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| Roadside America |
SITE OF THE WEEK
The Old Man of the Mountains is still gone, and with it one of America’s most lovable roadside attractions. There are tons more strange roadside sites, but we’ll get to them in a minute. First, let’s give the Old Stone Face its due.
VISIT Roadside America web site
Since it was first spotted in 1805 by surveyors preparing to blast a road through Franconia Notch, the Great Stone Face carved a special place in the hearts of tourists. Why? Because the rock looked like a person.
Sculpted by Nature millions of years ago, the Old Stone Face came to represent, not only the Granite State, but something deeper. It was a symbol, for 19th century writers, at least, that God had been thinking about crafting human beings for a long time. The rock formation came to represent a "rough draft" for the human form. But it was bigger still since the Old Man arrived before us and was supposed to outlive the human race – so the poets said.
Novelist Nathaniel Hawthorne suggested that Nature created the Old Man in a mood of "majestic playfulness". New Hampshire’s own Mary Baker Eddy, founder of the Christian Science religion, addressed the Old Man in a poem as "Gigantic sire, unfallen still".
A poet writing in Godey’s Ladys Book, a popular periodical after the Civil War, penned these adoring lines:
How long will thy dark eye this glorious scene survey?
When will thy watching cease -- thy visage pass away?
The answer to the poet’s question was -- May 2003. That’s when the Old Man suddenly bit the dust. It was, after all, an optical illusion. Visitors had to stand in just the right spot in order to see the famous profile. The Old Man was actually five ledges made from Conway granite that overlapped to form what appeared to be a 40-foot tall human face balanced 1,200 feet above Profile Lake. It was a great show while it lasted.
THE WEB SITE MAKERS
We’ll always have Mount Rushmore, but it’s not the same. Those are big heads
of men carved by little men. We can take heart that New Hampshire still has natural
wonders. My favorite travel web site, Roadside America, reminds us that the Granite
State can claim the fantastical formations of Polar Caves in Plymouth, home of
"the World’s Largest Known Boulder". And don’t forget America’s Stonehenge, formerly
Mystery Hill Caves in North Salem. We have Ruggles Mine in Jackson, plus the famous
Flume and Basin in Franconia Notch. They’re cool.
If you’re feeling blue about the Old Man, maybe you need a road trip. This incredible
web site lists 2,000 roadside attractions, Most are man-made, a great many are
hopelessly tacky, but all are worth pulling over the SUV for a quick look.
Did you know, for example, that there is a profile of George Washington on a rock in Jackson, NH? Have you seen the Indian Head profile on Mt. Pemmaqawisset, not far from the former Old Man? There’s another George Washington profile near Bald Head Cliff in Ogunquit, Maine.
It gets weirder. I searched Roadside America for more anthropomorphic formations and found four. There’s "Stone Face Rock" in Pennington Gap, Virginia and an earthwork shaped like Amelia Earhart in Atchison, Kansas. I have personally seen the recently named "Snoopy Rock" from a tour bus window in Wikiup, Arizona and it looks surprisingly like the famous cartoon dog. I have not seen the "Barbara Streisand Rock" in Wisconsin Dells or the self-explanatory "Phallic Rock" at Kalaupapa Lookout, Hawaii. They’re all just more of Mother Nature’s majestic playfulness.
The web site has won hoards of awards and rates among the Top 100 best uses of the Internet I’ve seen. In this case the book came first. "Roadside America" appeared as a guidebook in 1986 by Doug Kirby, Ken Smith and Mike Wilkins. A second version appeared in 1992 providing the framework for a web site by the same team working out of Middletown, NJ. While NH’s Old Man has long been listed, the attractions here tend toward the weird. There are a lot of freaky one-man theme museums and super large human figures. The pet cemetery section documents the resting places of such famed animals as Flipper the TV-dolphin, Rin Tin Tin, Ham the Space Chimp, Nixon’s dog Checkers, Roy Rodger’s Trigger and Jumbo the elephant.
The site is highly graphic and easy to follow and the search engine works great. Using the "Electric Map" surfers can select attractions by state. Many have full page coverage with loads of photos. The "Vortex" thematic index is a little less satisfying. There are tons of features, places for readers to send in listings and editorial rants. The Tourism News section included an update on the demise of the Old Man.
We learn, very quickly, that America is a weird place. If you’ve seen Carhenge in Alliance, Nebraska, you know what I mean. Locals there built a copy of England’s prehistoric Stonehenge, but using old cars painted gray. It’s now a big attraction.
THE UP SHOT
Showing, my writing teacher always told me, is better than telling. So rather than try to explain this site, here are a few starting points I found there. Turn on your computer and begin.
- The World's Largest Sycamore Stump is 57 feet in circumference and 12 feet high. Once a massive Sycamore tree, it was nearly 800 years old before storms broke it down. In Kokomo, IN
- The Death Rock of Alexander Hamilton in Weehawken, NJ is made from the stone he fell upon in the famous duel with Aaron Burr.
- The Toilet seat museum in San Antonio, TX includes 660 seats painted by Smiler Greg Brown
- Ahlgrim’s Funeral Parlor in Palatine, IL includes a nine hole mini-golf course in the basement with ghoulish effects.
- The World’s Tallest Carved Indian is made of wood in Skowhegan, ME
- America’s Tiniest Churches and Largest Statues of Christ are all over the USA.
- The Largest Rotating Globe Model is 42-foot in diameter located in an office building in Yarmouth, ME and is dubbed "The World’s Largest World".
- The portrait of a former slave is etched in a pane of glass reportedly caused by a bold of lightning in Carollian, AL.
- The Zippo cigarette lighter museum is in Bradford, PA.
- The Birthplace of Walmart, the original store has been turned into a visitor’s center in Bentonville, Arkansas
- Donut Shops are shaped like giant donuts in Inglewood, Los Angeles, and La Puente, CA
- Coffins shaped like fish, airplanes, cars, outboard motors and more are on display at the National Museum of Funeral History in Houston, TX
- A replica of the Eiffel Tower in Paris, TX wears a giant cowboy hat
- The Forbidden Garden is a $20 million replica of famous Chinese locations in Katy, TX
- A replica of the Holy Land theme park is in Orlando, FL
- Thirteen Native American skeletons are visible through a plexiglass floor at an art gallery in Biloxi, MI
- The largest ball of twine rolled by one man is in a park in Darwin, MN weighing 17,400 pounds
- Various politically incorrect Hitler items are displayed at separate sites all over the US including his 1935 Rolls Royce, typewriter, walking stick, desk keys and stamp collection
- The famous Fee Jee Mermaid (aka Merman) is a fake related to that shown by PT Barnum and now on display at the Arkansas Alligator Farm in Hot Springs, AR
- The Mitter Museum in Philadelphia, PA tops all bizarre roadside attractions with the liver of Siamese twins, the brains of murderers, 2,000 objects swallowed and removed, giant and midget skeletons, a giant colon, the tumor of Grover Cleveland and the thorax of John Wilkes Booth.