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.
Archbald, PA
A glacial waterfall drilled this enormous vertical pothole into bedrock thousands of years ago, leaving a cavity roughly large enough to hold dozens of fire trucks' worth of water. A viewing platform inside Archbald Pothole State Park lets visitors look directly into the formation during park hours.
Beaver Meadows, PA
Dragons, dinosaurs, owls and other monsters made from concrete, scrap metal and old vehicle parts line Route 93 north of Beaver Meadows. The sculptures were created by Joseph J. Woitko and sit on private land, so they should be viewed from the road without wandering onto the property.
Bedford Township, PA
Bert Koontz built this 18-foot coffee-pot-shaped building in 1927 to lure Lincoln Highway motorists into his adjacent service station and lunch business. Saved from demolition, it was moved to the Bedford County Fairgrounds and restored in 2003–04; the exterior and historical marker are always the attraction, while the interior has no dependable regular public hours.
Philadelphia, PA
Claes Oldenburg installed *Clothespin* in 1976, turning an ordinary spring clothespin into monumental public art opposite Philadelphia City Hall. It stands directly above the downtown transit concourse at 15th and Market and is freely visible from the public plaza at any time.
Bangor, PA
This privately owned but publicly accessible sanctuary contains more than 90 large stone settings spread across more than 20 wooded acres, with most placed between 1980 and 2005. Visitors can wander several miles of rough trails from dawn to dusk for free; climbing the stones is prohibited and organized activities require permission.
Conoy Township, PA
When the Susquehanna River drops low enough, the exposed diabase bedrock at Conewago Falls reveals deep circular potholes, sculpted channels and ripple-like forms carved by powerful water and sediment. The formations are only safely visible at low river levels; use the public boat-launch access and never walk onto exposed river rock during high or rising water.
Sweden Township, PA
Billy O'Neil discovered this strange cavity in 1894 while prospecting, and it became famous because ice forms inside as outside temperatures rise and retreats again as the weather cools. After decades as a roadside attraction and a long closure beginning in 1990, new owners restored and reopened it in 2014; visitation remains seasonal.
Richmond Township, PA
Crystal Cave was discovered in 1871 and became one of Pennsylvania's earliest commercial show caves. Seasonal guided tours descend into passages filled with stalactites, stalagmites and crystalline formations, with additional exhibits and attractions above ground.
Pittsburgh, PA
This enormous 60-foot-square clock was built in 1933 and later moved onto the former Duquesne Brewing Company building. Its face and hands dwarf those of many traditional clock towers, and it remains visible from surrounding public streets and bridges even though the old brewery itself is not a visitor attraction.
Doylestown Township, PA
Henry Chapman Mercer built Fonthill between 1908 and 1912 as an experimental reinforced-concrete home filled with handmade tiles and architectural fragments. Guided tours wind through dozens of irregular rooms, stairways, terraces and alcoves in one of Pennsylvania's strangest private homes turned museum.
Everett, PA
Students at Bedford County Technical Center built this roughly 20-foot-wide quarter as a tribute to George Washington's connections to Bedford County. The nearly one-ton coin stands near Down River Golf Course and makes an easy oversized-object photo stop from the public-facing area.
Hellam Township, PA
Shoe magnate Mahlon Haines built this five-level work-boot-shaped house in 1948–49 as an enormous advertisement and promotional guesthouse for his shoe business. It is now a short-term rental rather than a public museum: **only registered guests may enter**, although the owners explicitly welcome photographs from the public roadside.
Harborcreek, PA
A field of large metal sculptures on Bartlett Road east of Erie: a tyrannosaurus and its young, a triceratops, a woolly mammoth, and a welder among them. They stand on private land beside the road, so look from public ground rather than crossing the grass. Catalogues of the work list it under North East, which is the wrong township and about ten miles off — this entry is placed from the sculptures themselves.
Kidder Township, PA
A roughly 16-acre field of bare sandstone boulders stretches across Hickory Run State Park with almost no soil or vegetation between the rocks. The formation dates to cold-climate conditions near the end of the Ice Age; a gravel road reaches it in warmer months, while winter closures can require a much longer hike.
Somerset, PA
A huge rotating fiberglass globe has stood outside Jenny Products since the late 1960s, built to celebrate the company's growth as a maker of pressure-washing equipment. It resembles a water tower but is actually a giant spinning advertisement, with parking available at the business for visitors who want a closer look.
Hamlin Township, PA
The Kinzua Viaduct once stretched more than 2,000 feet across Kinzua Gorge before a tornado tore away much of the structure in 2003. The surviving towers now form a public skywalk with a glass viewing area, while the twisted fallen towers remain visible across the valley below.
Wharton Township, PA
Pennsylvania's largest cave system by volume extends beneath Chestnut Ridge in Fayette County. The underground caverns are open only from mid-April through late October for guided and self-guided experiences, closing each winter to protect hibernating bats.
Porter Township, PA
Lincoln Caverns and adjoining Whisper Rocks contain passageways filled with flowstone, crystals and other limestone formations discovered during road construction in the 1930s. Guided underground tours operate from the visitor center, with special black-light and themed programs offered on selected dates.
Mars, PA
Mars embraces its name with a nearly 3,000-pound flying-saucer sculpture assembled from industrial tanks and displayed downtown. The statue was already documented by 1989 and has become one of Butler County's recognizable roadside landmarks, sitting in a public downtown space for easy photographs.
Gregg Township, PA
Penn's Cave is a limestone cavern explored almost entirely by boat, with tours traveling along an underground stream before emerging onto the property's lake. The attraction operates on a seasonal schedule and also includes wildlife and farm tours above ground.
Vernon Township, PA
A roughly quarter-mile art wall outside PennDOT's Crawford County offices turns retired road signs into barns, animals, a Ferris wheel, a roller coaster, oil wells and other Pennsylvania scenes. It grew from a collaboration between PennDOT employees and Allegheny College artists; there is no dedicated attraction parking, so it works best as a roadside view along Smock Highway.
Philadelphia, PA
Artist Isaiah Zagar transformed buildings and vacant lots along South Street into a dense mosaic environment of mirrors, tiles, bottles, bicycle wheels and found objects. The nonprofit attraction preserves a multi-level indoor and outdoor labyrinth that visitors can enter with a timed ticket.
Frackville, PA
This roughly 15-foot roadside figure of a bonneted mother holding a pie beside her daughter became a famously unsettling piece of Pennsylvania roadside kitsch outside a former motel. The attraction is now listed as permanently closed and no longer reliably accessible, but its former location is worth recording as part of the state's roadside-history layer.
Clay Township, PA
Playthings Etc. opened in 2005 inside a purpose-built futuristic building the business itself describes as spaceship-shaped, complete with "engine doors." More than 7,000 toys fill the interior and many are available to try, making the strange building an actual walk-in destination rather than just novelty architecture.
