Tips, leads, stories from travelers, plus Roadsideamerica.com Team reports on quirky museums, ironic monuments, and must-see oddities! Trip planning caution: Some tips may not be verified. Over time, attractions change, move, burn down. What's a vacation without a little risk? Submit your own tip.
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- Birmingham, Alabama - Statue of Liberty Replica The Statue is the largest around, surpassing even the original model currently in France. Liberty Park is its current home...but just off Interstate 459 (visible rather nicely from both directions), not 280 (although it is only a few miles from the 280/459 junction). The flame is in fact lit with Alabama natural gas, and has only gone out twice in it's history. The small park area at the base of the statue is open to the public free of charge during daylight hours. Her recent next-door neighboor is the new Birmingham Area Boy Scout headquarters, which is an underground structure designed to look like a bridge. There is also a small Boy Scout museum in the headquarters. [Brian Grisaffi, 03/15/1998][RA: February 2007: According to the plaque at its base, this bronze replica was commissioned by the founder of Liberty National Life Insurance Company to stand atop its downtown office building. The statue was cast in France, set on its rooftop perch in 1958, and moved to its present location in 1989. At 36 feet tall this is indeed one of the biggest Liberty replicas, although two in Las Vegas probably are larger.]Statue of Liberty Replica:
Address: 516 Liberty Pkwy., Birmingham, AL [Show Map]
Directions: Liberty Park
Hours: Daylight hours - Dennard, Arkansas - Hummingbird Mountain - Vague Recollections Does anyone remember Hummingbird Mountain on scenic Hwy 65N between Clinton and Marshall AR? It was a roadsideattraction that was a favorite stopping place on the way to Dogpatch in the '70's. They had animals and a miniature train track. It was near Natural Bridge of Arkansas. [Donnie Garrison, 01/28/2009]Hummingbird Mountain - Abandoned Zoo:
Address: Dennard, AR
Hours: Gone - Eureka Springs, Arkansas - MUD street There are TWO sites that were featured in Ripley's Believe it or not: The Basin Park Hotel, which has all eight stories ( or so I forget how many) with a direct exit to ground level from every floor! Then there is little known Pivot Rock and Natural Bridge. The largest freestanding rock formation which has a base circumference of only about 10 inches, and the top measuring around 10 feet across! We have a Live Steam locomotive here in the original train depot from the 1880's, the court house, which along with many businesses on main street, you must enter through the second floor, because the first floor of these buildings are underground! The street "MAIN" used to be called MUD street, for a reason! One year there was a great torrential rain that brought TONS of mud down from the hills and they just never dug it out!
We elected a dead mayor, one of only three towns in america to do that! One of our mayors posed (supposedly) nude for one of the state-wide papers! We have no two parallelly intersecting streets either! [Thomas Hawk, 03/04/1999]
Pivot Rock and Natural Bridge:
Address: Pivot Rock Rd, Eureka Springs, AR [Show Map]
Directions: From the intersection of US 62 and Hwy 23, drive north on US 62 for one mile. When you see the sign for Brackenridge Lodge, turn right onto Pivot Rock Rd and drive north 2.5 miles. The road will get narrow, but keep going until it ends. - No. of Clinton, Arkansas - Roadside Natural Bridge Off State Highway 40 heading north from Little Rock, in the
foothills of the Ozarks about 70 miles north, a
side road labeled "Natural Bridge" caught our attention. The drive down this
side road itself is an adventure, requiring some skillful curve management.
At its end, a wooden shack provides access (and a $3.00 fee) to the site of
the Natural Bridge, which is NOT an arch bridge (like Virginia's or
Arizona's) but a compression bridge of a flat huge slab of stone (limestone?
granite?) stretched across a waterway tumbling down the hillside.
The main slab, supported by two buttresses of stone, is about 120 feet long and over twelve feet off the ground. Situated in a quiet forest area (hazelwood, birch, pine), it is a pretty place to visit, hear some bird calls, smell the forest duff and greenery, and get off the road for half an hour or so. [Ursula, 07/13/2001]
Natural Bridge of Arkansas:
Address: Natural Bridge Rd, Clinton, AR [Show Map]
Directions: From the south, drive north on US 65 roughly 3.5 miles from where it splits from Hwy 9 in Clinton. Turn east onto Natural Bridge Rd and drive one mile. From the north, the turnoff from US 65 onto Natural Bridge Rd is 15.5 miles south of the intersection of Hwy 66 in Leslie. - Santos, Florida - Concrete Monoliths The median of US 27 / US 301 / US 441 at Santos, FL is unnaturally wide. The tall trees and dense shrubbery hide hiking and biking trails, with the star attraction, massive concrete abutments from a 1930's bridge project, meant to span the never built Cross Florida Barge Canal. The local colleges know of these structures, and have marked them with fraternity and sorority symbols. The unmarked parts resemble the massive structures in the Star Wars movies. There is a small kiosk explaining the history of these unique monuments. [Robert Droz, 09/09/2006]Concrete Monoliths:
Address: Santos, FL [Show Map]
Directions: About eight miles southeast of Ocala, FL along US 27 / US 301 / US 441, parking is available at Sheriff's substation just north of the site, in the median. Can also be reached by heading northwest from Orlando on US 441 for about 70 miles.
Admission: Free.
Hours: Daylight hours.
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