Roadside oddities40.6512° N, 88.7795° W
Lexington, IL
A preserved stretch of original Route 66 is lined with vintage billboards, Burma-Shave signs, and period roadside displays.
- Access
- Open to visitors
Roadside oddities
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Roadside oddities2,517
Suggest a stopGiant objects, odd monuments and things built for no clear reason.
- Roadside oddities35.1715° N, 103.7429° W
Tucumcari, NM
Tom Coffin's sculptural Route 66 monument uses the rear half of a classic car rising from a stylized roadway. It sits outside the convention center and functions as one of Tucumcari's easiest roadside photo stops.
- Access
- Open to visitors
- Roadside oddities34.9050° N, 117.0251° W
Barstow, CA
Inside Barstow's historic Harvey House, exhibits cover Route 66 travel through signs, photographs, vehicles and roadside-business memorabilia.
- Access
- Seasonal or ticketed
- Roadside oddities37.8212° N, 92.1479° W
St. Robert, MO
A collection of restored and recreated neon signs preserves the look of businesses that once lined Missouri's stretch of Route 66. The outdoor display is especially effective after dark and gives travelers a concentrated dose of Mother Road visual history.
- Access
- Open to visitors
- Roadside oddities38.0374° N, 91.4696° W
Fanning, MO
This 42-foot steel chair was erected at Fanning on April 1, 2008 and once held the Guinness title for the world’s largest rocking chair. Casey, Illinois later surpassed it, and it was repainted red and renamed the Route 66 Rocker; travelers still find it beside old Route 66 west of Cuba as a free roadside landmark.
- Access
- Roadside, no entry
- Roadside oddities36.1607° N, 95.8688° W
Tulsa, OK
A huge stylized Route 66 shield rises beside the historic highway as a modern eastern gateway landmark. Its scale makes it function more like public sculpture than an ordinary road sign.
- Access
- Roadside, no entry
- Roadside oddities35.5263° N, 98.7093° W
Weatherford, OK
A retro-futuristic spaceman figure stands along Route 66 in Weatherford, fitting the town's connection to astronaut Thomas Stafford. The sculpture turns spaceflight imagery into a classic roadside photo stop.
- Access
- Roadside, no entry
- Roadside oddities38.5057° N, 90.5909° W
Eureka, MO
The park occupies land once belonging to Times Beach, a Route 66 community evacuated after dioxin contamination and later demolished. Its visitor center interprets both the Mother Road and the extraordinary environmental history of the vanished town, while park trails cross portions of the former street grid.
- Access
- Open to visitors
- Roadside oddities35.0434° N, 109.7981° W
Petrified Forest National Park, AZ
A rusting 1932 Studebaker marks where historic Route 66 once crossed what is now Petrified Forest National Park. Utility poles fading into the desert make the abandoned road alignment visible even after the pavement disappeared.
- Access
- Open to visitors
- Roadside oddities35.7490° N, 96.6617° W
Stroud, OK
Old hand tools have been assembled into a tree-like metal sculpture outside a Route 66 hardware store. The object turns discarded work implements into a deliberately odd piece of roadside folk art.
- Access
- Roadside, no entry
- Roadside oddities34.5587° N, 115.7436° W
Amboy, CA
The Googie sign and preserved roadside complex in near-empty Amboy are among the most recognizable surviving visual icons of California Route 66.
- Access
- Roadside, no entry
- Roadside oddities44.9185° N, 73.1250° W
Swanton, VT
Swans have been kept in the village park since the early 1960s, when the community's original pair arrived through an arrangement associated with Queen Elizabeth II. Today's birds are successors rather than the original royal pair, but the unusual local tradition continues.
- Access
- Open to visitors
- Roadside oddities34.1376° N, 117.8658° W
Glendora, CA
Michael Rubel and friends spent decades building a massive folk-art castle from stone, recycled materials and found objects around an old citrus packing house.
- Access
- Seasonal or ticketed
- Roadside oddities35.0191° N, 85.3394° W
Chattanooga, TN
An elevator and guided cave route lead deep inside Lookout Mountain to a tall underground waterfall discovered during twentieth-century cave exploration. The combination of subterranean passages, unusual geology and the hidden waterfall makes Ruby Falls a classic Tennessee oddity.
- Access
- Seasonal or ticketed
- Roadside oddities44.4991° N, 89.8006° W
Rudolph, WI
Hand-built stone shrines, winding paths and religious tableaux spread through several acres beside St. Philip Church. Local rock, shells and decorative masonry turn the grounds into one of Wisconsin's major Catholic folk-art environments.
- Access
- Open to visitors
- Roadside oddities43.8742° N, 103.3320° W
Keystone, SD
The cave beneath Rush Mountain contains twisting passages and rooms decorated with flowstone and other formations. Guided access makes the underground geology itself the OddWay draw, separate from the amusement attractions developed above ground.
- Access
- Seasonal or ticketed
- Roadside oddities38.7012° N, 90.1673° W
Granite City, IL
Installed in 2025, this 20-foot hard-hat-wearing giant holds a sledgehammer as a tribute to Granite City's steelworkers and industrial laborers.
- Access
- Open to visitors
- Roadside oddities47.5158° N, 100.8915° W
Turtle Lake, ND
Turtle Lake's namesake roadside mascot is a two-ton turtle positioned on the south side of town. It is part of North Dakota's unusual concentration of giant turtle monuments.
- Access
- Open to visitors
- Roadside oddities36.9760° N, 114.9816° W
Alamo, NV
A homemade desert 'henge' assembled from upright concrete forms turns an otherwise empty roadside into an eccentric Nevada photo stop.
- Access
- Roadside, no entry
- Roadside oddities43.0407° N, 87.9112° W
Milwaukee, WI
This spy-themed restaurant hides behind a deliberately secretive entrance and fills its interior with espionage props, passages, gadgets and Cold War-style jokes. Guests without the password may have to prove themselves before entering, making dinner part attraction and part interactive gag.
- Access
- Open to visitors
- Roadside oddities39.5093° N, 87.4579° W
Saint Mary-of-the-Woods, IN
Sisters of Providence constructed this tiny nineteenth-century chapel and covered its interior with shells, creating an unexpectedly ornate space in the Indiana woods. The historic structure has undergone preservation work, so interior access can vary and tours should be checked before visiting.
- Access
- Seasonal or ticketed
- Roadside oddities46.8527° N, 101.4263° W
New Salem, ND
A 38-foot-high fiberglass Holstein stands on a hill above New Salem as a monument to the area's dairy industry. Its hilltop position makes the enormous cow visible from miles away along I-94.
- Access
- Open to visitors
- Roadside oddities41.5886° N, 93.6790° W
Des Moines, IA
This 1920s mansion was modeled after a fifteenth-century English manor and filled with old books, art, carved wood and imported architectural fragments. The building deliberately creates a piece of Tudor England in Iowa.
- Access
- Seasonal or ticketed
- Roadside oddities34.5056° N, 85.6156° W
Mentone, AL
Built in the 1930s as a memorial to Sallie Howard, this tiny chapel incorporates a huge natural boulder directly into its rear wall and altar area. It remains a functioning religious site, so visitors should respect services and private events.
- Access
- Seasonal or ticketed