Tennessee can take you from a ten-foot puzzle to a boat floating deep underground, with a forest of welded steel somewhere along the way. These five oddities make good excuses to leave room between the state’s better-known stops.
There is a little of everything here: a collector’s obsession in Gatlinburg, a towering personal project in Brownsville and two wonderfully oversized souvenirs of Knoxville’s 1982 World’s Fair.
1. World’s Largest Rubik’s Cube
Knoxville, Tennessee
A normal Rubik’s Cube can ruin a perfectly good afternoon. Knoxville’s version weighs about 1,200 pounds and stands roughly ten feet tall, so at least you cannot absent-mindedly leave it in a drawer. The giant puzzle lives inside the Knoxville Convention Center, a colorful survivor of the 1982 World’s Fair.
Created for the Hungarian pavilion and given to the city by Hungary, it takes a familiar toy and makes every colored square enormous. The result looks halfway between a puzzle and industrial equipment. Pair it with the nearby Sunsphere for a small tour of Knoxville’s big fair leftovers. Confirm public access to the convention center display before making a special trip.
Explore World’s Largest Rubik’s Cube in the Oddities Directory
2. Salt & Pepper Shaker Museum
Gatlinburg, Tennessee
Gatlinburg has plenty of ways to keep visitors entertained, but an entire museum of salt and pepper shakers might be its most wonderfully specific. More than 20,000 sets fill the Salt & Pepper Shaker Museum, turning a quiet corner of the dinner table into a full-blown collecting adventure.
Animals, vehicles, food, buildings and tiny people all take their turn as seasoning dispensers. Displays group the shakers by themes and materials, making it easy to spot just how far designers will go with two little containers. The museum grew from the Ludden family’s collection. Come for the odd premise; stay because every shelf seems to contain another pair you would never have thought to invent.
Explore Salt & Pepper Shaker Museum in the Oddities Directory
3. Billy Tripp’s Mindfield
Brownsville, Tennessee
Look above the storefronts on West Main Street and Brownsville suddenly gets a lot stranger. Billy Tripp’s Mindfield rises roughly 130 feet, a sprawling arrangement of salvaged steel, machinery, boats, ladders and suspended objects that looks different every time you shift position.
Tripp began building it in 1989 and has kept adding to his living artwork for decades. Details that seem small against the whole structure turn out to be full-size equipment, which makes seeing it in person especially rewarding. View it from West Main Street and the alley beside it. Give yourself time to look up, look across and notice the smaller pieces hiding inside this enormous one-man creation.
Explore Billy Tripp’s Mindfield in the Oddities Directory
4. The Lost Sea Adventure
Sweetwater, Tennessee
The Lost Sea Adventure starts as a walk through Craighead Caverns and ends with a boat ride underground. That is a fairly impressive change of transportation for a cave tour. Near Sweetwater, visitors descend past rock formations and broad chambers before reaching a dock beside a lake hidden beneath the landscape.
The attraction describes it as America’s largest underground lake. Its standard tour covers about three-quarters of a mile round trip and takes roughly an hour and fifteen minutes, so this deserves a proper place in your day. The boat ride is the payoff: water below, rock above and darkness beyond the lights. Plan for a paid tour rather than a quick roadside photo stop.
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5. The Sunsphere
Knoxville, Tennessee
Knoxville kept its vision of the future, and it is a giant gold ball on a blue tower. The 266-foot Sunsphere was built as the symbol of the 1982 World’s Fair. Decades later, it still gives the skyline the unmistakable look of a city that once had very ambitious ideas about tomorrow.
The sphere is roughly five stories tall, with glass incorporating 24-karat gold. Ride up to the fourth-floor observation level for views of downtown, the Tennessee River, World’s Fair Park and the distant mountains. You can appreciate its wonderfully odd silhouette from the park, then decide whether to add the paid observation deck. Finish the Knoxville pair with the giant Rubik’s Cube nearby.
Explore The Sunsphere in the Oddities Directory
Put a little weird in your Tennessee trip
Knoxville’s cube and Sunsphere make a natural pair, while Gatlinburg and Sweetwater give an East Tennessee itinerary two very different kinds of indoor adventure. Brownsville’s Mindfield is a separate stop in West Tennessee. Open the Directory entries for visitor details before setting out, and give the Lost Sea enough time for the full tour.