The Coffee Pot
Bedford, Pennsylvania
Back when Hwy. 30, the "Lincoln Highway" was the main NYC-SF artery, diversions like a big coffee pot were well visited. Built in 1927, the 18-ft. high Coffee Pot was originally a lunch place adjoining a gas station. In 1937 it became a bar, with a hotel built in behind it.
Even after the highways bypassed 30, the Coffee Pot catered to locals, sitting just west of town and across from the County Fairgrounds on Business 30. But time took its toll, the place changed hands. For a decade or so it was closed and for sale, tattered and droopingnext to a drive-thru beer mart.
The people of Bedford thought that the Big Pot might have one more jolt left in it, and preservationists managed to save the Coffee Pot in 2003. The Bedford County Fair Association paid $1 to purchase it, and the Lincoln Highway Heritage Park Corridor, an attraction preservation group, spent $80k to move the building across the street to the fairgrounds and restore it in 2004.
Looks great today, though not quite the same effect as a working coffee shop. Helpful signs don't let you forget it is an example of "programmatic architecture" along the Lincoln Highway Heritage Corridor.
But this all worked out better than the fate of a nearby odd building on the Lincoln Highway -- "The Ship." The Ship-shaped building owner had quibbled with preservationists over a sale price on and off for several years. It was settled in 2001, to no one's satisfaction, when the Ship caught fire and was completely destroyed.