THE GREAT
AMERICAN
TOURIST TRAP
In my mind, the birthplace of the tradition of Great American Tourist traps is Rock City in Chattanooga, TN.
I still have vivid memories from my childhood in the 1950s and 1960s of all the painted barns in the South
advertising this wonderland of nothing. Rock City was the brainchild of Garnet Carter inventor of miniature
golf. This would be enough for most people, but, in 1932 he and his wife decided to risk all and open Frieda's
Rock City Gardens to the public. It paid off. By 1940, Rock City was a roadside institution. Despite the
slogan “Would be a pity/To miss Rock City, I still haven’t been there. And I don’t plan to be either.
For my money, the current crown for the Great American Tourist Trap belongs to the twin cities of Pigeon
Forge and Gatlinburg, TN, billed as the Mecca of the South. So Tennessee still rules in that category. The
website Roadsideamerica.com says it best: “This is the standard by which all Tourist Traps must be
benchmarked. Pigeon Forge and sister tourist-town Gatlinburg sparkle like junk jewels on a necklace choking
Great Smoky Mountains National Park (mini-mecca Cherokee applies torque from the North Carolina side).
Statistical density hampers attempts to assess this Mecca cluster (as with super-stuffed Wisconsin Dells or
Branson). A hundred attractions crush your sense of proportion and dignity.”
HILLBILLY VILLAGE
Hillbilly Village remains the last bastion of politically incorrect ethnic humor: Bubba jokes about white trash.
The store is is a cornucopia of hillbilly artifacts: roadkill cookbooks, toothless grinning cartoon postcards.
And bottle corks thrown into plastic bags and stamped "Hillbilly Birth Control Kit".
The promised highlight of a visit is a chance to see real moonshine stills, which are nothing more than old oil
drums with rusted pipes sticking out of them. There is also a shack said to be an actual hillbilly home brought
down from the mountains.
THE THREE BEARS GIFT SHOP
To me, one of the sadder aspects of
Pigeon Forge was the Three Bears Gift
Shop where you can view live bears in a
concrete pit, whiling away their life
sentences, fattening up on stale bread
and apples you can buy to feed them.
Mama bear is especially sad, as she
drags herself back and forth over the
cage bars, oblivious to everything. Or
as the tour guide cheerfully says, “Oh,
look, Moma’s doin’ her dance!” TBGS
is the target of frequent animal rights
protests and, I think, rightly so.
This 56’ tall abstract chicken with moving beak
Marietta GA, was originally part of Johnny Reb’s
Chick, Chuck, and Steak in 1963, KFC took it over
in 1974. When KFC was thinking of expanding to
nearby Smyrna, its residents said KFC had to build
a giant chicken like the one in Marietta. KFC
decided to just move this one, but the uproar raised
by Marietta’s fine citizens nearly sparked a second
Civil War. The chicken stayed. The chicken has
been the subject of questions on Jeopardy and in
Tivial Pursuit.
That’s me proudly standing with the big
Chicken in Pigeon Forge, Tenn.
WISCONSIN DELLS
Pigeon Forge and Gatlinburg may take the crown as the supreme tourist traps, but Wisconsin Dells comes in
second and is world class. Every year, 3 million vacationers flock to this tourists’ mecca of the north. Once
again, Roadsideamerica.com describes it best:
If a steamy, miles-long, cheese-dense strip of motels, tourist traps, and singular attractions sounds like a
fever dream one can only sweat out in central Florida -- think again. You can join three million leisure thrillseekers, as we did, who jostle for a parking space and a motel room in Lake Delton/Wisconsin Dells every
year. It's one of America's most amazing Tourism Meccas.
Like any good mecca, The Dells -- as the towns are collectively known -- distort the conventional laws of
road trip physics. Attractions that we'd normally drive hours to see, even on a rumor -- a giant rat statue, a
pool with a candyland motif, a motel with pirate and moon theme rooms -- in the thick of the Dells are
dismissed without a second glance. Sure, it'd only take a minute to stop, but who's got the time when there's
SO MUCH ELSE TO SEE?
WISCONSIN DELLS
“The natural beauty of the Dells -- the original reason people
began coming here -- is, no doubt, somewhere out there,
behind the cacophony of signs and soaring ride
superstructures. Scan from your car for it, and you're sure to
plow into the back of a SUV sitting in the strip's frequent
bumper-to-bumper weekend jam-ups.
“The famous kidney-pounding "Duck" Boats still grind their
way through the Dells woodlands and plow into the river for
those who want to commune with nature. The boats -- bornagain WWII amphibious beach invaders -- ply the beautiful
lakes and woodlands. More conventional boats take you past
Stand Rock, a column of stone surrounded by water and
longtime symbol of the Dells. A local man used to jump across
a chasm from the shore to Stand Rock as each boat passed,
then an Indian did it. Now they have a dog do it. The Indians
still show up nightly for their Stand Rock Indian Ceremonial
-- but they have to compete for tourist dollars with the jetfueled Tommy Bartlett's Sky, Ski, and Stage Show further
down the river.
“During a summer's day the white sky wraps around you like
a warm and not necessarily welcome blanket, and a walk
down Highway 12 gets you a head full of memories in a
single afternoon. The Wonder Spot -- an X Files anomaly
where the laws of gravity have conveniently gone haywire -guards the southern approaches to The Dells.
Just up the street is Robot World, whose recently deceased billionaire owner, Tommy Bartlett, paid cash for
Russia's spare Mir space station and brought it here as a tourist attraction. Dr. Norman Thagard in blue
NASA coveralls -- first American MIR veteran -- speaks to Robot World visitors through the magic of
videotape, although no one here can tell us what the Mir is made of or how much it cost.
The Dells appear to be cranking as never before. Robot World can't find enough local teens for summer work,
so The Dells Chamber of Commerce imports them from Finland. ("There are no jobs in Finland," one flaxenhaired youth tells us.)
Closer to downtown, where the cruise strip clogs at night, are the familiar mecca pilotfish: Dungeon of
Horrors, Wax World of the Stars (with special tributes to Princess Diana and John Travolta), olde timey
photo booths, and U-watch fudge shops. The Dells pumps out more than two tons of fudge a day during the
summer.
While the kids are left to exhaust themselves at Noah's Ark (the world's largest water park) the adults revel in
the nearby climate controlled, year-around thrills of the Ho-Chunk Indian Casino. The fun rolls on even
after the summer season, with The Dells boasting America's largest indoor water park (Black Wolf Lodge,
since unseated by one of 15 other indoor water parks) and only indoor wave pool (Treasure Islandin 1998,
which a few seasons later was rendered un-unique by newer, competing wave pools).
At times, the Dells seems to be the World's Largest Snake -- which, by the way, can be viewed at Serpent
Safari. The experience swallows us whole. It digests our lump of tourist enthusiasm and spending cash
slowly, over the course of a few days. The Dells periodically sheds its skin of failing or marginal attractions,
and tries again -- and again. Xanadu, City of the Future -- razed and replaced by an active volcano! Emerald
City -- sacked and converted to Mad King Ludwig's arcade palace.
Big Chief Go Kart has dumped its Indian motif for pagan mythology, and has built three giant wooden roller
coasters -- all named for Greek gods -- and an awe-inspiring 60-ft-tall wooden Trojan Horse with hypnotic
strobe light eyes. An elevated go kart track cleaves through its lofty belly. The go-cart hoisting Big Chief has
been converted to a go-cart hoisting Trojan soldier.
Mass Panic, a claustrophobic date attraction, strikes just the right note for us, though no guarantee it will
survive into the next season....
Extreme World straps you into a bungie chair and fires you skyward; next door, in the former Haunted Viking
Ship turned Alligator Alley, you're challenged to feed live alligators. Meanwhile, the world's steepest
waterslide -- an eight-story drop -- drenches screaming teens at Family Land, while over at Crazy King
Ludwig's the Battle Boat crews are firing tennis balls fusillades at each other while the Skyscraper, a twobladed windmill with 80-ft arms and a seat at each end, spins its masochistic passengers end-over-end at 75
mph. Is this the end of the world or just the dawning of a new millennium of fun?”
The Hodag
Rhinelander, Wisconsin can lay claim to its own mythical beast, the hodag, a 200-pound, seven-foot-long,
lizard-like beast covered with horns that is supposedly a resurrection of the restless spirit of dead lumber
oxen. An early specimen of the Hodag is on display at the Logging Museum.
The fearsome Hodag,, was first seen by Eugene Shepard in 1893, in the woods outside of Rhinelander. He
tried to capture it, failed, and then blew it up with dynamite. His second attempt in 1896, with a backup crew
of lumberjacks, was more successful. He cornered a Hodag in its den and knocked it out with a chloroform
sponge on a pole.
Luckily, this was just before the opening of the Oneida County Fair -- in which the captured Hodag proved to
be the most popular attraction, a dime buying you a glimpse of the creature from the far end of a dimly-lit
tent. However, it proved popular enough to make Rhinelander a tourist mecca to this day.
The trademarked version of the Hodag™ at the Chamber of Commerce (left), which looks a lot friendlier
looking than the legendary terror of the pine forests of northern Wisconsin that had to be blown up with
dynamite in 1893.
The classiest tourist trap in America has
to be Las Vegas. Once a mere gambling
mecca, it has also added a world class
collection of (near) life size monuments
such as the Eiffel Tower.
Why travel 1000s of miles across the planet to see
wonders that you can see collected within a few
city blocks of one another. At least this Sphinx
has a fresh paint job and its nose is intact.
A trip to Las Vegas certainly leaves one with the feeling that what
happens here should stay here.
EURO-DISNEY
The only place I’ve seen outside the US that remotely reminds me of such places as Pigeon Forge and the
Dells is Euro Disney in France. And that’s just a bit of Americana transported to France.
One advantage of having a Disneyland in France is the freedom to have a Wild West Show with
all the politically incorrect stereotypes of Native Americans no one would dare have this side of
the Atlantic
ALIENS DID IT
West Virginia can claim two famous monsters. In 1955, a 12-foot-tall space creature landed in a flying
saucer and terrified the town of Flatwoods. And in 1966-67, a monster nicknamed "Mothman" wreaked
similar terror on the citizens of Point Pleasant.
The Flatwoods monster never even got a name, only a souvenir stand in
the gas station next to the Shoney's where you can buy some monster
replicas for sale ($25). In contrast, Mothman boasts a rich legacy,
including a Mothman museum & research center, lots of Mothman
merchandise (including Christmas ornaments and beany babies), its
own movie starring Richard Gere, and a chrome steel statue.
Originally, the red eyes in the statue were
supposed to light up, but funding ran out.
Mothman arrived in Point Pleasant in November 1966 in classic style,
scaring couples in parked cars and eating farmers' dogs. Eye witnesses
said he was seven feet tall with ten-foot batlike wings, huge, red,
glowing eyes, and a piercing shriek. Unlike the Flatwoods monster,
Mothman hung around for over a year, with over 100 fear-struck locals
claiming encounters with him.
Some people thought Mothman was a mutant, spawned from local chemical and weapons dumps. Some
thought that he was the "the curse of Chief Cornstalk," a Shawnee leader who had been treacherously
murdered in Point Pleasant in 1777, and who had finally gotten around to exacting his revenge.
Sam Hill’s Stonehenge near
Maryville, Washington, was a
WWI monument dedicated in
1918, but not finished until 1930.
A year later, Sam died and was
buried at the foot this bluff.
Stonehenge II near Kerrville TX, claims to
be 60% as big & 90% the diameter of the
original. The area is infested with fire ants,
so don’t lie down on the altar for a photo-op.
Stubby Stonehenge was built by the high-pressure water lab
staff at the Univ. of Missouri at Rolla. It is 50% the size of
the original with a sign boasting, “In ancient times, carving
these stones would have taken years. These stones were
carved in a month."
Carhenge near Alliance, Nebraska was
originally built as a joke in 1987 by six local
families during a reunion. It was later
painted a uniform grey to make it more
striking. As with most great works of art,
the local inhabitants originally wanted to
have it torn down. But also, as with most
great works of art, they adopted it as a great
tourist attraction.
Fish & dinosaur sculptures, also from car
parts, have since been added.
Cadillac Ranch, west of Amarillo, Texas, was built in 1974 by Stan Marsh, the helium and Ant
Farm Art Collective magnate from San Francisco. It was meant as a tribute to the golden age of
automobiles (1949-63) as typified by Cadillac tailfins, probably the most dangerous car accessory
ever devised. The cars, which were built facing west at the same angle as the Great Pyramid,
have since been covered with graffiti.
Cadillac Ranch also offers
tourists a unique photo-op
The Spindle by LA artist, Dustin Shuler, consists
of 8 cars on a spike at the Cermak Shopping Plaza
in Berwyn, Illinois.
Oddly enough, the same strip mall boasts several
other masterpieces, the best being another Shuler
creation, Pinto Pelt, a Ford Pinto flattened out on
a wall like an animal pelt.
How to Identify a Muffler Man
Avoid the social embarrassment of incorrectly
categorizing a muffler man sighting by studying his
simple features and variations:
Note: Muffler Men are NOT the 4-6 ft. tall welded
sculptures made of discarded car parts at repair shops!
PHYSICAL CHARACTERISTICS
• Material: Fiberglass. Knock on his leg to see if he's
hollow.
• Height: Between 18-25 ft. tall
• Head: Well-chiseled facial bones, prominent brow
& squarish "lantern" jaw. Eyes may appear to stare
blankly into the middle distance, or may be painted
to leer down at visitors.
Exceptions: Halfwits and Indians
• Torso: Broad-shoulders, and familiar design of fake
shirt folds. Pockets, suspenders, shirt patterns
sometimes painted on.
Exceptions: Indian models often bare-chested.
• Arms: Short-sleeved shirt, well-articulated veins bulge on forearms. Bent at elbow, left palm faces down,
right palm faces up -- with an open grasp to hold an ax, muffler, golf club, etc.
• Shoes and legs: Big, blocky shoes measure about 4-ft. from heel to toe. Pants exhibit familiar pattern of
folds and creases.
A few classic examples of muffler men
Muffler men who have gone on to other successful careers
The world’s largest catsup bottle in
Collinsville, Il.
A water tower in Collinsville, Il also serves as the world’s largest
catsup bottle, The 70’ “bottle” atop 100’ support structure can
hold 640,000 bottles of catsup (or 100,000 gallons of water.
Legend has it that it can cause red hair in the unborn, as
pregnant women passing too close to it have discovered.
Another sight to see in Collinsville is the elephant
graveyard of Kay the elephant.
Big John in Metropolis is actually bigger than
the Superman on the other side of town.
However, he has lots of company…
Big John Grocers in Unger Wyoming,,…….. Eldorado, Illinois, ……. ………and Cape Coral, Florida
…
The 2-story Outhouse near Dover, Arkansas
Shoe Trees
White Squirrels
Digges, Idaho, the “Big Potato”
Although Nearby Blackfoot, Idaho claims to be the World
Potato Capital & has a styrofoam potato that may be a bit
bigger than the one in Digges, its potato isn’t on a truck.
The nearby gift shop sells potato fudge, potato ice cream,
and potato cookies.
Potato sack tux worn
by Idaho’s 1st Potato
Commisioner.
THE WORLD’S
LARGEST
Cowlossal Cows
Salem Sue (above & below right), 38’ high & 50’ long, overlooks the fields of N. Dakota near I-94
Chatty Belle, the world's
largest talking cow, & her
baby, Bullet, who is mute
Kadie the Cow, overlooks a shopping mall
in Columbus, GA,
Harmilda, in
Harvard, IL, the self
proclaimed “Milk
Center of the world”
The Jolly Green Giant near Blue Earth, MN. Stands 55’ tall
dwarfing a puny 2-D rival in nearby Le Seur. Blue Earth is
also the self-proclaimed birthplace of the ice cream
sandwich, but without a corresponding statue, how are we
to know?
GIANT WATERMELONS
Watermelon vendor in Bald Knob AK
This is the best Lincoln, IL can offer,
commemorating the fateful day in
1853 when Abe christened it with
melon juice. Lincoln advertises itself
as "The only city ever named for
Abraham Lincoln with his personal
consent”. However, on christening
the city, Abe remarked: "Never knew
anything named Lincoln that
amounted to much."
Luling, TX can boast both a giant watermelon
water tower and a plywood painting of a cow
jumping over the moon. Every June, Luling
has a Watermelon Thump festival, complete
with a seed spitting contest and Watermelon
Thump Queen pageant.
Big Corn Country
As much as we pride ourselves on our corn production, Illinois
obviously suffers from a “giant corn gap”, as these pictures testify.
Giant corn gazebo in Olivia MN.
Giant corn water tower in
Rochester, MN
Big Fish Stories
All but the fish market sign (lower right) come from my personal collection
As far as I can tell, the giant potato postcard was the original, while others are fakes using the
original and Photoshop to create the illusion of size and prosperity in other agricultural industries.
However, for some mysterious reason, although the landscapes in all three postcards is the same,
the skies are different. By the way, all three of these are from my personal collection