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Pennsylvania Oddities

Unusual destinations, curious landmarks, and worthwhile detours across Pennsylvania.

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9 documented oddities Highest curiosity first

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Strange Museums

Mütter Museum

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

Anatomical specimens, skeletons, preserved tissue, medical instruments, models, and unusual case histories fill a museum that still feels like a nineteenth-century medical cabinet.

Strange Museums

Mercer Museum

Doylestown, Pennsylvania

A six-story concrete castle crams thousands of preindustrial objects into rooms, balconies, niches, and a towering atrium where boats and horse-drawn vehicles hang overhead.

Roadside Attractions

Randyland

Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania

Murals, mannequins, mirrors, plastic animals, painted furniture, signs, recycled objects, and relentless color cover nearly every available surface of Randy Gilson's home and courtyard.

Curious Landmarks

Haines Shoe House

York, Pennsylvania

A five-level house shaped like a colossal work boot hides bedrooms in the ankle, living space in the toe, and a kitchen toward the heel.

Natural Oddities

Ringing Rocks Park

Upper Black Eddy, Pennsylvania

Strike the right boulders in this seven-acre field and solid diabase answers with metallic notes more like bells than ordinary stone.

Curious Landmarks

The Coffee Pot

Bedford, Pennsylvania

Built in 1927 to lure motorists off the Lincoln Highway, this eighteen-foot coffee pot once served food from inside its sheet-metal body.

Roadside Attractions

Mars Flying Saucer

Mars, Pennsylvania

The town of Mars built its own flying saucer from two oil tanks, creating a nearly three-thousand-pound spacecraft parked in the middle of downtown.

Roadside Attractions

Kecksburg Space Acorn

Mount Pleasant, Pennsylvania

A giant acorn-shaped object mounted beside a volunteer fire department preserves the physical form of Pennsylvania's most famous reported UFO incident.

Roadside Attractions

Serenity Glass Park

Port Allegany, Pennsylvania

Glass-block towers, etched panels, sculptures, planters, trees, animals, and a small translucent castle turn one downtown corner into a monument to the town's glassmaking past.