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Tennessee Oddities

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

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10 documented oddities Highest curiosity first

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Strange Museums

Salt & Pepper Shaker Museum

Gatlinburg, Tennessee

More than 20,000 sets of salt and pepper shakers fill a museum devoted to proving that even the most ordinary objects can become completely unhinged in…

Giant Objects

World’s Largest Rubik’s Cube

Knoxville, Tennessee

A ten-foot-tall, 1,200-pound Rubik's Cube created for the 1982 World's Fair now sits inside the Knoxville Convention Center like a puzzle for giants.

Curious Landmarks

The Sunsphere

Knoxville, Tennessee

A 266-foot blue tower topped by a five-story gold glass sphere still rises over Knoxville as the gloriously space-age survivor of the 1982 World's Fair.

Roadside Attractions

Billy Tripp’s Mindfield

Brownsville, Tennessee

A one-man forest of welded steel has been growing over downtown Brownsville since 1989, climbing roughly 130 feet into the air and refusing to resemble anything…

Curious Landmarks

Bass Pro Shops at the Pyramid

Memphis, Tennessee

Memphis put a hotel, indoor swamp, bowling alley, restaurants, museum, giant retail store, and 300-foot elevator inside a 32-story steel pyramid.

Natural Oddities

The Lost Sea Adventure

Sweetwater, Tennessee

Deep inside Craighead Caverns, visitors descend through the earth and board a boat on what the attraction calls America's largest underground lake.

Roadside Attractions

The Peabody Ducks

Memphis, Tennessee

Every day, five mallards march through a grand Memphis hotel on a red carpet, spend their shift in a marble lobby fountain, then parade back out…

Curious Landmarks

WonderWorks Pigeon Forge

Pigeon Forge, Tennessee

A massive classical-style building appears to have landed upside down beside the Parkway, complete with inverted columns, windows, trees, and pavement hanging overhead.

Strange Museums

Titanic Museum Attraction

Pigeon Forge, Tennessee

A huge half-scale Titanic appears to plow through a roadside iceberg in Pigeon Forge, with hundreds of artifacts and full-size recreated spaces waiting inside.

Strange Museums

International Towing & Recovery Hall of Fame and Museum

Chattanooga, Tennessee

Chattanooga gave tow trucks their own international museum, where antique wreckers, recovery equipment, toys, tools, and towing history get the full museum treatment.