Everything OddWay knows about. Narrow it down by what you're after, or where you're going.
Giant objects, odd monuments and things built for no clear reason.
Deer Isle, ME
Behind a jam and jelly business is an sprawling handmade village of sculptures, buildings, figures, vehicles, creatures, and found-object scenes known as Nellieville. The dense folk-art environment is strange enough to be a destination on its own.
Neskowin, OR
Ancient Sitka spruce stumps emerge from the surf and sand at low tide, remnants of a forest buried after a major coastal earthquake centuries ago.
Fackler, AL
Neversink is a spectacular open-air pit cave known for waterfalls, moss-covered walls and a deep vertical drop. It is a protected SCCi preserve requiring a permit, and entering the pit is technical vertical caving—not a casual hike.
Leverett, MA
A gleaming white Buddhist peace pagoda rises from rural western Massachusetts, one of the first structures of its kind built in the United States. The grounds include shrines, gardens and spaces intended for quiet reflection.
New Orleans, LA
This compact Bourbon Street courtyard contains bronze statues honoring New Orleans musicians such as Fats Domino, Pete Fountain and Al Hirt. It is an easy public stop that turns local music history into a small sculpture garden.
New Ulm, MN
A freestanding downtown clock tower contains bells and animated figures that perform scheduled scenes tied to New Ulm's German heritage. The mechanism turns a public plaza into a miniature automaton theater several times a day.
Harmony, MN
Guided tours descend into a limestone cave containing narrow passages, fossils, formations and an underground waterfall. The vertical route gives southern Minnesota a substantial subterranean stop far removed from the flat farmland above.
Wendell, ID
Large spring pours from the Snake River Canyon wall in another unit of Thousand Springs State Park. The canyon road is steep; follow park access and vehicle guidance.
Hollandale, WI
Immigrant farmer Nick Engelbert surrounded his home with colorful concrete sculptures depicting animals, people, fairy tales and family memories. The restored site preserves both the sculpture garden and the painted house.
South Pittsburg, TN
Nickajack Cave was partly flooded by reservoir construction and now shelters major bat colonies. Visitors can observe the cave area from approved water or shoreline locations, especially during seasonal bat emergence; entering the cave or disturbing wildlife is not appropriate.
New Orleans, LA
Actor Nicolas Cage purchased cemetery plots and built a stark nine-foot pyramid mausoleum marked with the Latin phrase 'Omnia Ab Uno.' It is inside St. Louis Cemetery No. 1 and can only be seen through lawful cemetery access.
Rugby, ND
This freestanding tower holds a collection of bells gathered from schools, churches and other local institutions. The stacked bells turn community history into a vertical outdoor sound-and-metal monument.
Austin, TX
A giant stylized bat sculpture at the Congress Avenue bridge honors the enormous Mexican free-tailed bat colony that emerges from beneath the bridge.
Homestead, FL
Exceptionally preserved Cold War Nike Hercules missile base hidden inside Everglades National Park.
Washington, DC
A clone descended from a clone of Isaac Newton's famous apple tree grows on the former National Bureau of Standards campus.
Grace, ID
A publicly known lava tube where cold air can preserve ice into warm months. Conditions are rough and natural; visit only when legal and safe, with appropriate lighting and footwear, and never enter during closures.
Blackwood, NJ
A towering fiberglass woman stands outside Werbany Tire Town, adapted from the classic Uniroyal Gal advertising figures once placed outside tire stores around the country. This surviving example has been repainted as 'Nitro Girl' and remains visible from the Black Horse Pike.
Joshua Tree, CA
Large assemblages made from televisions, toilets, bicycles and other discarded materials fill the desert site where artist Noah Purifoy worked for fifteen years.
Nome, AK
Nome’s giant metal gold pan is roughly 20 feet across and stands with the Three Lucky Swedes statues as a tribute to the 1898 gold discovery that launched the Nome Gold Rush. The exact installation year is not well documented in current sources; today it is a free outdoor photo stop at Bering Street and Seppala Road, and Visit Nome describes it as the largest metal gold pan in the United States.
Providence, RI
A gigantic green dragon appears to crawl over the roof of the Providence Children's Museum, with its head and tail visible on opposite sides of the building. The sculpture survived an earlier home before being adopted by the museum and later received the name Nori through a children's contest. Museum admission is required for the full visit, though portions of the dragon can be seen from outside.
Oquawka, IL
A large stone monument marks the 1972 death of Norma Jean, a circus elephant killed by lightning while tethered in town.
Bristol, CT
A roughly 383-foot elevator research tower rises over Bristol like a windowless skyscraper. Built for testing high-speed elevator systems, it is not a public attraction inside, but its strange scale makes it visible from public roads around the facility.
Spencer, NC
A former Southern Railway repair complex now holds locomotives, railcars, automobiles, aircraft, and other transportation artifacts. Its enormous surviving roundhouse and working turntable make the industrial site as interesting as the collection.
Arco, ID
Short NPS trail across young-looking basalt, pressure ridges and lava textures near the monument entrance. Access can be affected by snow and seasonal loop-road operations.
