by We were hot on the trail on some quirky items as we made our way to Pittsburgh.
First up was Mister Ed’s Elephant Museum & Candy Emporium in Orrtanna, Penn. The Elephant “museum” is basically several large glass cabinets absolutely stuffed (STUFFED) with thousands of mostly tiny elephant figurines. It was too much to take in. The attached candy store (and tourist trap?) also features a ginormous elephant, with more elephants in the grounds outside. We strolled the landscape, which featured other oddities like a tree hung with many mugs, at the base of which were brightly painted bowling bowls; suddenly there was their newest attraction, a shed featuring a teapot collection. The most impressive part was that I left without purchasing any chocolate.
Even though it was cold and rainy, we still stopped at The Igloo Soft Freeze in Everett, Penn. Back in 1977 you could buy a modular home in an igloo shape from H&R Enterprises Co., if that was your jam. Surprisingly, the business failed, and this model became an ice cream shop, complete with hot fudge dripping down the side and a cherry on top. Even though it meant I was freezing for the next two hours, I had a delicious milkshake — you gotta support the weird!
Next up was Dunkle’s Gulf Service Station along the Lincoln Highway (U.S. Route 30) in Bedford, Penn. It’s a small station built in 1933, but the Art Deco architecture was really lovely, and we were sad to see that it had recently shut down.
The Koontz Coffee Pot was our next stop, also along the Lincoln Highway in Bedford, Penn. It was built in 1927 and clocked in at 18 feet tall and 22 feet wide; it was originally built to attract customers to a service station, but over the years it served as a bar, diner and even a bus station. It is in sad shape, but still in use as a museum for the Bedford Fair.
My absolute favorite stop was the Kecksburg Space Acorn, a relic of a UFO mystery right in Pennsylvania that rivals Roswell! In 1965, residents of six states and Canada reported seeing a fireball moving across the sky, but Kecksburg is where it crashed. Local residents who saw the wreckage reported an acorn-shaped object about the size of a VW Beetle; it had hieroglyphics and was unlike anything they’d ever seen.
Pretty quickly, the military showed up — some in radiation-protective gear — and closed off the area. They carted off “something” and thereafter said “no worries, folks, it was just a meteor”. The plot only thickened after that.
You can watch this Unsolved Mysteries episode on the Space Acorn (only about half the episode is dedicated to this story). The prop from the movie is now mounted for your visiting pleasure in Kecksburg, or you can attend the annual Kecksberg UFO Festival. We did also find this Youtube video, which seemed to offer a good explanation for what likely happened.
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