels on the thoroughfares. It reads like a joke until you imagine cresting a hill outside Reno and meeting a one hump traffic cone. These days, the law mostly survives as desert folklore and an excellent bar trivia answer.

2:26 Speaker 2: New Hampshire no picnics and cemeteries.

2:30 Speaker 1: Victorian mourners once dined among headstones to feel close to their departed. Over time, the sandwiches got rowdier than the sentiment, and New Hampshire towns put their foot down. The modern expectation is quiet, respect, flowers, reflection, maybe a note with the potato salad saved for the park. It's a law about place and purpose, preserving cemeteries as spaces of memory rather than weekend potlucks.

2:59 Speaker 2: New Jersey murder while wearing a bulletproof vest.

3:03 Speaker 1: Wearing body armor during a felony, especially a violent one, signals preparation for violence and a willingness to escalate. That's why New Jersey stacks penalties if you commit certain crimes while armored. It's not the vest itself, it's the combination. The statute is a practical message to would be tough guys. If you're planning on getting shot at the court, plans on adding years.

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4:00 Speaker 2: Horse tripping is illegal.

4:03 Speaker 1: Rodeo traditions sometimes strayed into cruel spectacle, and one of the worst, roping a horse's legs to make it fall, was outlawed in New Mexico. The ban aligns with broader animal welfare reforms that swept through Western states. You can still ride, rope and ranch to your heart's content, but if your entertainment starts with yanking legs out from under a horse, expect to see a judge instead of a trophy.

4:32 Speaker 2: New York no flirting in public Schenectady's old moral codes.

4:38 Speaker 1: Turn of the century, Schenectady tried to legislate flirtation out of street life, ticketing, lewd winks, theatrical size, and amorous comments. It was part of a wider morality push that also targeted spitting and loitering. While enforcement faded with time and changing norms, the ghost of that prudish impulse lingers in local lore will still flirt. Of course, they'll just do it with better jokes and less paperwork.

5:04 Speaker 2: North Dakota, beer and pretzels don't mix on paper.

5:11 Speaker 1: An old North Dakota rule discourage taverns from serving salty snacks with beer, the worry being that pretzels would god patrons into ordering round after round, public health by way of dry pretzels. Today it's rarely enforced and widely ribbed, but it survives as a reminder that alcohol policy is nothing if not creative. Bars naturally prefer the modern interpretation. Pretzels are community service Ohio. No drunk fishing, Ohio. Wardens take the safety in outdoor recreations seriously. If you're noticeably under the influence with a rod in hand, you're a danger to yourself and everyone in the boat.

5:52 Speaker 1: Imagine the reports tangled lines, accidental hooks, and hats one very confused trout. Anglers can toast the day's catch after they dock, not while they wobble at the.

6:03 Speaker 2: Gunneal, Oklahoma, bear wrestling is banned.

6:08 Speaker 1: Mid Century roadside bars once advertised bouts with declaud muzzled bears. It was grim for the animals and occasionally disastrous for the patrons. Oklahoma closed the ring for good and made it illegal to own or stage a bear for fighting. If your establishment needs an animal to lose, you can win a crowd. The problem isn't the bear, it's your booking.

6:30 Speaker 2: Oregon. No whistling underwater.

6:33 Speaker 1: Some municipal codes are time capsule jokes that never got deleted. Oregon's classic is the underwater whistle rule, a line that reads like it escaped from a vaudeville routine. Consider it civic poetry, a gentle reminder that not everything in the codebook needs a courtroom. Some of it just needs a chuckle and a snorkel.

6:55 Speaker 2: Pennsylvania, don't tie a dollar to a string and yanket.

7:00 Speaker 1: The sidewalk gag of a dollar on a string was funny to pranksters and humiliating to passers by. Pennsylvania nuisance rules made the trick actionable, especially when it clogged up busy streets. The spirit of the law is simple, laugh with people, not at them, particularly when traffic is involved in tempers are short.

7:20 Speaker 2: Rhode Island margarine pats were a no no.

7:24 Speaker 1: During the Butter versus margarine wars, Rhode Island cracked down on restaurants serving margarine in butter style pats without clear labeling. The idea was consumer honesty and a nudge to support local dairy. Diners of the era found themselves sawing at suspiciously pale rectangles and wondering if the state would appear with a clipboard.

7:48 Speaker 2: South Carolina Sunday Sales and work limits.

7:52 Speaker 1: Blue laws once shaped Sunday so thoroughly that what you could buy or even do changed for a day. South Carolin line, as patchwork of restrictions softened over the years, still teaches a cultural lesson not every day is for commerce. If your errand list includes socks, power tools, and a spontaneous yard sale, the timing, not the items, might be the issue.

8:18 Speaker 2: South Dakota no sleeping in cheese factories.

8:22 Speaker 1: Food Safety and common sense meat in South Dakota's quirky prohibition on dozing where dairy is being made. The rule speaks to a time when night shifts were long, ventilation was optimistic, and a quick nap could turn into a sanitation nightmare. Cheese should be aged, not the employees on the clock.

8:41 Speaker 2: Tennessee. No lassoing fish.

8:44 Speaker 1: Tennessee protects its waters from improvised rodeo tactics. A rope around a trout is neither sporting nor safe. The state's message is clear, use a rod, a real and a license and tell your tall tales afterwards. If your fishing story starts with so I roped this catfish, it should end with then I paid a fine.

9:08 Speaker 2: Texas don't sell your eyes.

9:11 Speaker 1: Texas bands trafficking in human organs and the eyes are on that list for obvious reasons. This is one of those laws that needs no grand explanation. It's the solid legal wall between modern medicine and macabre markets. Donate through proper channels, save lives, and keep the jars out of the classifieds.

9:31 Speaker 2: Utah no catapults on main street.

9:35 Speaker 1: Young tinkerers once turned downtowns into impromptu physics labs, launching fruit rocks and whatever fit. The sling Utah Cities finally wrote the world's least medieval sentence, don't fire siege engines in town. Rural pumpkin chunkin on a farm, sure, pumpkin chunkin at a storefront.

9:55 Speaker 2: Please don't Vermont permission for dentures The relic.

10:00 Speaker 1: Vermont's most infamous historical rule said a woman needed her husband's written consent to obtain dentures. A perfect snapshot of another era's paternalism. The notion that dental choices required mail approval would be laughable if it weren't so revealing. Today it's cited as a kind of cautionary tale. Laws reflect values, and some values need to be retired with extreme prejudice.

10:27 Speaker 2: Virginia Sunday hunting with a raccoon exception.

10:33 Speaker 1: For years, Virginia banned most Sunday hunting, but carved out a quirky pass for raccoon hunters after midnight. The compromise balanced Sabbath traditions with a nocturnal pastime dear to rural clubs. As rules modernized, the raccoon exemption became a badge of cultural identity and a great way to confuse out of state guests.

10:55 Speaker 2: Washington, do not harass bigfoot in Scamania County.

11:00 Speaker 1: Scamania County took its local legends seriously enough to legislate messing with bigfoot up to and including trying to harm what might be a very large, very hairy neighbor could earn you fines or worse. Whether you believe or not, the ordinance is a charming piece of community storytelling backed by the force of law. Treat mysteries kindly.

11:23 Speaker 2: West Virginia, The Underwater Whistle reducts.

11:28 Speaker 1: Local code humor strikes again, a wrye prohibition on whistling underwater that reads like it was written during a slow council meeting. It persists because it harms no one and delights everyone, including the occasional reporter who tries to break it by blowing bubbles in a fountain. Consider it the state's official endorsement of practical impossibility.

11:48 Speaker 2: Wisconsin butter means butter.

11:52 Speaker 1: Wisconsin's dairy pride produced laws that long required restaurants to serve real butter unless a customer specifically asked for a substitute. Inspectors once checked counterpats like jewel appraisers. The principle was simple. If you're dining in the dairy state, your toast deserves the good stuff.

12:10 Speaker 2: Wyoming no drunk skiing.

12:14 Speaker 1: Wyoming's ski culture is glorious, and the state would like you to enjoy it, sober enough to remain upright. Impaired skiing endangers everyone on the slope. Celebrate at the lodge after you've turned in your lift ticket. The mountain is not impressed by your liquid courage, only your ability to stop before the fence.

12:34 Speaker 3: Charge with harassing Bigfoot because you thought he was your friend, Steve in a gilly suit, call Sasquatch legal Defense. We'll draft your apology, negotiate a photo from a far agreement with Scamania County, and send you a complimentary window cling that reads break for cryptids at our field, guide, polite conduct in the forest at night, and you'll never mistake Uncle Joe for a protected hominet.

12:55 Speaker 1: Again. That's the end of our fifty state legal safari between Montana's chaperone sheep and wyoming sober skiers. We've traveled a quirky continent of rules meant to solve very specific problems, some noble, some nutty, many now delightfully obsolete in practice, but still alive on paper. If you enjoyed this two part special, please subscribe to the Strange History podcast, leave a review, and share it with a friend who would absolutely fail. Connecticut's pickle test. I'm Amy, thanks for listening, and as always, stay strange.