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.
Menlo, IA
Artist Ray 'Bubba' Sorensen repaints this enormous roadside boulder each year with detailed military and veterans-themed scenes. The original Menlo rock inspired a statewide project placing painted Freedom Rocks in every Iowa county.
Myrtle Beach, SC
Opened in 1946, this enormous oceanfront souvenir store is a maze of rooms crammed with seashells, odd gifts, statues, toys, pirate merchandise, fossils, and beach kitsch. Its sprawling inventory and decades-old atmosphere make shopping here feel like exploring a commercial cabinet of curiosities.
San Antonio, TX
These are Bob “Daddy-O” Wade’s “The Giant Justins,” created in 1979 for the Washington Project for the Arts. The 40-foot boots moved permanently to North Star Mall in San Antonio in 1980, where they remain an easy exterior photo stop and one of the city’s best-known pieces of oversized public art.
New Canaan, CT
Architect Philip Johnson's nearly transparent 1949 home reduces a house to a glass rectangle exposed on every side. The property also contains a collection of experimental buildings and landscape structures; entry is available only through scheduled tours.
Portland, OR
A Catholic shrine is built into a cliffside cave roughly 30 feet wide and nearly 50 feet high, with a marble Pietà set inside the rock.
Wilmington, DE
A utility box in Trolley Square has been transformed into an oversized old-fashioned gumball machine, complete with painted candy, coin slot and dispensing tray. Artist Remi Poindexter created the illusion as part of a larger neighborhood public-art project.
Detroit, MI
Artist Tyree Guyton began transforming vacant lots and abandoned houses on Heidelberg Street in 1986 using painted dots, discarded objects, shoes, clocks and other found material. The result became an internationally known outdoor art environment spread through a real Detroit neighborhood.
Cairo, IL
George Grey Barnard's muscular bronze laborer, first exhibited at the 1904 St. Louis World's Fair, stands in Halliday Park as an unexpectedly monumental sculpture.
Spring Green, WI
Alex Jordan Jr.'s sprawling complex combines impossible-looking architecture with rooms packed with automated music machines, model ships, armor, giant creatures, circus displays and the enormous indoor carousel. Few American attractions match its scale of deliberate sensory overload.
Jamestown, NY
Jamestown’s giant chair is the Iconic Jamestown Chair, a public-art tribute to the city’s once-dominant furniture industry. Fancher Chair Co. built the oversized oak club chair from a historic Jamestown Lounge Company design and installed it downtown in July 2019; it remains a public photo spot at West Third and Lafayette streets.
Watkinsville, GA
A roughly twelve-foot-tall welded steel horse created by artist Abbott Pattison became notorious after University of Georgia students repeatedly attacked it in the 1950s. Restored and reinstalled at UGA's Iron Horse Plant Sciences Farm in 2024, it remains one of the state's strangest public-art survivors.
Versailles, KY
A full-scale modern castle rises unexpectedly above the horse farms along US 60 outside Lexington. Construction began decades ago, the property sat unfinished for years and later suffered a major fire before being transformed into an operating hotel, restaurant and event destination.
Jeffersonville, IN
In an industrial corner of Jeffersonville, a large welded-metal female figure is paired with poetry and environmental elements designed to make the piece more than a conventional statue. The unexpected placement and scale turn the installation into a particularly strange public-art stop.
Bend, OR
The Bend Blockbuster is the last remaining store in the once-global video-rental chain, still operating as a rental shop and nostalgia destination.
Rhyolite, NV
Albert Szukalski’s ghostly plaster figures recreate Leonardo’s Last Supper in the open Mojave and became the sculpture that launched Goldwell Open Air Museum.
Rutland, VT
Patrick Villiers Farrow's bronze sculpture shows a dog straining against an invisible leash attached to an old-style parking meter. The surreal downtown piece has been a Rutland landmark since the 1980s and now stands in Depot Park.
Keystone, NE
Keystone’s tiny church was built to serve both Catholic and Protestant residents of a small ranching community. Separate religious symbols and an unusual shared-use history make the little building a distinctive piece of rural architecture. Interior access is generally by arrangement rather than guaranteed walk-in hours.
Pleasantville, PA
A miniature roadside settlement of tiny buildings includes a school, diner, filling station and other hand-built structures beside Route 56. The display sits on private residential property, so admire it from the public roadside and do not enter the lawn unless the owners explicitly invite visitors in.
La Grande, OR
A restored brick resort beside naturally hot mineral springs occupies a site long associated with healing, railroad-era tourism and later ghost stories; paranormal claims are treated as folklore.
Sweetwater, TN
Craighead Caverns contains a vast underground lake explored by guided boat tour. The commercial cave mixes unusual geology, Civil War-era history and an enormous subterranean body of water, making it one of Tennessee's strongest true roadside-underground attractions.
Cheboygan, MI
Sea Shell City has displayed an enormous giant-clam shell weighing hundreds of pounds as its famous "Man-Killing Clam" for decades. The label is classic roadside-showmanship rather than biology, but the shell remains a memorable centerpiece inside this seasonal northern Michigan tourist stop.
Washington, DC
A maze-like mansion filled with secret doors, hidden rooms, themed spaces, memorabilia, and deliberately confusing passageways.
North Smithfield, RI
Built in the late 1920s, this giant milk-can-shaped structure once sold dairy products and ice cream beside Route 146. The building was later moved and has spent decades unused, but its oversized novelty architecture still makes it unmistakable from the highway corridor. It is private property and should be viewed only from a safe public location.
Manteo, NC
A massive scuppernong grapevine on Roanoke Island may be centuries old and is often described as one of North America’s oldest cultivated grapevines. Historical documentation securely traces the vine back at least to the colonial era; it grows on private residential property whose owners have historically accommodated respectful visitors.
