Strange America
There's more America than you think. Strange America explores overlooked corners of American life: people, communities, places, professions, traditions, subcultures, institutions, and local histories that reveal something unexpected about the country. Hosted by Lenny Voss, the program enters unfamiliar worlds as a guest, not as an authority—finding the human detail that makes an ordinary American story unforgettable. From forgotten traditions to unusual professions, from hidden institutions to overlooked communities, Strange America discovers what lies just outside the national narrative. Each episode combines documentary storytelling, field interviews, and careful research to reveal what we've missed about America. New episodes weekly.
The Forty-Two-Year Grotto Rising from the Iowa Prairie
In West Bend, Iowa, the land is mostly doing what Iowa land does. It lies flat. It grows things. It gives the wind a long, unobstructed view. And then, in the middle of it, there is a mountain. Not a natural mountain. Not exactly a building, either. It is a glittering complex of stone, concrete, […]
The Smallest Giants and Other American Roadside Miracles
There is a particular kind of American place that appears just beyond the edge of town. It may have a giant object on the roof, a hand-painted sign, or a building that seems to have been assembled according to rules known only to its owner. These places are easy to dismiss as roadside oddities. That […]
The Bearded Baseball Commune That Took Michigan on the Road
There are places in America where the past does not disappear. It gets put in a uniform, grows a beard, and goes on tour. In Benton Harbor, Michigan, a religious community built farms, factories, food businesses, an amusement park, touring bands, and one of the strangest baseball operations in American history. Its players were known […]
Herbie Town: The Tennessee Backyard Where One Family Saved the Old West
There are places in America that begin with a plan. A town map. A budget. A committee. And then there are places that begin behind somebody’s house, with a pile of salvaged objects and a person who has decided that the past is not going to disappear on his watch. In Humboldt, Tennessee, Herbert Adams […]
The Wisconsin Lumberjack Who Built a History of America in Concrete
Along Wisconsin Highway 13, the trees open up and something unusual appears beside the road. There are concrete people, animals, heroes, farmers, soldiers, and mythical figures standing among the trees. It looks, at first, like a very determined roadside attraction. Then you learn that it was built by Fred Smith, a retired lumberjack who decided […]
The Americans Who Built Their Own Museums
There are Americans who build things because somebody hired them. There are Americans who build things because a committee approved them. And then there are Americans who begin with a piece of cardboard, a little free time, and an idea that does not appear to have an ending. Tonight, we are visiting three of those […]
Strange America — 2026-09-22
There are places in America where the map seems to have made a clerical error. There are buildings that look like hotels but contain a government nobody is supposed to know about. And there are towns that disappear so completely that the land remembers them better than the people do. This is Strange America. I […]
Strange America — 2026-09-22
STRANGE AMERICA. There’s more America than you think. Today, three places where the map, the record book, and ordinary life do not quite agree. We will visit an American community reached through Canada, a neighborhood buried beneath a state capital, and a vanished Illinois town founded by a formerly enslaved man who bought freedom for […]
Untitled Episode
The American Choir That Refuses to Have an Audience
The Maine Camp Where Spiritualists Still Gather to Talk to the Dead
