Kitschiest Roadside Attractions in America
Sometimes the journey is the destination, as our kitschy roadside attractions prove.
Skunk-Ape Research Center
Courtesy of Michael Barbato
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The landscape blurs as you drive Interstate 80 straight through Nebraska. Then suddenly you do a double take. Right in front of you is an old-timey Western trading post, sitting in the shadow of a 30-foot-tall cutout of Buffalo Bill.
It just wouldn’t be a great American road trip without kitschy roadside attractions like the Fort Cody Trading Post in North Platte. Some of the earliest got their start in the 1920s, when the birth of the U.S. highway system set off a building boom. Drivers had to stop to refuel or rest, after all, and enterprising businessmen were eager to dream up attractions that would meet their needs and liven up life on the road.
“A big part of roadside attractions is making the biggest whatever. People take this really seriously,” says Mark Sedenquist, who founded RoadTrip America with his wife, Megan Edwards. After they lost their home in a 1993 wildfire, they embarked on an epic drive that lasted more than six years and inspired their chronicles of roadside attractions.
And there’s always a souvenir to take home. Doug Kirby remembers being so fascinated by the petrified wood he got at Wall Drug as a boy that he lugged it around for his entire vacation. As an adult, he founded the website Roadside America, which covers more than 9,000 oddball attractions.
“Some people visit these places to make fun of them,” admits Kirby, “but you know you like them deep down.”
Skunk-Ape Research Center, Ochopee, FL
Conspiracy theorists are welcome at the world’s only skunk-ape research center, dedicated to the Everglades’ version of Bigfoot. Reportedly measuring six feet tall, these elusive bipeds reek of rotten eggs. Owner Dave Shealy, who has studied the creatures nearly his entire life, sells DVDs, camouflage hats, and tracking guides. While Shealy says the government prohibits him from leading tours in the surrounding Big Cypress National Preserve, he will point visitors to the general vicinity of the skunk-ape habitat. Don’t miss annual traditions such as Skunktoberfest and the Miss Skunk Ape contest, where women compete to answer questions from Shealy’s guide. This year’s prize was a six-foot-long banana.
Fort Cody Trading Post
Courtesy of Brad Stone / Flickr
Fort Cody Trading Post, North Platte, NE
Nebraska’s largest souvenir and Western gift shop is dedicated to “Buffalo Bill” Cody, who slayed 4,280 buffalo from 1867 to 1868. The store is connected to a free Old West Museum, which features a two-headed calf from the 1940s and a miniature replica of Buffalo Bill’s traveling circus show—a couple whittled 20,000 pieces for the replica over 12 years. But perhaps the strangest sight is the customers: it’s not unusual to see adults donning headdresses and dancing around the store, beating drums and waving around toy tomahawks. Many are repeat visitors. As co-owner Leigh Henline says, “A person will burst through the door, take a deep breath, and announce, ‘Yes, it still smells like I remember it as a kid!’”
Da Yoopers Tourist Trap
Courtesy of Kristina Weaver / Flickr
Da Yoopers Tourist Trap, Ishpeming, MI
For the uninitiated, a Yooper is someone who lives in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula (the U.P.), which is covered in snow nearly half the year. Da Yoopers Tourist Trap is a celebration of hinterland innovations, including Big Ernie, the world’s largest working rifle (35 feet and 4,000 pounds) and Da Two-Holer Outhouse. Don’t leave without a tchotchke from the gift shop—everything from bullet-hole stickers (which promise to “impress the babes”) to belly-button lint brushes.
Vent Haven Museum
Courtesy of David Crone
Vent Haven Museum, Fort Mitchell, KY
All eyes are on you at the world’s only ventriloquist (“vent” for short) museum, home to more than 750 googly-eyed dummies. Figures are as varied as Miss Piggy and a carved head that a POW performed with to earn extra food. Founder William Shakespeare Berger purchased the very first figure, Tommy Baloney, in 1910. When he died, he donated his collection and property to create the museum. It’s open by appointment only, May through September, so this is one roadside stop that requires a little advance planning.
Mitchell Corn Palace
Courtesy of KenGillPhotography.com
Mitchell Corn Palace, Mitchell, SD
Established in 1892 and existing at its current location since 1921, this showstopper—the only building of its kind—celebrates the harvest of king corn. The building exterior is redecorated annually with 275,000 ears of colored corn, other grains, and grasses. Themes have included Lewis and Clark; the space age; and historic figures such as Elvis Presley and Martin Luther King, Jr. Drive away with your corn memento of choice: popcorn, Corn Palace puzzles, or corn-cob jelly.
Wall Drug Store
Courtesy of John Schrantz
Wall Drug Store, Wall, SD
The anticipation starts long before you arrive at Wall Drug, a Western-themed mall/amusement park near Mount Rushmore and the Badlands. Signs posted throughout the world count down the remaining miles to go; there’s even a sign for Wall Drug posted in Antarctica (for the record, only about 9,300 miles away). Wall Drug started as a humble pharmacy that doled out free ice water to weary travelers. Today, 2.2 million people a year pull over to ogle at the animatronic T. rex and see the animated Chuck Wagon Quartet (one of the figures resembles Ronald Reagan); chuckle at a piano-playing, singing gorilla; and sit atop a giant jackalope statue. And yes, the ice water’s still free.
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