Nub City
11–22–16, Adil
What comes to mind when I say “Nub City?” No, it is not a city of squids. In fact, it is a nickname give to the small town of Vernon, Florida, for a very literal reason.
You see, a disturbingly large proportion of Vernon’s residents used to have actual nubs in place of where they once had normal limbs. But why, you ask? Good question. As Davis says, “$$ talks bro.” These amputations were in fact self-inflicted so that the folks could receive big-time payouts from their insurance companies.
Vernon is a very small town, with a population under 800 people. In the ’50s and ’60s, this money making strategy somehow caught hold in Vernon and the surrounding areas. At one point in the mid-60’s, at least 50 of Vernon’s 700 residents had joined the Nub Club. More broadly, citizens of the Florida Panhandle accounted for two-thirds of all loss-of-limb insurance claims in the entire United States.
Nobody is sure who the first person was, but there’s some funky country stories now about those in the Club. Some had the audacity to hack and saw off their limbs, but most preferred a quick blast from the good ol’ shotgun. Apparently, one of the preferred strategies was blasting off an arm and a leg on opposite sides of your body so you could still use a crutch.
A brief list of funny country claims: “a man who sawed off his left hand at work, a man who shot off his foot while protecting chickens, a man who lost his hand while trying to shoot a hawk, a man who somehow lost two limbs in an accident involving a rifle and a tractor, and a man who bought a policy and then, less than 12 hours later, shot off his foot while aiming at a squirrel.”
It just seems to obvious, right? Like, the proportion of accidents in this tiny town is just too high — surely they would get convicted in court for fraud, right? Wrong. Not a single one of these people ever got convicted, because it was just too hard to convince a jury that a man would take off his own limb.
My personal favorite: “‘There was another man who took out insurance with 28 or 38 companies,’ said Murray Armstrong, an insurance official for Liberty National. ‘He was a farmer and ordinarily drove around the farm in his stick shift pickup. This day — the day of the accident — he drove his wife’s automatic transmission car and he lost his left foot. If he’d been driving his pickup, he’d have had to use that foot for the clutch. He also had a tourniquet in his pocket. We asked why he had it and he said, ‘Snakes. In case of snake bite.’ He’d taken out so much insurance he was paying premiums that cost more than his income. He wasn’t poor, either. Middle class. He collected more than $1-million from all the companies.’” If getting insurance from 38 companies isn’t obvious enough, I dunno what is. But hey, at least he got dat $$$$$.
Insurance companies finally put an end to this by forcing astronomically high premiums in this region, and most eventually stopped doing business in the Florida Panhandle altogether. Lol.
More modern day Vernon is real salty about this reputation it has earned. One dude named tried to make a documentary about Nub City in 1981, but soon after he started interviews, he was beaten up and threatened with murder. Naturally, he had to pivot and ended up making a documentary about other random Vernon eccentricities. Nowadays, the local folk dare not bring up the Nub Club, as they work to shed that identity.
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