Roadside Oddities of Alabama - Tree that Owns Itself! Alabama Museum of Wonder! Bizarre Peanuts!

[Music] hey you all carpetbagger here coming to you live from the south more specifically seal alabama and um we're the first thing we're going to do today is we are going to a drive-through museum now in these modern times um a drive-through museum seems like a really good idea a really safe attraction to experience and this uh drive-through museum was created by folk artist butch anthony butch anthony used to have or maybe he still does he has on his property at a museum called the alabama museum of wonder and apparently um it became it was on his property so apparently it became problematic is people would come to see the museum while he was trying to work and he could never get any work done so in order to display his museum and his work he created a drive-through museum a drive-through extension of the alabama museum of wonder here for anyone who wants to see to drive through we are about ready to drive through that museum follow me look at that made out of old semi cargo boxes and uh yeah let's drive through you can see in that airstream there oh there's a bunch of cool stuff over here oh wow look at that oh oh i look real quick oh very very cool now as cool as driving through that was i think it would be whovas to maybe park the car and get out and take a little bit of a closer look all right well let's uh take a closer look here got an airstream trailer with uh windows cut out what do we have here a craw ball this object fell from outer space and landed in pittsville it was also found by the mayor of pittsfield look we have a paper animatomic skeleton there we have a mummified cat that is that is a horrifying face on that mummified cat and uh looks like he has his buddy there with him the mummified rat i see that unfortunate taxidermy duck with quite a few six-pack plastic rings around his neck every skull has its thorns over here it says make cornbread not war i do believe cornbread is indeed better than killing people and here we have a call for willie nelson for president you know willie nelson i always think of him as one of one of the few human beings that everybody likes if you don't like willie nelson leave a comment in the comment section and of course we need to support our local roadside attractions this is where they ask for donations you slip it into the mouth of this face right here they ask for one dollar which is fairly generous i will uh give my donation to the mouth come on eat it there we go i have this little army of baby chicks i guess these are like old looks like from an old printing press circuit city it's a clever joke but uh maybe a little bit uh outdated it says shut up and kiss me we got a happy little alligator there have this crazy looking dog creature there and then here's one of the the crowning objects of the alabama museum of wonder the world's largest gallstone says red-winged blackbird when i was a kid someone told me that red-winged black birds were a super violent creature that they would chase you and and attack you um is that true i would think back on that i was wondering are red wing blackbirds really a scary creature it says i want to do right but not right now believe that is a lyric from a jillian welsh song um miss ohio and uh but that there you see four cops pointing their guns at a jar of fun i don't know what is inside that one a couple other jars here oh my gosh that is quite a piece of uh taxidermy there one of the dog's ears is a directly on top of his head and the other's in a more normal place for an ear look at that mummified chicken right there it's only missing its head down here we see various items that's uh i guess george washington's teeth right there a dirt oh over there we got dirt from hank williams grave there are some uh bigfoot shoes there i guess where you can go and make a fake big footprints i guess this is what happens when you let your jars of fun dry up that vicious cat back there up here i think that is a giant frog made out of uh the bones of other creatures this here one of the coolest pieces here in the alabama museum of wonder this is a replica of hell um that was used by a traveling preacher in the 1930s get a close look here we can see there is a two-headed giant chopping off the heads of sinners some freaky hellish bird monster um oh these people are carrying around their own heads after they've been chopped off see that creature they're uh eating it was almost like reminds me of like a uh a hairy house and uh stop motion film with the different creatures and then that big thing right there almost looks like the hodag um if you look in his mouth you can actually see there's some sort of mechanism that opens and closes its mouth i wonder if that was like an animatronic at one point to the giant hell lizard devouring lost souls and then some sort of demonic kraken it's amazing how large and thorough this display is just look some of the twisted things going on i think this guy had a lot of fun designing this and then on top of this hellish display it's the face of an alligator car there's a cow ant which is definitely an interesting mashup you can see the little coyote there peeking around the corner we got an alligator head and then uh poor little creature there see that rainbow colored cow oh here's some interesting oddities got a two-headed baby chick so that was a pocket watch found growing inside a potato um in the garden of miss eula bankston that is a collection of items removed from the esophaguses of young children this ring was found also growing inside a potato a lot of things growing inside potatoes in this area would rather have a bottle in front of me than a frontal lobotomy don't know what these big metal balls are does anyone know what these are these oh maybe these are are these wrecking balls i don't know how can i miss you when you won't go away so we're gonna keep driving through alabama and see uh just what else there is to see along the alabama roadside we've stopped off in the town of eufaula the first thing i wanted to see is this tree right here this is no ordinary tree it may look like an ordinary tree but this tree owns itself now long time viewers of this channel they remember that i visited a different tree that owns itself in athens georgia but it turns out there's at least two trees in america that own themselves now you may ask yourself how can tree own property how how can a tree pay property tax shut up you can see it really is quite a beautiful tree it's got a little plaque here explaining the situation the tree that owns itself now in the 1930s the mayor of ufall declared that a tree a beautiful tree could own itself and deeded the land to the tree unfortunately this uh tree is actually the second tree that owns itself this tree inherited itself and the land right here because uh the original tree that uh owned itself was blown down in a windstorm in the 60s but uh the town rededicated declared that this tree would inherit the property only god can make a tree now eufaula's claim to fame is that it is the big bass capital of the world [Music] but this is not the only monument to a bass here in eufaula you see right here in the middle of main street and you follow alabama they have the gravestone of a fish leroy brown it's actually a pretty fascinating story why there is a fish's tombstone here in the middle of eufaula there was a local bass fisherman by the name of tom mann and one day and i guess i don't know why he was doing this but he went uh it was fishing with gummy worms i don't know if this was just something he did on a lark or maybe an idea he had but he caught a bass with a strawberry gummy worm and he decided that he liked the fish so much that he was not going to eat it he was not going to release it he was going to keep it as a pet and he kept the fish for the rest of the fish's natural life as a pet and he named the fish leroy brown after the popular song of the time believe this is the 1970s bad bad leroy brown and the fish would become a tourist attraction people would come and want to meet leroy brown apparently leroy would learn tricks apparently he could jump out of his aquarium through a hoop so a beloved local figure the bass leroy brown here in the big bass capital of the world you follow alabama leroy brown and he was so beloved that when he did die and he died of natural causes that um they would have a funeral and 800 people came to a fish's funeral apparently they the the local high school band played bad bad leroy brown at the funeral but uh he was not buried at his funeral uh tom would apparently was raining and did not i guess he didn't want to bury it bury the fish on a down in the mud so as he was waiting for a better day to bury the fish whatever the reason he took the fish and put it in a walk-in cooler and someone stole the corpse of the fish the fish was spotted at a local airport when the the luggage handlers i don't know if it was tsa at the time but they smelled rotten fish in someone's luggage and they found that they were smuggling the body of leeward who steals a beloved dead fish that is a completely insane and maniacal thing to do but by the time the fish was brought back to tom it had decreated too much and he was unable to be buried because i guess he was just just turned into rotten mush and was thrown away but uh the the gravestone was still made and in 2016 so fairly recently uh someone who had the gravestone in their possession dedicated it to the town and they erected it here right in the middle of main street as the inscription says most bass are just fish but leroy brown was something special so we have stopped off here in enterprise alabama i wanted to see one of my favorite civic monuments and that is the monument to the bull weevil right here in the middle of traffic you're an enterprise alabama so the story behind the boll weevil monument the bull weevil is actually a bug that destroys crops particularly cotton and here at enterprise they used to be a cotton growing community the bug the bow evil destroyed their cotton crop this forced them to switch to growing peanuts which led to economic prosperity turns out the green peanuts was far more profitable than growing cotton so they thanked this destructive bug most people would still be angry at the bug very destructive force that ruined their crop but no a ton of enterprise they thanked the bull weevil thank the beau evil for making them look at other options searching other options and leading to true success and this story when i came here years ago and saw the the bull wheel monument and heard that story it greatly inspired me inspired me so much i actually have a bowl weevil tattooed on my arm it reminded me a lot of uh kind of the story of of this channel i had been doing this channel um for for years this was out we're just a hobby and um i was working child protective services uh as a job worked at child protective services for 10 years um as i um my channel began to grow and begin to take form um i i was the victim of some harassment some cyber bullying if you will and um people would call my work write letters to my work um i don't really know why other than just to try to bother me or harass me because i didn't like my channel or i had maybe upset them somehow and um and i was uh given the option of actually i wasn't given the option my work told me i could no longer have my youtube channel they had asked me to get rid of it to delete it and um i knew at that point that um i could not give up my channel i'd work too hard i put too much of my blood sweat and tears into the channel to give it up so i put in my notice my two week notice that day um i was not making enough money to to support my family with youtube i just knew that i couldn't i could not um i could not live with myself if i gave up my uh my uh youtube channel it was too much of a part of me so um i gave up my job i gave i put up my two weeks notice and gave up my job and um i think it'd be really a it's really really easy for me to be angry and i went through periods where i was very angry at my job at the people that put me in a unfair position but in the end that is just like the bull weevil here in enterprise alabama um you know i lost my job i i lost something that helped me provide my family something that i i'd worked very hard for that job and i put a lot of work into that job but i was forced to give it up and it allowed me to put everything i had into this channel but all the fire i had behind this channel and the channel grew from that point so really i have to almost thank the people i'm not going to i'm not going to directly thank them but almost thank you know what i will thank you the people that um that that sent letters to my work that called my boss just to just just to just to bully me just to harass me they caused this channel to grow they caused me to take the leap that i apparently wasn't ready to take yet but ended up paying off in the long run and now i get to do this full time i get to do something i love a hobby that evolved into a job full time and that is why i have this bull weevil on my arm because every time every time i get mad i think about the past and think about maybe i was treating them fairly but in the end it was a bull weevil it was something something that that tried to hurt me but ended up greatly improving my life you can see it is right smack dab in the middle of traffic a little hard to get to but uh you can see it looks like there is uh who's the dr seuss species wrapped around at the bottom of the monument there for christmas all right we're gonna get a little closer here the bow weevil fountain you can see the goddess there holding up the bull weevil to the sky that ugly little bug that helps this town so much i'm sort of stuck here in the middle of the street let's look for an opening i love this wvbl their radio station guess it would be you're listening to wvvl the weevil see a fashion world they sell this artificial human hair that you can use as extensions i guess you could say it's a weave oh it does look like the town has put up a dr seuss display all through the downtown area this store window they have a full-sized grinch see they're the weevil nut company it does appear every single um store here has a dr seuss theme incorporated you can see this one is uh wearing the facial masks this grinch is slightly terrifying see the bottom part is a tree the top is a ghoulish jim carrey version of the grinch i think i just put it together you see the whos the who's when when the grinch stole all their presents they they they they they went out and they sang they sang in the streets they they the grinch could not stop their christmas just like just like the bull weevil could not stop could not stop the the farming industry so this here enterprise alabama the real life whoville you can see these murals here it says little weevil fear no weevil the art studio here all about art has this giant multi-colored bowl weevil in the window he's got a giant paintbrush [Music] this is the pea river historical and genealogical society gift shop and library as we see santa reading how the grinch stole christmas here in the window we have the original full weevil monument apparently in 1998 someone stole the bull weevil off the top of the statue by cutting the statue's arms off if you look down here we can see the arms and they they had destroyed the statue it could not be repaired so it had to be replaced but the bull weevil was found and here it sits in the windows apparently someone buried it underground and it was later located so that's the original bull weevil right there here at the local gym you can see they have a bowl weevil pumping iron with the hashtag swollweevil also there's a bunch of shoes hanging up here now we are now in dothan alabama and dothan alabama claims to be the peanut capital of the world i think i feel like i've been showing a lot of peanuts on this channel recently but but but dothan claims to be the capital so let's see what dothan has to offer in peanut tourism here at the dothan visitor center they have this shiny golden peanut glimmering in the sun but this is not the only peanut in town here they have complimentary dothan peanut maps that will apparently lead us to other peanuts good lord i didn't know what i was getting myself into here there is there is 62. different uh peanuts here in uh in dothan um how to get to work the visitor center is actually closed in a covid right now we can peek in the window and see that there is an elvis peanut inside all right seriously there are so many peanuts i don't even i don't even know where to start all right so there's supposed to be a peanut here at the golden corral and i don't see one outside so this one must be indoors as well [Applause] all right there's the peanut his name tag says celery which is confusing but there he is pretty pretty massive all right spotted this one outside of the three-minute car wash we have this i don't know it looks like the sheriff here his name is wild blue he's i guess he's a sheriff but he's also a car washing peanut look at that look at that mustache on that peanut oh look she's got a little scrub brush there in his holster next to the car wash we have this colorful yet decrepit abandoned castle just wondering what this was but apparently it is the pizza castle or at least it is the former pizza castle no pizzas left in this castle over there at chick-fil-a i don't see a peanut but there is a dancing cow just uh getting down oh boy dancing cow here outside of the ads security we have an ads security peanut and uh the other peanuts we've seen haven't been wearing a facial covering so thank you mr ads peanut i don't know what's going on with his hand it's covered in blue tape maybe someone uh tried to steal his hand but uh he was able to secure it back to his body he's got a little name tag there his name is homer d fender oh home defender very clever mr peanut although we don't have a smoking peanut outside of the tobacco shop as we cross the street here we'll see another one of dothan's claims to fame this is the smallest city block in the world dedicated may 1st 1964 the world's smallest city block now it is small it is small i must admit and that's the kind of spirit i like to see in these small towns most small towns would just say it's a median but no here in dothan it is the smallest city block in the world here in front of the dothan civic center we have the kiss [Music] goodbye to breast cancer peanut this pink peanut painted pink and uh celebration of breast cancer awareness it's a cool little statue right here this little kid uh playing it looks like he's playing guitar but he's using a bow and wearing oversized glasses but really really cool sculpture supposed to be a peanut here at the choice inn but the choice in doesn't look all that open now i do believe that the peanut must have checked out of the choice in we are at the dothan police department and there we have a police officer who is a peanut this peanut hunting is is harder than it looks i've been driving in circles i have been searching for peanuts some peanuts appear to be indoors a lot of places are closed um i'm there should be a peanut on the corner of maine and foster but i did not see it oh look at this though behind these bars we see a peanut lady says top chef on her jacket she's holding out a glass of wine and a delicious platter of oysters oh those look pretty good i could i could go for some oysters about now all right the sun is setting but we're gonna find as many peanuts as we can before the end of the day all right here at the healthcare resource center we have this helpful peanut asking us if we need help with medicare we are here in the parking lot of ameris bank and in the headlights of my car we have this captain cash is his name he's a superhero peanut some sort of banking superhero peanut and look at those muscles he has rippling biceps he's got yellow eyes very very cool a superhero we deserve in the glowing shadow of krispy kreme donuts we have sheriff sam the cowboy peanut and here we are as the sun sets on alabama we stand in the shadow of this massive peanut so thank you for joining me today as we travel across alabama look how big that peanut is i think that might be the world's biggest i know the one in ashburn georgia has fallen down so i think this right here is our biggest peanut that might be bigger than the one in ashburn look at that as a the sun sets in the background but thank you for joining me uh on our adventure today um finding those peanuts was really more hard than i thought it would be i i missed so many i don't know how many i got you can count them but uh there's so many more 62 peanuts in all some of them are not where they said they were so i don't know there may be less than 62 but come out to dothan alabama see if you can find more peanuts than i did thank you for joining me here i would like to help support the channel consider donating to patreon three dollars or more we'll get you a postcard once a month also now selling enamel pins in the etsy shop all that information is in the description until next time this one's in the bag

Channel: The Carpetbagger

Views: 31,652

Rating: 4.9324579 out of 5

Keywords: the, carpetbagger, alabama museum of wonder, leroy brown, peanuts, dotham, dothan, alabama, strange, unusual, roadside attractions, america, roadtrip

Id: gKX_7q7cl4o

Length: 31min 13sec (1873 seconds)

Published: Fri Dec 18 2020