Our cup runneth over: Lexington, Kentucky's Dixie Cup water tower

I love looking at water towers while driving around the country. They come in all shapes, sizes and styles and every one is a gem, especially the ones that proudly announce the name of their community in big letters for all to see or ones that have a bit of whimsy painted on them. A particularly awesome tower is in Lexington, Kentucky, a town with a few other great eccentric roadside attractions (see previous posts). On the property of the Georgia-Pacific plant is a water tower in the shape of a giant Dixie cup. In 1958, the Dixie Cup Company decided to have their tower function as a giant beacon of corporate branding and the cup water tower was erected. I've read that the current owners, Georgia-Pacific, wanted to take the tower down but the city wouldn't let them because the tower serves as a navigation device for the nearby airport. I'd love to hear a tape of the air traffic control booth in this area: "Roger, niner, you're cleared for landing. Bring her in just past the Dixie cup." If Georgia-Pacific was upset about this you wouldn't know it because they do a nice job of maintaining the tower and it really does look like a Dixie cup. Corporate America should be commended for maintaining classic roadside attractions like these, and I ain't just whistling Dixie.

Mortar-fied: Bondurant's Pharmacy of Lexington, Kentucky

Lexington, Kentucky has a lot of pretty horse country with beautiful green fields and white fences. If you're a horse, this is where you want to be. Lexington also has a really great eccentric roadside attraction: a pharmacy in the shape of a giant mortar and pestle. Bondurant's Pharmacy sits in a shopping plaza parking lot and is an oasis from the boring box stores that dot so much of the landscape. It's 30 feet tall and 32 feet in diameter, and the pestle protrudes another 10 feet. Here's what the Bondurant's website has to say about it:

The giant round building with the ball on the top has been helping the residents of Lexington feel better since 1974. Nowadays, Eric Brewer owns and manages Bondurant’s which got its name from Joe Bondurant, a man who loved big ideas. After a trip to Las Vegas, Mr. Bondurant – already a pharmacist – decided to make his dream come true, a pharmacy shaped like a mortar and pestle. Eric and his family also have an earlier role in Bondurant’s history. “My dad built the model of this place using an old Kentucky Fried Chicken bucket.”

The parking lot behind the structure has a few eccentric relics: a drive-in theater-like speaker system where customers would park their cars. The pharmacist would announce when the customers' prescriptions were ready over the intercom. Customers would then come to the pick up window for their drugs. This is curious, since the store also has drive-up windows. Did the speaker system precede the drive-up? Or could you do both? And did they show coming attractions while you were waiting for your Erythromiacin? They stopped using the speaker system in 2000 as the decaying paint job will attest and this just adds to the glorious yesteryear look and feel of the place.

This is an admirable roadside structure, especially since it's from the '70s and not the '30s, the hey-day for buildings shaped like big things. Even the backyard speaker system was behind the times when they built it, as drive-in theaters were already beginning to fade by then. And my favorite feature about this place is the fact that there is a 2nd-floor apartment for the pharmacist, although it's never been used for that. What pharmacist wouldn't want to live in a giant mortar and pestle?