The Coolest Offbeat Attraction in Each U.S. State | Mental Floss

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If you find yourself in Alabama, sure, you can visit the U.S. Space and Rocket Center in Huntsville
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or catch the Crimson Tide at Tuscaloosa's Brian Denny Stadium. But what do you do, I hear you ask, if you want to pantomime taking a number two with nine of your closest friends
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Hi, I'm Justin Dodd, filling in for Aaron this week, and in this episode of The List Show
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I'll answer that question and share one other offbeat attraction in each state in the U.S. of A
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I'll hit strange natural phenomena like the Gerdon Light, atypical museums like the
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Bobblehead Hall of Fame, and a whole lot more. Let's get started
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Alabama's Fort Gaines features a self-flushing latrine that employs some very old technology
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the tides of the Gulf of Mexico. The ten adjacent privies, which did not afford
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soldiers much in the way of privacy, are located right along the coast
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so the tides were cleverly used to flush any waste away. You can visit today for a photo op
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but not to… well, you know. When all you have is a few thousand hammers, everything looks like a
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nail. Or an opportunity to open one of Alaska's most offbeat museums. Haines's Hammer Museum
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invites visitors to explore the rich history of the world's first tool, in the words of its website
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With everything from spring-loaded meat tenderizers to a hammer believed to have been used to help
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construct one of the pyramids at Giza, the museum has gained renown well beyond the 49th state
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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
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Or more accurately, one iteration of that famous bridge was taken apart and
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shipped off to Lake Havasu, Arizona. Oil man Robert P. McCulloch purchased it back in the
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1960s, figuring he could use it to draw in crowds to a planned community he was intent
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on building in the Copper State. Even today, you can visit the London Bridge in the American
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Southwest — or at least a London Bridge, since the English landmark was eventually rebuilt
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In the woods of Arkansas, you may be able to see a strange floating light. According to local
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folklore, it's the supernatural lantern of a railroad worker who died prematurely searching
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for his dearly departed head. In reality, it's hard to be sure what causes the so-called Gurdon
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Light. It was actually featured in an episode of Unsolved Mysteries. One theory is that the light
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is a result of piezoelectricity, a process in which things like crystals, such as the quartz
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known to exist under the ground in the area, convert mechanical energy into electrical energy
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It may be that the pressure exerted on the quartz turns into the eerie light effects documented by
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observers. California's Museum of Jurassic Technology appears to be an oxymoron. How much
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technology was being implemented 150 million years ago? That contradictory name may be fitting
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though. The LA institution is, at once, an ironic anti-museum and a celebration of museums
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with exhibits on everything from trailer park culture to the stink ant of the Cameroon of
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West Central Africa. A New York Times reviewer commented that their visit left them with a
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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
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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
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once sat. The sculpture was made by Jeff Guipe and commemorates the impact the nuclear facility
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had on the surrounding area and the people who worked there. That includes Guipe's own
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father who once worked at Rocky Flats. Yale's Cushing brain collection is pretty much exactly what it sounds like. Hundreds
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of human brains collected in glass jars for medical posterity. It was started by Dr. Harvey
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Cushing, considered the father of modern neurosurgery. And while you're in New Haven, Connecticut, pay a visit to Yale's Beinecke Rare Book
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and Manuscript Library. Though the reading room is limited to Yale students and other
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academics with an approved visit, they do have rotating exhibits accessible to the public
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One of the collection's prized possessions is the Voynich Manuscript, which we recently
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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
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scholarship—a 10-foot by 18-foot frying pan that at one point laid claim to the title
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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
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tons of fried poultry. Miami, Florida's Coral Castle appears at first glance like a cool but not particularly
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noteworthy sculpture garden. It becomes more remarkable when you learn that it was built single-handedly by Edward Leedskalnin
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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
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perhaps drawing on his family's experience as stonemasons in his birthplace, modern-day Latvia
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Because he worked in secrecy away from prying eyes, there's little documentation of his 28 years of impressive work
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On top of George's Lookout Mountain, you can find Rock City, Begun roughly a century ago by Garnet Carter and his wife Freda, the location brings together
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beautiful nature, quirky gnomes, and Mother Goose Village, a miniature display of nursery rhyme
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characters. You'll also see the remains of what may be the country's first miniature golf course
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depending how you define mini-golf, that is. Though Lookout Mountain's course was preceded
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by other versions that essentially shrunk the regular game of golf to a smaller scale
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Carter's iteration, which he called Tom Thumb Golf, cute, incorporated some of the more whimsical
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features we associate with the game today, like a hollowed out log that acted as a pipe
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to ferry balls towards the hole. Hawaii's Iolani Palace is not as quirky as a lot of the items on
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this list. You won't find any gnomes or giant frying pans there, as far as I know, but it is
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definitely unique in one respect. It's the country's only royal palace. History buffs may recall that
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the United States has not historically been too crazy about monarchies, but our 50th state
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Hawaii was another story. It was an independent kingdom until the end of the 19th century
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Queen Liliya Wokelani lived at the palace until she was deposed by the euphemistically named
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Committee of Safety, a group composed mostly of businessmen who had the support
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of powerful figures in the U.S. After a failed attempt to reclaim the throne
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the Queen was actually imprisoned in a room at the palace for almost eight months
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Idaho's Museum of Clean hopes to expand the scope of clean into areas like clean homes
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clean minds, clean language, clean community, and a clean world. That mission, which, depending on
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the tone you read it in, could either come across as charming or sinister, is the driving ethos
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behind one of the otter museums you'll likely come across. If you want to visit the Museum of Clean
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and don't mind a long drive, you may want to stay in the state's Dog Bark Park Inn, shaped like a
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couple of huge beagles. And if that's not quite ridiculous enough for your needs, you may prefer
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the potato hotel shaped like the state most famous crop Illinois Rockman Guardians looked like the start of a delightful children movie Sculptor Teresa Agnew started making the Rockmen back in 1987
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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
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Take a regular baseball, add a few thousand coats of paint over four decades or so
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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
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in Alexandria, Indiana. Carmichael started the project back in 1977 and has incorporated a cool
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interactive element inviting scheduled visitors to add their own coat of paint to the giant ball
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Some people call it weird, Micah said. I like the idea that it's something weird. Heck yeah
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Mike. Let's get weird. Where could you see the Cathedral of Notre Dame and the U.S. Capitol
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Building all under one roof? Iowa's matchstick marvels home to model maker Pat Acton's unique
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work. All the pieces are made out of humble wooden matchsticks, from a mini USS Constitution
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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
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is a bit of a mouthful, but if you follow the syntax, it makes perfect sense. It's a broad
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collection featuring miniature versions of items that have gained renown for their oversized
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dimensions. Got it? Sure. A small version of the world's largest ball of yarn might just look a
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little bit like a regular ball of yarn, but there's something delightfully off-kilter about
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the sensibility creator Erica Nelson brings to her one-of-a-kind Kansas attraction. Once completed
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Nelson often takes her small creations to the site of their oversized inspirations
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thereby fulfilling the prophecy—or at least getting a cute photo for her troubles
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Kentucky's Vent Haven Museum is not, sadly, a museum dedicated to providing safe harbor to
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components of home and or office ventilation systems. It is, rather, a place to display and
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celebrate the history of ventriloquism. It was founded by W.S. Berger. As of filming this video
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the museum is under renovation, set to reopen in the spring. In the meantime
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the collection's hundreds of dummies are unavailable to the public and presumably
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patching some kind of evil plot. Louisiana's Abita Mystery House has an entire display dedicated
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to amateur paint-by-numbers artwork, interesting miniature scenes, including one portraying a jazz
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funeral, and even, in the words of their official website, pure junk. Maine's Umbrella Cover Museum
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doesn't feature junk, but it does honor a cultural artifact that doesn't usually get a ton of
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attention—those little sheaths that you put an umbrella in when it's not in use. You could
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probably guess the museum would be unusual if you knew the name of its founder, Nancy 3 Hoffman
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Sure enough, the museum's website features a board of troublemakers in place of a board of directors
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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
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that was inspired in part by a bout of petty larceny. As Hoffman said
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I was in a dime store and I stole a cover off of an umbrella. Just the cover
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Then I knew I was hooked. You do not want to get hooked at Maryland's Urology Museum
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at least not literally speaking, which will make sense if you get a peek at some of the frightening-looking artifacts
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from early urology history. Though the collection of antiquated surgical tools might make you wince
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The William P. Diddish Center for Urologic History, oddly named not after urologists but to quote the museum
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the foremost illustrator of American urology, yet another missed career path for me
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celebrates scientific progress that helps people out below the belt. It'd be tough to say what the best museum in Boston is
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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
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and even honors, in its own way, one of the most infamous art heists of all time
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But where do you go if you're sick of staggering beauty and incredible craftsmanship
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The Museum of Bad Art, of course. Their mission? To bring the worst of art to the widest of audiences
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Of course, the idea of what constitutes bad art is subjective, but if you look at the MOBA's collection, including themed exhibits like Portraits and In the Nude
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I think you may be convinced. Marvin's Marvelous Mechanical Museum is in Michigan
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The World Almanac listed it as one of the United States' 100 most unusual museums, and I'm inclined to agree
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It features, amongst many, many other items, something called the Disgusting Spectacle, which is just an animatronic dude picking his nose
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Admission to the museum is actually free, but that doesn't mean you're likely to walk away without spending a bit of money
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There are rows and rows of coin-operated pinball machines and uncategorizable oddities like the guillotine
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which comes to life for a small fee, playing out every kid's favorite method of execution
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Even the ceilings are festooned with remote-control airplanes on laundry conveying belts
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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
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which, as we covered in an episode of Food History, may or may not be short for spiced ham
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or scientifically processed animal matter. One display features canstruments, musical instruments made partially out of cans of
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spam, and, more controversially to my mind, lunchboxes celebrating spam, which is really
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more of a lunchboxstrument, if you ask me. You can learn about international uses of spam and
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find out how many cans of spam you would need to trace the U.S.-Mexico border. Put your best
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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 Loosedale, Mississippi. As long as you can
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make it to the city's downtown business district before the sensation passes, you'll be able
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to avail yourself of Bailey's scratching post. The publicly available amenity started
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as a gimmick outside of an insurance company and has been passed on from generation to
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generation. Some of the luminaries that have supposedly scratched their back on the post
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include Dizzy Dean, Kirk Douglas, and Ronald Reagan. Independence, Missouri is not just the starting point for the Oregon Trail video game. It
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the one-time home of Layla's Hair Museum, focusing on Victorian-era hair art. That museum has sadly
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closed, but while you're in the state, you can still visit the Titanic Museum in Branson
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The Dumas brothel in Montana has opened for almost a century. Located in Butte, which
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for the purposes of this list item, I really wish was pronounced but, it now has a second life as a
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one-of-a-kind museum. And that's not the only second life purported to be happening at the
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the former brothel. The site is said to be a hub for paranormal activity and hosts ghost hunts for
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small groups. One spirit said to haunt the space is known as The Judge. Another, according to
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psychic Kathleen Johns, is known as Bonita. Bonita and The Judge ghost sitcom went. Nebraska is home
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of the National Museum of Rollerskating There are exhibits about trick skating and roller skating place in American culture along with approximately 1 volumes of roller skating books and periodicals If you roll up to Tim Arnold
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attraction in Nevada, there isn't much room for doubt about what you'll find inside
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The Pinball Hall of Fame features 25,000 square feet worth of games from decades of pinball
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history. Despite the name, it appears it's more about celebrating and playing the pinball
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games and not recognizing the greatest pinball players of all time. Sorry, Tommy. While you're
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visiting, consider staying in Nevada's world-famous Clown Motel. The Museum of Dumb Guy Stuff may not
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be the most honest title on this list. It features a historically accurate recreation of Dover
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New Hampshire, set in the year 1959, for instance. Not exactly the kind of thing they'd be looking
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to cover on Spike TV. But to be fair, the Museum of Fairly Insignificant But Somewhat Delightful
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Things Two Guys Made Up in a Basement doesn't exactly roll off the tongue. There's a certain
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mad scientist vibed with the whole operation, if the mad scientist in question was interested
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in jamming customized figurines into a tiny space beneath a regular Portsmouth home
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The museum, such as it is, almost never came to be. Rod Hildebrand shared a story about when his
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co-founder, Clay Emery, floated the idea by his wife. Apparently, she wasn't immediately sold
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Well, it'll keep me out of your hair, Clay apparently said. And she thought about it for
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a moment and said, I support that. As we know, the cornerstone of any good relationship is
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communication and a large collection of figurines. Thomas Edison invented the light bulb
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Okay, I don't really believe that. I just wanted to see how many viewers would stop watching immediately and flood the comments
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with corrections. But his company did develop important improvements to the revolutionary invention that are honored
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today in Edison, New Jersey, in a big way. A world's largest light bulb kind of way, in fact
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The 13-foot-plus bulb dates back to 1938 and is sort of functional today
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It actually gets its illumination from LED lights, which is more environmentally friendly
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For what it's worth, since 2021, it's actually been only the second largest bulb in the world
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One last world's largest on this list. The world's largest pistachio in Alamogordo, New Mexico
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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
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I mean, like, this big, maybe? It stands outside of Pistachio Land, a farm and amusement park featuring a pistachio roller
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coaster, pistachio eating contest, and the tunnel of pistachio love. Okay, it's actually just the
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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 threw out the world's
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largest actual pistachio, which is technically classified as a seed, by the way, and not a nut
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there's an off chance it would end up in New York's treasures in the trash. That unique
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collection was started by retired sanitation worker Nelson Molina, mostly during his years
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working for the department from 1981 to 2015. It's housed in an active sanitation garage
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in Manhattan and features all sorts of things reclaimed from the New York City garbage
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including autographed baseballs, countless old photos, and a who's who of discarded
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cell phone styles. When the Fontana Dam was built in North Carolina, a number of nearby towns were displaced. While
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they once sat along the Little Tennessee River, the now rising waters forced residents to move
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Highway 288 was submerged under Fontana Lake, a reservoir for the new dam
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The federal government offered to build a new road connecting the towns of Bryson City
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and Deals Gap, partially so that displaced residents could still visit the burial sites
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of departed loved ones. That public works project was never completed, which led to our next attraction, Bryson City's
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Road to Nowhere. It ends in a quarter-mile tunnel that leads, well, nowhere
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One landowner, apparently displeased with the government's inaction, hung a sign nearby
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Welcome to The Road to Nowhere, A Broken Promise, 1943 to question mark
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Anyone familiar with Erin's interest in-slash-obsession with Theodore Roosevelt can guess which landmark
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she threw out for North Dakota. And sure, the former president's eponymous national park is certainly worth the visit
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But for a more offbeat and possibly downbeat day of sightseeing, check out the tentpole
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monument to Circus Dead. Visually, the monument is just a granite pole in a small cemetery, but the story behind
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it as awfully interesting and also just awful. When Ringling Brothers came to Wapetton in 1897
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the show was intruded upon by a thunderstorm. Rather than canceling the performances
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the traveling circus started to set up their act, including a large pole used to hold up the main
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tent. Tragically, lightning hit that pole, causing injuries that eventually killed three men
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But even that terrible event wasn't enough to cancel the day's show
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Today, the monument, a stone replica of the original metal pole, stands in a cemetery just outside of town
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A testament to the tragedy. Apparently, even in more recent years, when a circus comes nearby, workers from the troupe will visit the cemetery to pay their respects
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Let's move to Ohio and something a little more uplifting. Lucky Cats
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Cincinnati's Lucky Cat Museum, spelt M-E-W-S-E-U-M on their website and forever in my mind, features around 2,000 maneki neko
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those adorable, beckoning cats you've probably seen in an East Asian home or business
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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
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The museum was founded by Misha Robertson. It started as her personal collection of a few
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dozen cats and now features hundreds of permutations of sizes and designs
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Special shout-out to the Pencil Sharpener Museum in Logan, Ohio — you know
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in case you're on the lookout for a few thousand pencil sharpeners. What is the best Girl Scout cookie, and why is it Samoa's
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Even if you were under the mistaken impression that it's the dreaded Thin Mint, I believe you're still allowed to visit Muscogee, Oklahoma's statue in honor of the first Girl Scout cookie sale
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Fun, slightly war-torn fact. The first sale was actually organized by a teacher to raise money for care packages
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that were sent to soldiers fighting in World War I. Comedy writers refer to putting a hat on a hat when a premise is too overstuffed with ideas to be effective
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In football, it's a simple, if potentially injurious, explanation for effective run blocking
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But at Portland, Oregon's National Hat Museum, putting a hat on the hat is just sound space
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management. When you have more than 2,000 hats in one small location, after all
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some stacking is inevitable. While the museum, which is temporarily closed, is normally a year-round celebration of millinery, you should really keep an eye out for their special
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events. Past highlights listed on the museum's website include the requisite Kentucky Derby Day
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celebration along with less typical hat-centric affairs like the black-clad Mausoleum Edwardian Tea
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When I think of flossy spots in Pennsylvania, the Mütter Museum and historical Eastern State
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Penitentiary come to mind. Seeing as the entire Mental Floss staff has already been to those spots though today I shout out Philadelphia Magic Gardens The brainchild of mosaic artist Isaiah Zagar the Magic Gardens really are magical creating a unique interplay of light and glass
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recontextualizing found objects into a tiny world of beauty and discovery. Rhode Island's Newport Tower also has an interesting interplay with sunlight
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though it may be best observed on winter solstice. On those days, the sunrise shines
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directly through two of the mysterious structure's windows. There are a number of theories to explain the tower's origin, some more fanciful than others
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Could it have been created by Vikings? The Knights Templar? Chinese sailors in the 15th century
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Shipwrecked explorers from Portugal? The most likely explanation isn't quite so exciting
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Experts believe it dates to the 1600s and is just the remnants of a mill
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On Main Street in Columbia, South Carolina, there's a gap between two buildings housing
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respectively, a Brazilian steakhouse and a jeweler. About 15 feet above the ground
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between the buildings hangs the Never Bust Chain, a sculpture created by an American artist
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who goes by the name Blue Sky. The links of the chain are made of real steel, which couldn't have
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been easy to install. So why did Blue Sky go to all the trouble? It's tough to say. When asked
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the artist was cagey, saying only that one building looked like it was leaning a little bit
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The website RoadsideAmerica.com might have put it best, saying that the piece
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signifies something, possibly. If the other items on this list are too basic for you
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Check out South Dakota's International Vinegar Museum. It was founded by Lawrence Diggs, a.k.a. The Vinegar Man, as the museum's website incredibly
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proclaims. The museum is inside of an old gymnasium, because why not, and features an
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international vinegar collection and even vinegar tasting opportunities. Vinegar Man, you're the hero we need and deserve. If you want to complete the Vinegarette Museum Challenge
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which I just invented, you'll also want to make your way over to Tennessee's Salt
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and Pepper Shaker Museum. It's perfect for those fall days when you're admiring the foliage of the
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Great Smoky Mountains National Park, but wish you could also appreciate over 20,000 Salt and Pepper
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Shaker sets. Jokes aside, this family-run attraction is absolutely charming, with sets
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depicting everything from sushi plates to foreign royalty to inexplicably fruit-headed artists
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Texas's Cadillac Ranch in Amarillo is part Americana icon, part interactive project. It was
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installed decades ago in a collaboration between art collective The Ant Farm and multi-industry
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tycoon Stanley Marsh III. It consists of 10 Cadillacs, half-buried in the dirt. Visitors
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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
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just too cool for me to leave off this list. Located on the shore of Utah's Great Salt
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Lake, it's considered an earthwork, a work of art consisting of a portion of land modified
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by an artist, as Merriam-Webster.com describes it. Smithson used thousands of tons of rocks to
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create the piece. If Smithson's work puts the natural world in a new context, we might say that
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Vermont's Museum of Everyday Life extends our understanding of what the natural world is
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By centering simple, often man-made objects like the safety pin, toothbrush, and even dust
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the museum invites us to reconsider the things all around us. It's all kind of like the third
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act of Thornton Wilder's Our Town, putting everyday life center stage in order to better
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appreciate its beauty. On the theme of Our Town Act 3, which is somehow where we find ourselves
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let's go to the cemetery. The Hollywood Cemetery does not, as you might imagine
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belong roughly 40 states earlier on this list. It's not in California, but in Richmond, Virginia
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U.S. Commanders-in-Chief James Monroe and John Tyler are both buried there. So is Jefferson Davis
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the first and only president of the Confederacy. And so is a vampire, allegedly
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William Wortham Pool, whose tomb is found at Hollywood Cemetery, is widely discussed as a possible member of the undead and local legends
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Sure, those stories may have been propagated by college students fueled by chemical sensory enhancement and adrenaline, as Richmond Magazine said
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but it hasn't stopped spooky-minded visitors from checking out the tomb for years
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If you haven't seen James Turrell's work, I highly recommend checking it out
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Whether he's creating one-of-a-kind light installations on the ceiling of the Guggenheim
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or working on his still-uncompleted Roden Crater in Arizona's Painted Desert, Trail's work plays with light and space in ways that will change your perspective
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And if you find yourself at the Henry Art Gallery on the campus of the University of Washington
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don't miss the chance to see his piece Light Rain. The outside glows in a range of colors like the world's coolest LED lamp
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Once inside, you'll notice that the roof has been cut open, inviting visitors to look up into the uninterrupted sky
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West Virginia's Archive of the Afterlife invites you to look in another direction
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towards, or is that beyond, death. You can find haunted artifacts, items used for embalming
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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 recontextualize
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the wonder of nature or make you see with fresh eyes the humble beauty of quotidian life
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But it is chock full of dolls whose heads are connected to springs, and that's not nothing
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Wyoming's Yellowstone National Park is hardly quirky, but it has a unique attraction in several
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very pretty thermal pools that get their color in part from the heat-loving bacteria that
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live in them. The enzyme tach-polymerase, found in one type of those bacteria, also help lead to a scientific
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breakthrough you may have experience with. PCR tests, like the kind often used to detect COVID-19, were developed in part by Nobel
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Prize winner Carrie B. Mullis. That type of diagnostic often employs a technique called thermal cycling, a series of heating
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and cooling cycles that enables DNA replication. If you think about it, the varying temperatures of the thermal waters creates a natural version
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of this temperature cycling. Today, the TAC enzyme can be made in a lab, but we might not have developed PCR testing
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technology without discovering the naturally occurring bacteria. Obligatory Non-State Items 1. Washington, DC's National Banzai and Penjing Museum, which is free to visit and features
26:30
a variety of beautiful trees in a tranquil setting. If you're not familiar with the word penjing, by the way, it's basically the Chinese cousin
26:36
of bonsai, with a subtle distinction. As practitioner Robert Stephen described it
26:41
penjing is more about artistic nuance in portraying natural phenomena, and bonsai is more disciplined
26:47
in technical skill with the objective of suggesting the physical perfection of an old tree
26:52
Let's end with one place you definitely should not visit. Anyone found on Desicheo Island
26:57
part of the Puerto Rican archipelago is subject to a rest on site. That's because the island still
27:02
may have unexploded weapons on it from mid-20th century military testing. To all our viewers from
27:07
American Samoa, Guam, and the northern Mariana Islands, we'll get to you next time, I promise
27:13
Thanks for joining us on this wacky road trip through America. If you've been to any of the
27:18
spots we've mentioned, please give us your detailed reviews in the comments below
27:22
Thanks for watching, and we'll see you next time

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