North of Tiptonville, Tennessee is an exclave of Kentucky surrounded on three sides by the Mississippi River, completely isolated from the rest of the state by its base being affixed to Tennessee. Some call this strange place "Bubbleland."
Jutting out into the middle of the Mississippi River, the tiny community of Bubbleland (a.k.a. the Kentucky Bend) consists of a smattering of houses, cotton fields, and a lone cemetery. Yet this little spit of land has fascinated outsiders for well over a century.
Located near the site of the horrific 1811-1812 New Madrid Earthquakes, which rank among the strongest ever registered in the United States, many sources claim the land itself was created as a result of these astounding shifts in the ground. A preponderance of "sand volcanoes" run like scars down the peninsula and remain the only signs of the massive geologic events. Though not entirely substantiated, the New Madrid-related theory of Bubbleland's origin is helped along by the fact that no maps of the area exist prior to the earthquakes.
The Mississippi River, central America's preeminent determiner of East-West boundaries, was useless in marking ownership when it came to Bubbleland. Missouri and Tennessee fought over the Bend until the mid-1800's, when Tennessee finally relinquished its claim to Kentucky, which came out on top thanks to latitudinal jurisdiction.
With only a few hundred residents calling Bubbleland home at its peak, the cotton farmers managed to cultivate a legendary feud as detailed in Mark Twain's 1883 publication, Life on the Mississippi. Around 60 years of livestock-fueled rivalry between the Darnell and Watson families ended in a bloodbath when the Darnells attempted to flee the tumult by way of a secret steamship escape, only to be gunned down, dockside, by the Watsons. As the Darnell line was extinquished, the Watsons emerged "triumphant" and the population of Bubbleland began its precipitous decline to the estimated 17 or so residents living there today.
Nonetheless, this strange piece of American geography continues to enthrall, due as much to the volatile conditions that brought it to life, as the ones that played a role in its decline.