The Coolest Offbeat Attraction in Each U.S. State
if you find yourself in Alabama sure you can visit the U.S Space and Rocket Center in Huntsville or catch the Crimson Tide at tuscaloosa's Brian Denny Stadium but what do you do I hear you ask if you want a pantomime taking a number two with nine of your closest friends hi I'm Justin Dodd filling in for Aaron this week and in this episode of the list show I'll answer that question and share one other offbeat attraction in each state in the US of a I'll hit strange natural phenomena like the girden light atypical museums like the bobble head Hall of Fame and a whole lot more let's get started all right Alabama's Fort gains features a self-flushing latrine that employs some very old technology the tides of the Gulf of Mexico the 10 adjacent privities which did not afford soldiers much in the way of privacy are located right along the coast so the tides were cleverly used to flush any waste away you can visit today for a photo op but not to but you know when all you have is a few thousand hammers everything looks like a nail or an opportunity to open one of Alaska's most offbeat museums haynes's Hammer Museum invites visitors to explore the rich history of the world's first tool in the words of its website with everything from spring-loaded meat tenderizers to a hammer believed to have been used to help construct one of the pyramids at Giza the museum has gained Renown well beyond the 49th state it actually made its way into a Jeopardy clue back in 2016. the Hammer Museum is still hammering away but London Bridge has fallen down or more accurately one iteration of that famous bridge was taken apart and shift off to Lake Havasu Arizona Oil Man Robert P McCoy look purchased it back in the 1960s figuring he could use it to draw on crowds to a planned Community he was intent on building in the Copper State even today you can visit the London Bridge in the American southwest or at least a London Bridge since the English Landmark was eventually rebuilt in the woods of Arkansas you may be able to see a strange floating light according to local folklore it's the supernatural Lantern of a railroad worker who died prematurely searching for his dearly departed head in reality it's hard to be sure what causes the so-called gird and light it was actually featured in an episode of Unsolved Mysteries one theory is that the light is a result of piezoelectricity a process in which things like crystals such as the quartz known to exist under the ground in the area convert mechanical energy into electrical energy it may be that the pressure exerted on the quartz turns into the Eerie light effects documented by observers California's Museum of Jurassic technology appears to be an oxymoron how much technology was being implemented 150 million years ago that contradictory name may be fitting though the LA institution is at once an ironic anti-museum and a celebration of museums with exhibits on everything from Trailer Park culture to the stink ant of the Cameroon of West Central Africa a New York Times reviewer commented that their visit left them with a quote mixture of shock Marvel delight and confusion Colorado is filled with natural beauty but the Cold War Horse also known as the horse in the Hazmat suit is an unusual Ode to a rather unnatural disaster the emergency ready equine is located in Arvada where the Rocky Flats nuclear weapons Factory once sat the sculpture was made by Jeff geipe and commemorates the impact the nuclear facility had on the surrounding area and the people who worked there that includes geibzone father who once worked at Rocky Flats Yale's Cushing brain collection is pretty much exactly what it sounds like hundreds of human brains collected in glass jars for medical posterity it was started by Dr Harvey Cushing considered the father of modern neurosurgery and while you're in New Haven Connecticut pay a visit to Yale's beinecke rare book and manuscript library though the reading room is limited to Yale students and other academics with an approved visit they do have rotating exhibits accessible to the public one of the collection's prized possessions is the voynish manuscript which we recently featured in a video about history's coolest uncracked codes some would say that Delaware can boast of an artifact just as valuable to International Scholarship a 10 foot by 18 foot frying pan that at one point laid claim to the title of world's largest frying pan this is no Diva oversized Skillet it was used at the Delmarva Chicken Festival for years frying up an estimated 100 plus tons of fried poultry Miami Florida's Coral Castle appears at first glance like a cool but not particularly noteworthy sculpture garden it becomes more remarkable when you learn that it was built single-handedly by Edward Leeds calnan employing methods that have still not been fully discovered Ed had a slight frame and yet was able to move and manipulate huge slabs of coral perhaps drawing on his family's experience as stonemasons in his birthplace modern day Latvia because he worked in secrecy away from prying eyes there's little documentation of his 28 years of impressive work on top of Georgia's Lookout Mountain you can find Rock City begun roughly a century ago by Garnet Carter and his wife Frida the location brings together beautiful nature quirky gnomes and Mother Goose Village a miniature display of nursery rhyme characters you'll also see the remains of what maybe the country's first miniature golf course depending how you define mini golf that is though Lookout Mountain's course was preceded by other versions that essentially Shrunk the regular game of golf to a smaller scale Carter's iteration which he called Tom Thumb Golf cute Incorporated some of the more Whimsical features we associate with the game today like a hollowed out log that acted as a pipe to Ferry balls towards the hole Hawaii's Iolani Palace is not as Quirky as a lot of the items on this list you won't find any gnomes or giant frying pans there as far as I know but it is definitely unique in one respect it's the country's only Royal Palace history Buffs may recall that the United States has not historically been too crazy about monarchies but our 50th state Hawaii was another story it was an independent Kingdom until the end of the 19th century Queen Lilia wokalani lived at the palace until she was deposed by the euphemistically named Committee of safety a group composed mostly of businessmen who had the support of powerful figures in the U.S after a
failed attempt to reclaim the throne the queen was actually imprisoned in a room at the palace for almost eight months Idaho's Museum of clean hopes to expand the scope of clean into areas like clean homes clean mines clean Language clean community and a clean world that mission which depending on the tone you read in could either come across as Charming or Sinister is the driving ethos behind one of the otter museums you'll likely come across if you want to visit the Museum of clean and don't mind a long drive you may want to stay in the state's dog bark Park Inn shaped like a couple of huge beagles and if that's not quite ridiculous enough for your needs you may prefer the potato Hotel shaped like the state's most famous crop Illinois's Rockman Guardians look like the start of a delightful children's movie sculptor Theresa Agnew started making the Rockman back in 1987 and they still stand proud and hopefully ready to spring to life and teach a young girl about the power of believing in her dreams today take a regular baseball add a few thousand coats of paint over four decades or so and you just might have the world's largest ball of paint for now though you'll have to look up to Michael Carmichael's ball of paint in Alexandria Indiana Carmichael started the project back in 1977 and has incorporated a cool interactive element inviting scheduled visitors to add their own coat of paint to the giant ball some people call it weird Micah said I like the idea that it's something weird heck yeah Mike let's get weird where can you see the Cathedral of Notre Dame and the U.S Capitol Building all Under One Roof Iowa's Matchstick marbles home to model maker Pat unique work all the pieces are made out of humble wooden matchsticks from a mini USS Constitution to an impressive rendition of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry the world's largest collection of world's smallest versions of world's largest things is a bit of a mouthful but if you follow the syntax it makes perfect sense it's a broad collection featuring miniature versions of items that have gained Renown for their oversized Dimensions got it sure a small version of the world's largest ball of yarn might just look a little bit like a regular ball of yarn but there's something delightfully off-kilter about the sensibility Creator Erica Nelson brings to her one-of-a-kind Kansas attraction once completed Nelson often takes her small Creations to the site of their oversized Inspirations thereby fulfilling the prophecy or at least getting a cute photo for her troubles Kentucky's vent Haven museum is not sadly a museum dedicated to providing Safe Harbor to components of home and or office ventilation systems it is rather a place to display and celebrate the history of ventriloquism it was founded by w s Berger as a filming this video the museum is under renovation set to reopen in the spring in the meantime the collection's hundreds of dummies are unavailable to the public and presumably patching some kind of evil plot Louisiana's Abita Mystery House has an entire display dedicated to amateur paint by numbers artwork interesting miniature scenes including one portraying a jazz funeral and even in the words of their official website pure junk Maine's umbrella cover Museum doesn't feature junk but it does honor a cultural artifact that doesn't usually get a ton of attention those little sheaths that you put an umbrella in when it's not in use you could probably guess the museum would be unusual if you knew the name of its founder Nancy three Hoffman sure enough the Museum's website features a board of troublemakers in place of a board of directors and the collection includes umbrella covers from dozens of different countries the umbrella cover museum is the only attraction on this list as far as I know that was inspired in part by about of petty larceny as Hoffman said I was in a dime store and I stole a cover off of an umbrella just the cover then I knew I was hooked you do not want to get hooked at Maryland's Urology museum at least not literally speaking which will make sense if you get a peek at some of the frightening looking artifacts from early Urology history though the collection of antiquated surgical tools might make you wince the William P dittish Center for Urologic history oddly named not after urologist but to quote the museum the foremost illustrator of American Urology yet another missed career path for me celebrate scientific progress that helps people out below the belt it'd be tough to say what the best museum in Boston is the Museum of Fine Arts is one of the biggest art collections in the world the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum features works by Masters like Diego Velasquez and Albrecht Durer and even honors in its own way one of the most infamous art heists of all time but where do you go if you're sick of Staggering Beauty in incredible craftsmanship the Museum of bad art of course their mission to bring the worst of art to the widest of audiences of course the idea of what constitutes bad art is subjective but if you look at the mobas collection including themed exhibits like portraits and in the nude I think you may be convinced Marvin's Marvelous Mechanical Museum is in Michigan the World Almanac listed it as one of the United States 100 most unusual museums and I'm inclined to agree it features amongst many many other items something called the disgusting spectacle which is just an animatronic dude picking his nose admission to the museum is actually free but that doesn't mean you're likely to walk away without spending a bit of money there are rows and rows of coin operated pinball machines and uncategorizable Oddities like the guillotine which comes to life for a small fee playing out every kid's favorite method of execution even the ceilings are festooned with remote control airplanes on laundry conveying belts contributing to a childish sensory overload that's fun for any age Austin Minnesota's Spam Museum celebrates the world's most beloved packaged meat product which as we covered in an episode of food history may or may not be short for spiced ham or scientifically processed animal matter One display features can instruments musical instruments made partially out of cans of spam and more controversially to my mind lunch boxes celebrating spam which is really more of a lunch box German if you ask me you can learn about International uses of spam and find out how many cans of spam you would need to trace the U.S Mexico border put your best guess in the comments below and we'll write a reply with the answer if you've got a chronically itchy back hightail it to Lucedale Mississippi as long as you can make it to the city's downtown business district before the sensation passes you'll be able to Avail yourself of Bailey's scratching post the publicly available amenities started as a gimmick outside of an insurance company and has been passed on from generation to generation some of the luminaries that have supposedly scratched their back on the post include Dizzy Dean Kirk Douglas and Ronald Reagan Independence Missouri is not just the starting point for the Oregon Trail video game it was the one-time home of Layla's hair Museum focusing on Victorian era Hair Art that museum has sadly closed but while you're in the state you can still visit the Titanic museum in Branson the Dumas brothel Montana is open for almost a century located in Butte which for the purposes of this list item I really wish was pronounced but it now has a second life as a one-of-a-kind Museum and that's not the only second life purported to be happening at the former brothel the site is said to be a hub for Paranormal Activity and hosts ghost hunts for small groups one spirit said to haunt the space is known as the judge another according to psychic Kathleen Johns is known as Bonita Bonita and the judge go sitcom when Nebraska is home of the national museum of roller skating there are exhibits about trick skating and roller skating's place in American culture along with approximately 1 500 volumes of roller skating books in periodicals if you roll up to Tim Arnold's attraction in Nevada there isn't much room for doubt about what you'll find inside the Pinball Hall of Fame features 25 000 square feet worth of games from Decades of pinball history despite the name it appears it's more about celebrating and playing the pinball games and not recognizing the greatest pinball players of all time sorry Tommy while you're visiting consider staying in Nevada's world famous clown Motel the Museum of dumb guy stuff may not be the most honest title on this list it features a historically accurate Recreation of Dover New Hampshire set in the year 1959 for instance not exactly the kind of thing they'd be looking to cover on Spike TV but to be fair the Museum of Fairly insignificant but somewhat delightful things two guys made up in a basement doesn't exactly roll off the tongue there's a certain mad scientist vibe to the whole operation if the mad scientist in question was interested in jamming customized figurines into a tiny space beneath the regular Portsmouth home the museum such as it is almost never came to be Rod Hildebrand shared a story about when his co-founder clay Emery floated the idea by his wife apparently she wasn't immediately sold well it'll keep me out of your hair clay apparently said and she thought about it for a moment and said I support that as we know the Cornerstone of any good relationship is communication and a large collection of figurines Thomas Edison and invented the light bulb okay I don't really believe that I just wanted to see how many viewers would stop watching immediately and flood the comments with corrections but his company did develop important improvements to the Revolutionary invention that our honored today in Edison New Jersey in a big way a world's largest light bulb kind of way in fact the 13-foot plus bulb dates back to 1938 and is sort of functional today it actually gets its illumination from LED lights which is more environmentally friendly for what it's worth since 2021 it's actually been only the second largest bulb in the world one last world's largest on this list the world's largest pistachio in Alamogordo New Mexico or more accurately I guess the world's largest pistachio model I can't imagine the world's largest real pistachio would be much of a sight I mean like this big maybe it stands outside of pistachio land a farm and amusement park featuring a pistachio roller coaster pistachio eating contest in the tunnel of pistachio love okay it's actually just the farm part but now that I've made up the rest of that stuff and put it out into the world I have faith that the rest will one day come to pass if you thoughtlessly throughout the world's largest actual pistachio which is technically classified as a seed by the way and not a gnat there's an off chance it would end up in New York's Treasures in the trash that unique collection was started by retired sanitation worker Nelson Molina mostly during his years working for the Department from 1981 to 2015. it's housed in an active sanitation Garage in Manhattan and features all sorts of things reclaimed from the New York city garbage including autographed baseballs countless old photos and a who's who of discarded cell phone Styles when the Fontana dam was built in North Carolina a number of nearby towns were displaced while they once sat along the little Tennessee River the now Rising Waters forced residents to move Old Highway 288 was submerged under Fontana Lake a reservoir for the new dam the federal government offered to build a new road connecting the towns of Bryson City and Deals Gap partially so the displaced residents could still visit the burial sites of departed loved that Public Works project was never completed which led to our next attraction Bryson City's Road to Nowhere it ends in a quarter mile tunnel that leads well nowhere one landowner apparently displeased with the government's inaction hung aside nearby Welcome to The Road to Nowhere a broken promise 1943 to question mark anyone familiar with Aaron's interest in slash obsession with Theodore Roosevelt can guess which Landmark she threw out for North Dakota and sure the former president's eponymous National Park is certainly worth the visit but for a more offbeat and possibly downbeat day of sightseeing check out the tentpole monument to Circus dead visually the monument is just the granite pole in a small Cemetery but the story behind it is awfully interesting and also just awful when Ringling Brothers came to wapen in 1897 the show was intruded upon by a thunderstorm rather than canceling the performances the traveling circus started to set up their act including a large poll used to hold up the main intent tragically lightning hit that pole causing injuries that eventually killed three men but even that terrible event wasn't enough to cancel the day's show today the monument a stone replica of the original metal pole stands in a cemetery just outside of town a testament to the tragedy apparently even in more recent years when a circus comes nearby workers from The Troop will visit the cemetery to pay their respects let's move to Ohio and something a little more uplifting lucky cats Cincinnati's lucky cat Museum spelled m-e-w-s-u-m on their website and forever in my mind features around 2 000 maneki Neko those adorable beckoning cats you've probably seen in an East Asian home or business though the iconic tchotchkes are proudly displayed in many Chinese establishments they're believed to be Japanese in origin and to bring good luck to those who display them the museum was founded by Misha Robertson it started as her personal collection of a few dozen cats and Now features hundreds of permutations of sizes and Designs special shout out to the pencil sharpener Museum in Logan Ohio you know in case you're on the lookout for a few thousand pencil sharpeners what is the best Girl Scout cookie and why is it samoas even if you were under the mistaken impression that it's the dreaded thin mint I believe you're still allowed to visit Muskogee Oklahoma's statue in honor of the first Girl Scout cookie sale fun slightly war-torn fact the first sale was actually organized by a teacher to raise money for care packages that were sent to soldiers fighting in World War One comedy writers refer to putting a hat on a hat when a premise is too overstuffed with ideas to be effective in football it's a simple if potentially injurious explanation for Effective run blocking but at Portland Oregon's national hat museum putting a hat on the hat is just sound Space Management when you have more than 2 000 hats in one small location after all some stacking is inevitable while the museum which is temporarily closed is normally a year-round celebration of millinery we should really keep an eye out for their special events past highlights listed on the Museum's website include the requisite Kentucky Derby Day celebration along with less typical hat-centric Affairs like the black clad Mausoleum eduardian tea when I think of flossy spots in Pennsylvania the motor museum and historical Eastern State Penitentiary come to mind seeing as the entire Mental Floss staff has already been to those spots though today I'll shout out Philadelphia's Magic Gardens the brainchild of Mosaic artist Isaiah Zagar the Magic Gardens really are magical creating a unique interplay of light and glass recontextualizing found objects into a tiny world of beauty and Discovery Rhode Island's Newport Tower also has an interesting interplay with sunlight though it may be best observed on winter solstice on those days the sunrise shines directly through two of the mysterious structures Windows there are a number of theories to explain the tower's origin some more fanciful than others could have been created by Vikings the Knights Templar Chinese Sailors in the 15th century Shipwrecked explorers from Portugal the most likely explanation isn't quite so exciting experts believe it dates to the 1600s and is just the remnants of a male on Main Street in Columbia South Carolina there's a gap between two buildings housing respectively a Brazilian steakhouse and a jeweler about 15 feet above the ground between the buildings hangs the never bust chain a sculpture created by an American artist who goes by the name Blue Sky The Links of the chain are made of Real Steel which couldn't have been easy to install so why did Blue Sky Go to all the trouble it's tough to say when asked the artist was kg saying only that one building looked like it was leaning a little bit the website roadsideamerica.com might have put it best saying that the piece signifies something possibly if the other items on this list are too basic for you check out South Dakota's International vinegar Museum it was founded by Lawrence Diggs AKA The Vinegar man as the Museum's website incredibly proclaims the museum is inside of an old gymnasium because why not and features an international vinegar collection and even vinegar tasting opportunities vinegar man you're the hero we need and deserve if you want to complete the vinaigrette Museum challenge which I just invented you'll also want to make your way over to Tennessee's salt and pepper shaker Museum it's perfect for those fall days when you're admiring the foliage of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park but wish you could also appreciate over 20 000 salt and pepper shaker sets Jokes Aside this family-run attraction is absolutely Charming with sets depicting everything from Sushi plates to foreign royalty to inexplicably fruit-headed artists Texas's Cadillac Ranch in Amarillo is part Americana icon part interactive project it was installed decades ago in a collaboration between Art Collective the ant farm and multi-industry Tycoon Stanley Marsh 3.
it consists of 10 Cadillacs half buried in the dirt visitors are able to add their own flourishes to the colorful designs we mentioned Robert smithson's Spiral Jetty in our long list of Earth facts but it's just too cool for me to leave off this list located on the shore of Utah's Great Salt Lake it's considered an earthwork a work of art consisting of a portion of land Modified by an artist as merriamwebster.com describes it Smithson used thousands of tons of rocks to create the piece if smithson's work puts the natural world in a new context we might say that Vermont's Museum of everyday life extends our understanding of what the natural world is by centering simple often man-made objects like the safety pin toothbrush and even dust Museum invites us to reconsider the things all around us it's all kind of like the third Act of Thornton Wilder's Our Town putting Everyday Life Center Stage in order to better appreciate its beauty on the theme of our town act 3 which is somehow where we find ourselves let's go to the cemetery the Hollywood Cemetery does not as you might imagine belong roughly 40 States earlier on this list it's not in California but in Richmond Virginia U.S commanders in Chief James Monroe and John Tyler are both buried there so is Jefferson Davis the first and only President of the Confederacy and so as a vampire allegedly William Wortham Poole whose tomb is found at Hollywood Cemetery is widely discussed as a possible member of the undead and local Legends sure those stories may have been propagated by college students fueled by chemical sensory enhancement and adrenaline as Richmond magazine said but it hasn't stopped spooky-minded visitors from checking out the tomb for years if you haven't seen James Terrell's work I highly recommend checking it out whether he's creating one-of-a-kind light installations on the ceiling of the Guggenheim or working on his still uncompleted rodent crater in Arizona's Painted Desert Trails work plays with light and space in ways that will change your perspective and if you find yourself at the Henry art gallery on the campus of the University of Washington don't miss the chance to see his peace light rain the outside glows in a range of colors like the world's coolest LED lamp once inside you'll notice that the roof has been cut open inviting visitors to look up into the uninterrupted Sky West Virginia's Archive of the afterlife invites you to look in another direction towards or is that Beyond Death you can find haunted artifacts items used for embalming and opportunities to sign up for a ghost hunt slightly less morbid Wisconsin's National bobblehead Hall of Fame and Museum I can't promise it will re-contextualize The Wonder of nature or make you see with fresh eyes The Humble beauty of quotidian life but it is chock full of dolls whose heads are connected to Springs and that's not nothing Wyoming's Yellowstone National Park is hardly quirky but it has a unique attraction and several very pretty thermal pools that get their color in part from the heat loving bacteria that live in them the enzyme tack polymerase found in one type of those bacteria also help lead to a scientific breakthrough you may have experience with PCR tests like the kind of used to detect covid-19 were developed in part by Nobel Prize win owner Carrie B Mullis that type of diagnostic often employs a technique called thermal cycling a series of heating and cooling cycles that enables DNA replication if you think about it the varying temperatures of the thermal Waters creates a natural version of this temperature cycling today the tech enzyme can be made in the lab but we might not have developed PCR testing technology without discovering the naturally occurring bacteria obligatory non-state items number one Washington DC's National Bonsai and pending Museum which is free to visit and features a variety of beautiful trees in a tranquil setting if you're not familiar with the word pinging by the way it's basically the Chinese cousin of bonsai with a subtle distinction as practitioner Robert Stephen described it penging is more about artistic Nuance in portraying natural phenomena and Bonsai is more disciplined in technical skill with the objective of suggesting the physical Perfection of an old tree let's end with one place you definitely should not visit anyone found on desichayo island part of the Puerto Rican archipelago ago is subject to arrest on site that's because the island still may have unexploded weapons on it from mid-20th Century military testing to all our viewers from American Samoa Guam and the Northern Mariana Islands we'll get to you next time I promise thanks for joining us on this wacky road trip through America if you've been to any of the spots we've mentioned please give us your detailed reviews in the comments below thanks for watching and we'll see you next time
2023-01-08 09:40
