Collinsville, Illinois: World's Largest Catsup Bottle

The World's Largest Catsup Bottle continues its successful summer festival with its upcoming 8th annual Summerfest. This year, the Oscar Mayer Wienermobile will be on hand to present its "Sing a Jingle...Be a Star" contest (We had the good fortune to drive a Wienermobile to the base of the Catsup Bottle many years ago, in the early days of giant condiment and food attraction convergence).

Summerfest also features a catsup taste test, music, crafts, food, even Erika Nelson's "World's Largest Things" Traveling Museum.

The festival is Sunday, July 9th, 2006 -- more info at catsupbottlesummerfest.com.

According to fanatical local boosters, a new holiday tradition has started in Collinsville, Illinois. A 16 ft high, 400 pound Santa Claus wrapped in garland and lights, can now be viewed climbing the World's Largest Catsup Bottle....

I stopped at the Giant Catsup Bottle in Collinsville, IL on my trip across the US. The bottle has quite an interesting story. It was originally built to promote Brooks Tangy Catsup, which had been manufactured in a building at the base of the tower since 1907. The tower itself was built in 1949 to support the business. Brooks Catsup went belly-up and the plant was sold to a military surplus company who didn't need the water tower and wasn't going to foot the entire bill for renovating the tower. By the time the early 90s rolled around the tower was peeling and rusty and local politicians were trying to find a way to remove the 'eyesore'. The townspeople of Collinsville stepped up to the plate, so to speak, to save their bottle and raised over $70,000.00 for renovations (the military surplus company did donate to the renovation fund, in case anybody was wondering).

The St. Louis Antique Bottle Collectors Association even got into the action by finding a 1949 Brooks Tangy Catsup bottle with label for the painters could use as a template for repainting the tower.

The renovations were complete and a parade and lighting ceremony was held on June 3, 1995. Six years later the bottle still looks as good as the day it was painted.

Installation of a 16-foot tall Santa climbing the World's Largest Catsup Bottle was canceled due to bad weather and frigid temperatures for the last few weeks in Collinsville, Illinois. The metal Santa cutout was paid for with donations from schoolchildren and local businesses.

The World's Largest Catsup Bottle - actually a water tower in Collinsville, IL - will appear on Country Music Television's (CMT) year-end video countdown, which will debut on Thanksgiving Day.