Summer "Big Idea" to the presses

...and being shipped to our Home Base in the next few days. Give us a chance to cull the address list (cutbacks abound...) and you should have your own issue, dear members, in a week or so. Here's to the next Big Idea!

Red Apple Restaurant St. Jo 1926

 

Wichita Red Apple Restaurant

The Red Apple Restaurant and Grocery was at 3421 N. Broadway until about 1950. On its right was a root beer stand and, on its left, a Conoco filling station.

There was a short, delightful era of architecture during the first part of the 1900s, probably not very important or memorable, but an awful lot of fun. Playful architects designed and built numerous structures right out of fantasy land. For lack of a better name, we'll call this the "Folk Art Style."

Filling stations, restaurants and tourists cabins especially were transformed into teepees, igloos, fruit, hats, animals, story-book characters, windmills, lighthouses and numerous other eye-catchers. Perhaps the most famous of this style was the Brown Derby in Hollywood where the stars dined.

Wichita joined in on the fun, too. On the southwest corner of Oliver and Central was the Polar Bear Frozen Custard Stand, housed in a large iceberg. Farther down the street was a prohibition era road house with a picturesque roof right out of the Black Forest, later known as the Wishbone Building.

And my favorite as a child was the Red Apple Restaurant, 3421 N. Broadway, gleaming like a ripe Jonathan, with a crooked green smokestack for a stem. It just had to be explored.

Only the Wishbone is left. It is dismantled and in bad shape but restorable if the will can be found to do it.

Now: The location today is occupied by an auto body shop.

 

Found on a Wichita history blog...  http://members.cox.net/wichitahpa/index.htm

Member Renewal Packets off!

... to Wilson KS, future home of the World's Largest Czech Egg, and to Lawrence KS. And, another new batch of WLT Classic Tees came in just before the Catsup Fest in Collinsville, and we're already half-way through it... Thank you, WLT Fans!

-Erika Nelson, Director
World's Largest Things, Inc.

Fisheye Shots just in...

...from last year's Kentucky Trip, where we spotted (ha!) this wonderful thing in Indiana, at Jim Hipp Nursery.  They had a whole menagerie of fantastic fiberglass forms.

From the Email Inbox: Big Rooster, Ransom KS

 

Happy 60th, Catsup Bottle!

It was another great Catsup Bottle Birthday Bash in Collinsville IL this past Sunday, July 12, despite the torrential downpour that forced festivities inside.  Here, tireless (and damp) volunteers slice up the birthday cake for loyal fans.  Thankfully, it was not catsup flavored cake.

From the Email Inbox: World's Largest Flamingo

at M Schettl Sales, Oshkosh WI

Catsup Festival Time!

Today is prep day, tomorrow driving, and SUNDAY SUNDAY SUNDAY join us for the 11th Annual World's Largest Bottle of Catsup Birthday Bash and Car Show!

 

At the American Legion, Collinsville Illinois.  WLT will be bringing the smaller Art Car 'Scout', with mobile displays of Rt. 66 WLTs and a newly developed expanded rotate-o-matic WLT Whirlwind Wonder House.  See you on the road!

 

-E