Okay, everyone, I've got a party trick.

Next time you are at the grocery store, pick up a pack of mushrooms.

If you have one at home right now, go and get them, bring them out of the fridge of

serious.

You can go pause the podcast and get your mushrooms.

Okay, flip the package over and look where the mushrooms come from.

I am going to guess the mushrooms you're holding come from somewhere in Pennsylvania.

Very likely, somewhere near Kenneth Square.

I am not some kind of mushroom psychic, as much as whatever being a mushroom psychic is

sounds awesome.

I know this because the area surrounding this small Pennsylvania hamlet of Kenneth Square,

which is just about an hour from Philadelphia, produces two thirds of all the mushrooms sold

in the U.S.

That is more than 500 million pounds of mushrooms a year.

It is the weight of a skyscraper in fungus.

But the story of how this beautiful area of Pennsylvania came to be the mushroom capital

of the world may not be what you think.

I'm Dylan Therese and this is Atlas Obscura, a celebration of the world's strange, incredible

and wondrous places.

This small town big story episode is produced in partnership with Go USA TV and today we

are headed to Kenneth Square.

I wanted to know how the area around this charming town came to grow so many mushrooms.

...