Steeped in eccentriciTEA: The World's Largest Teapot of Chester, West Virginia

We've been posting a lot about Florida lately, so for a change of pace (or paste as I used to say when I was a kid) here's a rerun of a roadside delight from West Virginia we posted a few years ago. An online search indicates they have since refurbished the teapot with a different font, but you get the idea.

 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.

Happy birthday Don Knotts

We're huge fans of the immortal Don Knotts and wanted to give him a shout-out on what would have been his 90th birthday. We had the pleasure of stopping by his hometown of Morgantown, West Virginia a while back. Click here to read all about it.

Home movies: the Sunset Drive-In of Shinnston, West Virginia

We're big fans of drive-in theaters, especially the slightly eccentric ones, and there's a hum-dinger in the northwestern West Virginia town of Shinnston. Not only has the Sunset Drive-In on Highway 19 been owned and run by the same family, the Ellises, since 1955, there's a home built right into the screen. Imagine that...while folks are having a night out watching the latest Judd Apatow opus, eating delicious snack bar hot dogs and snow cones in the comfort of their roadsters and coupes, someone is inside the screen watching "The Voice", eating a baloney sandwich, paying the gas bill or soaking their feet. It's a colossal structure perched just inches away from the highway, three stories tall with festively-awninged windows and a mailbox out front. The Sunset Ellis restaurant, open year round, is also on the property offering, among its many fine choices, broasted chicken and an all-you-can-eat pasta special for $5.99 on Wednesdays. It's always a delight to encounter a retro-tastic place such as this. With so many drive-ins abandoned or worse, it's a thrill to see a living breathing one still operating as if Eisenhower were president.

A miner miracle: Shinnston, West Virginia's Charlie the Miner statue

 Here he is in front of the eccentric-mobile for a little scale

Coal mining is a big deal in West Virginia and in the town of Shinnston, they've got just the statue to prove it. Charlie, as he is known, stands a proud 21 feet tall with his blue overalls, functioning lantern helmet and lunch bucket at the ready in front of the Repair King. He was commissioned in 1999 by a Mr. Phil Southern as a tribute to his father who was killed in a coal mine in 1951 (thanks Debra Jane Seltzer). He's really awesome, in all of his rusted scrap metal glory, standing watch in front of his corrugated metal home and belching towers behind him. He's worth his weight in coal.

Odds and ends

We got a really great (and somewhat disturbing) comment from Lisa Leavitt, a former resident of Odd, West Virginia, a place we posted about a little while ago. It reads like the basis for a novel or some soon-to-be-made series for HBO. Thanks for sharing, Lisa!

I lived in Odd, WV from the 6th grade through graduation, looking at your pictures I realize the little "town" has grown. There was a little country store with a coal stove and a teeny little post office when I lived there. There were hollers I remember driving to a little Baptist church where there was a family (I won't mention the name) that had long been an incestual family - I remember one of the brothers chasing our car down the dirt road with an axe. It was beautiful there - our nearest neighbor I could only see in the winter when the smoke from their chimney raised over the mountain. I got my first and only taste of moonshine standing waiting for the bus at 6:30 a.m. to take me to Stoco Jr. High and a boy named JimJim let me drink from what I thought was his "7-Up" can, to take some aspirin for a headache - needless to say, after that drink, I didn't think of my headache, too busy trying to catch my breath. Thank you for posting the new "modern" Odd, WV pictures.

Ask Knotts what your country can do for you: Scenes from Don Knotts' hometown

Everyone's favorite inept small town deputy Barney Fife, immortalized by Morgantown, West Virginia's Don Knotts

 "You could say there are three reasons why there's so little crime in Mayberry. There's Andy, there's me, and baby makes three."

 Barney Fife, master of disguise...

 ...scholar...

 ...ladies' man.

 Don started his show biz career as a ventriloquist...

 ...and went on to star in movies...

 ...and as Mr. Furley.

 Morgantown honored Don with Don Knotts Boulevard.

 Morgantown High, Don's alma mater.

 Morgantown also honored Don with a star on the sidewalk in front of the Metropolitan Theatre.

As a comic actor, everything about Don Knotts was funny. Funny bulging eyes, funny gaunt face, funny fish lips, funny high-pitched voice, funny trembling hands, funny sunken chest. It was Knotts' great fortune to luck into the role he was meant to play, inept small-town deputy Barney Fife opposite his real-life friend Andy Griffith on "The Andy Griffith Show." Taking advantage of Knotts' characteristics, the show's writers (including Griffith and Knotts) molded Barney into someone with too much pride, too little smarts, too much emotion, too much bravado and yet, and this was Knotts' genius as an actor, someone you didn't want to see get hurt. Even though Barney is a fool and drives Andy crazy, Andy goes to great extremes to make sure Barney's pride doesn't get shattered because, deep down, Barney is a good guy and a good friend.

Knotts grew up in Morgantown, West Virginia and went to Morgantown High School. He had dreams of a show business career after high school and went to New York City with a ventriloquism act that wasn't successful, so he returned to Morgantown and went to West Virginia University. After college and a stint in the Army, Don's career began to take off and his appearance with Griffith in the movie "No Time For Sergeants" led to his signature part of Barney years later. After "The Andy Griffith Show," Don starred in movies and as one more memorable TV character, Mr. Furley, the leisure suit and toupee-wearing landlord on "Three's Company." He also appeared several times on his old friend Andy's "Matlock" series.

They're proud of Don in Morgantown and have honored him with a few tributes. Busy route 119 in and out of town was renamed Don Knotts Boulevard, and the sidewalk in front of the Metropolitan Theatre, where Don has performed, has a star, Hollywood Walk Of Fame style, with his name and likeness on it. In 2007, it was announced the Knotts family had given permission for a statue of Don to be erected in Morgantown and put up in a new garden park to be designed in a prominent location in town. As recently as this year, fundraising efforts for this project were still in the works. We sure hope this comes to light because, according to his daughter, Don liked his hometown very much and he went on to have such a great career.

And to those who say I'm making too big a deal of Don Knotts, I'd like to say "Nip it! Nip it in the bud!"

Outstanding in their field: The Farnham Colossi of Unger, West Virginia

Left to right: Brian the beach dude, the Uniroyal Gal, George Farnham, the Midas Muffler Man, and Big John

 The Mount Rushmore of Roadside giants

Doh!  The Farnhams have a complete kiddie roller coaster track, complete with the Simpsons. 

The greater metroploitan Unger area, what the Colossi are so intently staring out at.

If ever there was a place that should be included on an eccentric roadside attraction fan's bucket list, the Farnham Colossi of Unger, West Virginia would certainly place very high. There, you'll find countless (well, I suppose you could count them) Muffler Man-type statues keeping watch over numerous other, more diminutive roadside whimsical characters that roam the property of George and Pam Farnham, collectors par excellence of eccentric over-sized roadabilia. Their collection began with one Muffler Man bought on e-bay, and, well, you know how it is when you have a hobby...sometimes you just can't help yourself. So now their yard in zoning-free rural West Virginny is a paradise of roadside giants. It's not the easiest place to get to and not exactly on the way to anywhere ("Honey, I'm going to the Colossi...you need anything?"), but that makes it all the more meaningful when you arrive. Buddhists have Bodh Gaya, Muslims have Mecca, and we roadside kooks have Unger. This is private property, though, so it was with great caution and respect that I tiptoed around the driveway upon arrival. Luckily for me, George came out and we chatted for a few minutes and he gave me the all-clear to explore the yard. I asked if there was a Holy Grail of highway titans he was seeking and he said he already had it. An ultra-rare Uniroyal Gal was acquired with help from the roadside gurus at Roadsideamerica.com, and George says he spent "way too much" restoring it with automobile fiberglass paint that is "guaranteed to last until the day you die".  And she is stunning, let me tell you. The definitive story of the Farnhams is here on the indispensible Roadsideamerica.com. 

Here's to the Farnhams and Roadsideamerica.com for flying that freak roadside attraction flag high and proud and getting us to boldly go where no eccentric roadside attraction fan has gone before. Let's give them all a great big hand.