"Bill" Nye, a journalist, lecturer, author, and humorist, grew to manhood in the quiet valley of the Kinnickinnic, which flows southwesterly through River Falls. Tall tales of frontier humor were popular regionally before 1860, and Samuel Clemens, known as Mark Twain, and Bill Nye widely popularized similar exaggerations until they were considered typically American. In the country church three-fourths mile east, Nye practiced public speaking to empty pews while he was a student at River Falls Academy, now State University. The family homestead stood three-fourths mile south of the church, and he delighted audiences by calling it "a hundred and sixty acres of beautiful ferns and bright young rattlesnakes." Ferns are few there, and the snakes are gone, if they were ever there.