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Giant objects, odd monuments and things built for no clear reason.
Columbia, SC
A huge metal robot head rises beside Harden Street in Five Points, staring out over passing cars without a body attached. The deliberately oversized face looks like the remains of a buried machine or a prop from a forgotten science-fiction movie.
Aiken, SC
A decorative archway in downtown Aiken survives from a tiny police station built as a New Deal-era project in 1938. The station itself is gone, but the entrance structure remains tucked into the pedestrian lanes around The Alley like a doorway to a vanished building.
North Myrtle Beach, SC
This reptile park at Barefoot Landing holds an enormous collection of alligators, crocodiles, snakes, lizards, and other unusual animals. Its residents have included exceptionally large crocodilians, making it a far stranger stop than a conventional small coastal zoo.
Manning, SC
A bronze statue honors the famously literal-minded children’s-book character Amelia Bedelia and her creator, Peggy Parish, who was born in Manning. The sculpture turns misunderstandings like “dust the furniture” and “dress the chicken” into a permanent piece of hometown literary history.
Johns Island, SC
This enormous Southern live oak spreads massive limbs across more than 17,000 square feet of shade, with some branches resting on the ground before rising again. Estimates place it at several centuries old, and local folklore has also attached ghost stories to the tree. The City of Charleston operates the surrounding park with set visiting hours.
Murrells Inlet, SC
Industrialist Archer Huntington and sculptor Anna Hyatt Huntington built this sprawling Moorish-inspired winter residence in the 1930s. Its stark brick corridors, enclosed courtyards, ironwork, studios, and strange floor plan feel more like an abandoned Mediterranean fortress than a South Carolina beach house.
Aiken, SC
Aiken’s long relationship with the nearby Savannah River Site inspired this unusual piece of public art made to resemble a radioactive-waste shipping container. The sculpture turns one of the region’s most consequential industries into an unexpectedly playful downtown object.
Barnwell, SC
A freestanding vertical sundial erected in the 1800s still occupies a traffic circle in downtown Barnwell. Its highly visible location and uncommon design turn an old timekeeping device into the town’s defining roadside monument.
Fort Mill, SC
Fort Mill’s water tower is painted to resemble an enormous baseball, complete with curved red stitching visible across the white tank. It turns ordinary municipal infrastructure into a giant sports object hanging over town.
Cottageville, SC
What began around honey-bee education has grown into an interactive rural zoo with lemurs, monkeys, giraffes, kangaroos, reptiles, farm animals, and other species. Feeding opportunities and safari-style rides make it more hands-on than a conventional roadside animal park.
Charleston, SC
A huge fiberglass cow named Bessie has watched over the St. Andrews shopping area for decades. She once rotated atop a dairy store and held a giant milk bottle; current reports say she remains in place even though the rotating mechanism and bottle are gone.
Elloree, SC
A building shaped like an enormous blue teapot once housed thousands of teapots collected by Julian and Sybil Boland. The museum closed in 2020, but the giant teapot remains; a June 2026 visitor report confirms it is still standing, although visibly deteriorated.
Edgefield, SC
Edgefield celebrates its connection to the National Wild Turkey Federation with oversized fiberglass turkeys scattered around town. Several were decorated as public art, turning the community into an informal turkey-statue scavenger hunt.
Bamberg, SC
A Volkswagen Beetle covered in artificial greenery has been transformed into a rolling-looking topiary known as the Bush Bug. The plant-covered car is one of those simple roadside objects that becomes considerably stranger the longer you look at it.
Bishopville, SC
Dalton Stevens, the “Button King,” covered a suit, car, hearse, coffin, piano, toilet, and numerous other objects with thousands of buttons after insomnia led him into an obsessive art project. His family continues to preserve the collection in a small museum that remains free and open to visitors.
Landrum, SC
Built in 1909, Campbell’s Covered Bridge is the only surviving historic covered bridge in South Carolina. Its bright red wooden enclosure spans Beaverdam Creek beside old mill remnants and walking trails.
Awendaw, SC
Dozens of eagles, owls, hawks, falcons, vultures, and other raptors are housed at this avian conservation center outside Charleston. Scheduled programs include live flight demonstrations that bring large birds of prey surprisingly close to visitors.
Wadmalaw Island, SC
Rows of tea plants spread across hundreds of acres at one of the few large-scale tea-growing operations in the continental United States. Visitors can see tea being processed and tour the fields, making an ordinarily imported drink into an unexpected Lowcountry agricultural attraction.
Spartanburg, SC
A bronze statue honors Chaser, the Border Collie who learned the names of more than 1,000 toys during groundbreaking canine-cognition research. Her work with psychologist John Pilley made her one of the most scientifically famous dogs in the world.
Winnsboro, SC
Artist Christy Buchanan has filled her property with a bottle house, sculptural figures, decorated vehicles, arches, found-object art, and other handmade installations. The garden is on private property, with the gallery generally open on weekends or by appointment, so visitors should respect posted access.
Latta, SC
A massive wooden screw press survives as a rare example of the machinery once used to compress cotton into transportable bales. Its oversized timbers and primitive mechanical design make the structure look almost like a wooden siege engine.
Columbia, SC
Inside EdVenture stands Eddie, a roughly 40-foot-tall child that visitors can actually climb through. His internal organs, bones, stomach, brain, and other body systems become tunnels and exhibits, essentially turning a giant human body into a playground. Museum: https://www.edventure.org/
Sullivan’s Island, SC
The island’s public library occupies part of Battery Gadsden, a former coastal-defense bunker, and is named for Edgar Allan Poe. Poe was stationed on Sullivan’s Island as a young soldier, and the setting later influenced stories including “The Gold-Bug.”
Edisto Island, SC
For years, passing motorists have decorated this roadside tree with an ever-changing collection of seasonal props, signs, toys, and costumes. No single display lasts forever, so the fun is seeing what bizarre version of the tree happens to exist when you arrive.
