A (Three-Legged) Swan Song for America’s Roadside Attractions?

Travel Blog • Joanna Kakissis • 11.30.07 | 8:29 AM ET

Seems that fewer and fewer people these days want to see the stuffed jackalopes and the live six-legged cow at Prairie Dog Town. So after 40 years, owner Larry Farmer is closing up his petting zoo/freaky taxidermy exhibit in western Kansas—one of many mom-and-pop attractions fading from the American road-trip landscape. In an interesting feature for National Public Radio, Jason Beaubien explores how old bits of Americana such as the Elvis Is Alive Museum are disappearing with the rise of high-tech road trip distractions such as DVD-equipped minivans and iPods.

But Doug Kirby, who operates RoadsideAmerica.com, is not ringing the death knell for all these attractions just yet. He offers a motley list of places for devotees of toilet seats, ventriloquist dummies, Dan Quayle, Bonnie & Clyde, Liberace and even conjoined twin body parts.

My favorite on his list: Ed’s Museum in Wykoff, Minnesota. Ed Krueger ran the general store in this little town and apparently never threw anything away. His townspeople have honored him by putting up his collection of oatmeal tins, Hollywood pinups, player piano rolls, junk mail and every TV Guide from 1954 through 1989.

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* Road Trip: U.S.A.

Photo by Justin Brockie, via Flickr (Creative Commons).