Episode 62: Weird Roadside Attractions with Valerie Bromann

Angie Orth:

There is nothing more quintessentially American than a good old road trip. Cruising down the highway with family or friends is one of the best ways to really see this expansive country, but every traveler knows that it's not just about the destination. Sometimes the journey itself is just as exciting, especially when you find unexpected surprises along the way. If your curiosity has ever been peaked by a billboard telling you to exit now to see something big, strange, beautiful, or bizarre, then you're going to love what this episode has in store. My guest today is Valerie Bromann, an expert in the weird and wacky world of roadside attractions.

Valerie, welcome to the show.

Valerie Bromann:

Thank you for having me.

Angie:

When did your passion for road-tripping begin?

Valerie:

I did grow up in a town right outside of Chicago that is known for its zoo, so everything in town was vaguely animal-related, so I grew up around this quirkiness and there were a couple of big roadside attractions around that we would pass by a lot. I really loved seeing those, so I told myself when I was a kid, “When I'm an adult I'm going to get a car, I'm going to drive around, I'm going to find all the best roadside attractions in America, and I'm going to go and see the world and see all these things.” For my first big road trip, I gathered up some friends and we took a 3-day road trip just around Illinois to see some things like the world's largest Abraham Lincoln statue, 2-story outhouses, there's a Popeye park out there. I really didn't start traveling until a little later in life, but my passion for it started when I was really young.

Angie:

What were some of those ones you remember from being a kid? What were the ones that drew this passion out in you?

Valerie:

There was one big one in Berwyn, Illinois called The Spindle, and it was this big spike with all these old cars stacked up on top of it and it became famous for being in the movie Wayne's World. A lot of people knew this roadside attraction and for me, it was just something we passed by all the time. It was in a parking lot of a shopping center near us, so whenever we'd go to the mall, we'd see this roadside attraction. To me, that one was really the one that sparked me seeing things like this, seeing these weird things, and wanting to know what else was out there.

Angie:

Tell us a little bit about the history of roadside attractions in general. When did this phenomenon start in the U.S.?

Valerie:

There's one roadside attraction that people think of as being the first roadside attraction in America, and that one is called Lucy the Elephant in Margate, New Jersey. That one was built in 1881 by a real estate person because he wanted to build something big and weird that people would take notice of to advertise his real estate services. Roadside attractions then kind of became popular between the 1920s and the 1970s when car and road travel really started becoming more and more popular. People started building these roadside attractions to catch people's eye, to bring them in because people were just driving by and they needed a reason to distinguish one gas station from another gas station, and so they wanted to catch people's eye and bring them off the road.

Angie:

That's creativity we don't really see anymore.

Valerie:

Yeah, it was really just a great way for businesses to advertise in a world before TV ads and Instagram.

Angie:

The 100-year anniversary of Route 66 is coming up in 2026, which is very exciting. How much of this roadside attraction culture is built up around Route 66?

Valerie:

I think of any road trip in America and Route 66 is probably the most well-known, the one that people add to their bucket list, what they really want to travel, and it has a lot of really great Americana. There are really cool vintage service stations, fun neon signs, muffler men, just a lot of different things that people can pull over to see, and a lot of them are still there today.

Angie:

I think since the anniversary is coming up, that seems like a very good excuse to go do it, right?

Valerie:

Oh yeah, definitely. A lot of the towns across Route 66 are really putting the effort into rebuilding some of the older things that may have fallen into disrepair and also bringing in new things to try to catch people's eye, so it's a really exciting time to be traveling on Route 66.

Angie:

If any of our listeners want to do a Route 66 itinerary, AAA has a breakdown of the best roadside hotspots, and we’ll link to that in the show notes.

What do you think are the top 3 roadside attractions in America?

Valerie:

I think number one, we have to go back to Lucy the Elephant because she was just the first one that helped start it all. At one time, it looked like she may be her last elephant legs, but the community really came together, did fundraising, and now it's a really great historic attraction.

Number two, I think we're going to go with the world's largest ball of twine just because I think that when people stereotypically say “roadside attraction,” I think everybody says the world's largest ball of twine.

Angie:

Yeah, that sounds right.

Valerie:

There's one in Cocker City, Kansas that was built in 1953 and now I think it's over 40 feet upward of twine, so that's a really cool stop.

For number three, I think one of the big things about roadside attractions is the battle for who has the world's largest. There are things like 3 different forks across Missouri, Colorado, and Oregon that all say they're the world's largest fork.

I think my favorite roadside attraction battle is the battle for the world's largest rocking chair. It started in a place in Indiana, and then in 2008, a place in Cuba, Missouri built a giant rocking chair on Route 66 that was about 42 feet tall. Then in 2015, there was a new world's largest rocking chair built in Casey, Illinois that stands at 56 feet tall. It’s not only the biggest rocking chair, it's one of the biggest roadside attractions I've seen. It is really huge.

Angie:

So, that's the biggest one so far. Here's my question, can you sit in the rocking chairs? Is there a ladder you can climb up or is that extremely dangerous? That sounds like it might be dangerous.

Valerie:

In order to get a Guinness World record for any of these, they actually have to be a working rocking chair. So, it actually moves, but they do strap it down and don't have a main ladder because it's dangerous. Sometimes they have things like contests where somebody can win a trip to go up there or things like that. Every once in a while, there is an opportunity for someone to go up there, just not on a regular basis.

Angie:

See, now I need to add that to my bucket list. I want to win the competition to sit on the biggest rocking chair. Why not? Tell me this, how many roadside attractions have you visited?

Valerie:

Probably over a thousand roadside attractions across America.

Angie:

What is the strangest one that you visited?

Valerie:

One of the strangest ones I've seen is called Carhenge in Alliance, Nebraska, and it is a full replica of Stonehenge in England, but made out of cars.

Angie:

That's so random! That's fascinating. OK, what is the most scenic roadside attraction you've seen?

Valerie:

One of my favorite scenic ones is called Salem Sue, and it is the world's largest Holstein cow in North Dakota. For me, this one is scenic because first of all, as you're driving to it, it's this giant cow that's up on top of a little hill, so you can see it from miles away as you're driving. So, not only are you seeing this giant cow, but you can stand under the cow and look out over North Dakota, so it's a very scenic place to visit.

Angie:

You get a cow and a view all at the same time. Is there an attraction that is so great that it deserves an overnight stay?

Valerie:

The world's largest rocking chair is in a little town called Casey, Illinois, which has a motto: Big things in a small town. This town doesn't just have the world's largest rocking chair, they have the world's largest wind chime, the world's largest golf tee, the world's largest wooden shoes, the world's largest mailbox. They have about 12 world record-holding world's largest things. You can walk to the world's largest mailbox, walk across the street and see the world's largest barber pole, and see all of these things in one town. And it's definitely a place you can spend time in, spend the night and check out a bunch of different things.

Angie:

That is genius destination marketing right there. That is so smart.

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Angie:

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What is your favorite origin story about how a particular roadside attraction came to be?

Valerie:

I think my favorite origin story is probably the Blue Whale of Catoosa in Oklahoma, which is a giant blue whale on Route 66. It was built in the early 1970s by a man named Hugh Davis, and he built it as an anniversary present for his wife who loved collecting little whale figurines. So, he built this whole thing just for her and for the family to enjoy, but then it turns out other people started coming and seeing it and they ended up opening it up for everyone to enjoy.

Angie:

That's very sweet and romantic. I would be very surprised if my husband built a giant great white shark—that’s kind of my jam—in the front yard and people came to see it, but romance is different for everybody and that's very sweet.

Tell me some characteristics that make up your perfect roadside attraction.

Valerie:

For me, I appreciate something that is built really big. I love a good “world largest” thing because I think there are some that are really cool, like an old silo that's painted to look like a soda can or something— and those are great—but I love the ones that are actually built from scratch to look like something and really pay attention to the details to try to make it look and function as close to the original thing as possible.

Angie:

Is this all nostalgia or are there newer ones that we can go see? Are people still creating them today?

Valerie:

People are still building them today, especially the muffler men roadside attractions. They were really popular in the ‘60s and ‘70s. Now, there's a man named Mark Cline in Virginia who takes old molds of them and creates new ones for businesses. For example, there's a woman in Tulsa, Oklahoma named Mary Beth Babcock who runs a little Route 66 shop, and a couple of years ago she had commissioned a brand new space cowboy muffler man to stand outside of her business. It's really popular and it brings in a lot of new people, so popular that she's actually building a girlfriend for him that is going up this summer. There are other new muffler men popping up on Route 66, but there's also a new rasberry in Minnesota, fork in Oregon, and in Oklahoma, somebody put up a giant Christmas leg lamp from A Christmas Story, and that one became really popular. There are people who are putting up new ones all over the place today.

Angie:

You don't have to spend a ton of money on advertising, just build something big and weird, and the people will come.

Valerie:

Especially now, in contrast to back when they first started, we have Instagram, we have TikTok, and you see new things. There's a lot more buzz around things that'll bring people in to see that attraction, but then they’ll stay in your town to see and experience more.

Angie:

We've talked about Route 66, which is I would say the numero uno gold standard of nostalgic road trips. But is there another stretch of road in the U.S. where somebody could do a road trip and take in a lot of attractions in one trip?

Valerie:

You can find roadside attractions in every state, in every town, almost anywhere you are. You are probably close to a roadside attraction that you can see. There's the Great River Road that follows the Mississippi River, there's a Pacific Coast Highway through California, the Lincoln Highway across the U.S. So, there are a lot of different road trips that people can take where they can find really cool roadside attractions, and also great restaurants, hotels, and all of that along the way.

Angie:

If you know where to look and you know where to research in advance, you'll probably be able to find this and get involved in roadside attraction… what do we call it? Roadside attraction stalking? It's a very fun hobby. It's a fun hobby, and it becomes a tradition every time you're in the car going somewhere, right?

Valerie:

Right.

Angie:

Is this a uniquely American pastime or do folks in other countries also get really excited about giant forks, cows, and whales?

Valerie:

I think that there are probably more in America than anywhere else, but it's not unique to America. I think every country has some level of roadside attractions, there's even a replica of Carhenge in Thailand, and I really want to go see that someday. I think Canada has a really big culture for this, and Australia has a really big culture for this. I know they have like a giant lobster, a giant mango, and a giant koala, so I think it's a global phenomenon.

Angie:

I'm planning a bunch of road trips this year for my book tour, and so I've been on your website looking up the different routes and some of the offside roads, because that's where all the fun stuff is. Your website is called Silly America. I love that. What do you think this whole roadside attraction culture says about Americans?

Valerie:

When I first named my website, it was probably 2006 and 2007 when I was starting to drive around and look at all these weird, silly, crazy things. But I've definitely learned and seen that beyond that, it's not just something silly and weird that's there for no reason at all. A lot of these places were built to be advertising for a small business that might not have made it if they didn't have that advertising push behind them, or a lot of them are built in a town that wanted to celebrate something they're known for. So, something like a giant strawberry in a town that is a huge strawberry producer. I think roadside attractions reflect what America is, all of these people just trying to get by and trying to pull together to celebrate their accomplishments.

Angie:

Yeah, that's such a sweet way to look at it, it's just small businesses, right? Trying to get out there and and do the thing in the day before corporations and conglomerates and social media and all that, it's really the OG social media.

OK, we have to talk about pies. There's a very specific item on your bucket list, and it is stopping at every sign pointing to the best pies in America. I love this. I love this journey for you. I'm going to adopt this journey for me. Where have you found the best pies?

Valerie:

That was kind of my original childhood bucket list of driving around America, stop at all the roadside attractions, and find all the world's best pies. It was more of an ode to what you see on TV, where people would always pull over like, “Oh, it's the world's best pie. It's the world's best this.” I would say one of the best pies that I have had is in a little cafe at the midpoint of Route 66 that's well known for its pie, and one of my favorite stories is that when I went there the first time, there was a couple at the table next to me and they ordered a slice of every single pie on the menu. They had like 12 slices of pie in front of them and they were sharing them and tasting them all. They took a lot home, but I was like, “That is road-trip couple goals right there,” being able to share every pie on the menu and order that.

Angie:

That's romance right there. That's romantic. By the way, you can find those famous pies at Midpoint Cafe in Adrian, Texas, and we've put a link to that in our show notes so you don't miss that tasty opportunity.

Valerie:

And the pies were definitely delicious. I had the Elvis slice, which was peanut butter, banana, and chocolate. Delicious.

Angie:

That sounds delightful. If our listeners are ready to discover the wacky, the quirky, and the unusual on your next road trip, you can check out Valerie's website, Silly America. I love it so much. We've included a link in the show notes so you can search by state, so you don't miss a single stop on your next road trip.

Thank you so much for being here. This is so informative and I’m ready to get on the road. Valerie Bromann, thank you for joining us, and thank you to our listeners for being with us. If you're planning a trip, be sure to connect with a AAA Travel Advisor, check out AAA.com/Travel, or visit your local branch.

This podcast is a production of Auto Club Enterprises. If you enjoyed it, please subscribe and leave us a review. I'm Angie Orth, thank you for traveling with AAA.