What A State I Was In! Trivia Quiz

Answer: to sell ducks and duck eggs

A duck farmer named Martin Maurer and his wife had the duck-shaped structure built in Riverhead, and operated it as a store in order to sell ducks and duck eggs. In 1937, Maurer had the building moved to Flanders, where it remained until Suffolk County took over the building after the business closed down in 1984.

Answer: Johnny Reb's Chick, Chuck and Steak

When The Big Chicken was first built in 1956, it was owned by S.R. "Tubby" Davis. The building housed his restaurant, Johnny Reb's Chick, Chuck and Steak. In 1963, Mr. Davis added the iconic superstructure to the original building in an effort to capture the imaginations (and appetites) of passersby. After a few years, it became a franchisee of Kentucky Fried Chicken.

A storm toppled the structure in 1993, but there was such an outcry to restore it to its former glory that KFC decided to not tear it on down, but rather to satisfy the public.

If you're ever near Marietta, Georgia, just ask anyone for directions to anywhere, and you'll almost invariably get a response like, "go to the Big Chicken, then turn left... or right... or go straight". Talk about an icon!

Answer: Russia

The ten-story memorial was erected to honor the victims of both the collapse of the World Trade Center buildings in 2001 and the previous attempt to destroy the buildings in 1993.

The various titles of the monument are "To the Struggle Against World Terrorism", "The Tear of Grief", and "The Tear Drop Memorial".

The tower of the sculpture stands 100 feet tall and is made of bronze-coated steel. The center of the tower has a ragged split in it where a 40 foot stainless steel teardrop appears to be falling from the top of the split.
It was officially presented to the United States by Russia in 2006.

Answer: South Dakota and Arizona

The Bedrock City Park in Custer South Dakota came into being first in 1966. The one in Williams, Arizona, which lies just south of the Grand Canyon National Park, opened in 1972. While the South Dakota locale is only open in the summer months, the park in Arizona is open year-round, with the exception of Christmas.

Answer: Alabama

Enterprise, Alabama has a 13-foot high statue dedicated to a bug that devastated cotton crops. The statue was installed in the downtown area, way back in 1919.

The boll weevil completely wiped out the cotton planters, which caused them to be forced into diversifying their crops, and eventually peanuts became the cash crop for much of the southern U.S.

Peanuts proved to be even more lucrative than cotton, and thus the statue was erected to the lowly boll weevil as a sort of "thank you" for helping people to see beyond what they were accustomed to seeing as potential for earning money.

The statue is a figure of a woman holding a boll weevil on a pedestal high over her head.

Answer: Iowa

Near the village of West Bend, Iowa, The Grotto of the Redemption was constructed by a German immigrant priest named Paul Dobberstein. Several decades of hard work went into constructing his work which was intended as a tribute to the life of the Virgin Mary. In actuality, the amazing structure consists of nine different grottoes that depict various phases in the life of Christ.

Constructed of semi-precious stones, fossils, seashells and various minerals, it has an estimated value of over $4 million dollars (2014 data). Its greatest wealth, however, may be in the lifetime of devotion that the priest put into it. He began construction of the "grotto" in 1912, and his work was not completed until 42 years later.

Many of the stones, shells and minerals from all over the U.S. were shipped into the area by train for years, well before construction ever began.

Answer: West Virginia

Marlinton, West Virginia hosts an annual road-kill festival each September. The complete name of the festival is the The West Virginia Road Kill Festival and Autumn Harvest Festival.

If you've never enjoyed such exotic dishes as squirrel gravy, bear BBQ, possum stew or teriyaki rabbit, you need to make definite plans to come join the festivities!

(Arts and crafts are also featured as a part of the festival, just in case you decide to stop along the way for a boring PB and J or grilled cheese sandwich.)

Answer: Texas

The leaning water tower of Groom, Texas might not be as well-known or as spectacular as the Leaning Tower of Pisa, but it has its admirers nonetheless.

The tower was originally used as a quite literal water storage tower, but when it was slated for destruction, a man named Ralph Britten bought it and moved it to its location near Groom. It served as a gimmick for truck drivers and travelers, causing passersby to stop, take photos and well, you guessed it, eat at a diner/truck stop owned by Mr. Britten.

Even though a fire destroyed the restaurant later, the leaning water tower remained as a cultural icon along I-40 (formerly a part of the old Route 66).

There is also a Leaning Tower in Niles, Illinois that was erected in 1934, a replica of the Leaning Tower of Pisa. In 1991, Niles, Illinois and Pisa, Italy became sister cities.

Just down the road a piece from the leaning water tower in Texas is a 19-story white cross... (But that is another story to be explored by anyone interested in researching.)

Answer: Washington

A replica of the original "Hollywoodland" sign can be spotted near Kent, Washington on Hwy 167 South.


The letters of the original California sign were constructed at 45 feet in height in 1923. The "land" portion of the name was removed from it in 1949 to better reflect the district itself and not the original planned housing development that it was intended to advertise.

Answer: New York

Both fountains are located near Flushing Meadows, New York. The Fountain of the Planets was created for the 1963-64 World's Fair by Robert Moses. As a joke, it was renamed The Fountain of the Planet of the Apes by Parks Commissioner Henry Stern. This went without notice for some time, but when it was pointed out, Stern refused to change it back, noting that it was a "great movie" that warned of the dangers of war, referring to film "The Planet of the Apes".

A nearby fountain he named The Fountain of the Grapes of Wrath in reference to a novel by American author John Steinbeck.