Downtown Chester, West Virginia
If coffee is more your cup of tea, there's always The Coffee Pot of Bedford, Pennsylvania
I like states with panhandles. They're kinda kooky. Florida has so much
coastline...did they really have to rob more of the Gulf from poor
Alabama? And couldn't Oklahoma and Texas have reached some geometric
agreement and squared each other off? The goofiest panhandle of all is
West Virginia's, though. It's a tall spindly thing that begs the
question "What kind of cooking implement has a crazy handle like this?"
It's almost as though West Virginia said to eastern Ohio and western
Pennsylvania, "if you two can't get along, I'll separate you, so help
me." At the very tip of the West Virginia handle sits the little town
of Chester and a truly great eccentric roadside attraction: a wooden
structure that bills itself as the World's Largest Teapot.
It dates back to 1938 when it was originally an over-sized barrel for a
Hire's Root Beer advertising campaign. A fellow named William "Babe"
Devon bought it and added the spout and handle to it and used it to
promote his pottery store in Chester, selling concessions and souvenirs
inside the teapot. It changed hands many times and fell into disrepair
and abandonment until a local committee saved it from demolition and
began a full-blown restoration in 1987. Red tape persisted for several
more years until it was finally completed and returned to its original
splendor in 1990 and was moved to a prime spot of real estate at the
intersection of Routes 2 and 30 with some lovely landscaping. It got
another facelift in 2007 by the Hampton Hotels Save-A-Landmark
program. God bless these people for keeping these bits of Americana
alive and making a trip down the open road that much more fun. Letting a
lovable place like this fade away would be a trageTEA.
