This is 99% invisible. I'm Roman Mars.

If you ever find yourself driving around the Midwest looking for a historic corn mill or a German culture festival or a chair factory.

There's a chance you might end up in the small town of Jasper, Indiana.

Good morning.

Driving through. Good morning.

driving through what looks to be more or less downtown Jasper heading over to my first interview.

That's reporter Jasper Davidoff reporting from Jasper Indiana, which admittedly is a little

confusing.

And you, James?

Yeah, well Jasper.

Yeah, I was going to say, with a name like Jasper, you had to come to Jasper.

Yeah, well, exactly. I mean, I'm excited to be here.

I was in Jasper, The Place, this past fall because I wanted to talk with a guy named Jim Tin.

My name is Jim Tin with my wife Pat Jasper is our home. I was born here.

Jim's dad, Herb Tin, was the mayor of Jasper back in the 1940s and 50s.

And when Jim was about seven years old, the town did something kind of radical, something

that no other city had done before.

They made garbage illegal.

As of August 1st 1950, they drew a bright line and said, if you were in the city they would no longer collect any garbage

Although the city was still collecting stuff like plastics soup cans a lot of what you might recycle today.

It was no longer picking up organic waste,

or what the city called garbage.

...