Monday, April 11, 2005
Giant Thermometer Puts Calif. Town on Map
Yahoo! News - Giant Thermometer Puts Calif. Town on Map
Giant Thermometer Puts Calif. Town on Map
BAKER, Calif. - Paris has the Eiffel Tower, New York the Statue of Liberty. But only this wide spot in the road to Las Vegas has "The World's Tallest Thermometer."
At 134 feet, the biggest roadside attraction on Interstate 15 between Los Angeles and Las Vegas is just 17 feet shorter than the Statue of Liberty. And that's nothing to look down on in a town of 700 people.
"I asked my grandson, `What's the greatest thing about living in Baker,' and he said, `We're the place with the world's largest thermometer,'" said Susanne Layes as she sipped a Coke at the Bun Boy restaurant, which sits in the thermometer's shadow.
Although some are embarrassed by it, the locals all seem to agree; it is the big pink beacon with its 4,900 light bulbs that really put this little town on the map.
"People would say Baker was a pit stop. They used that word: pit stop. I resented that," said Willis Herron, 80, who forked over $700,000 to build the giant thermometer.
"Awww, I know it's tacky," he told the Los Angeles Times when it was going up in 1991. "But I also know people won't be able to pass it more than four or five times without saying, `What is that?'"
It got a good deal of attention soon after it was built when 70 mph winds snapped it in two and the top half demolished a gift shop and a parked truck.
It was rebuilt, reinforced with concrete this time, and soon people were showing up to gaze at its temperature markings, which range from 30 to 130 degrees. Those are not unrealistic numbers, either, in an area on the edge of Death Valley, where the country's record high 134 degrees was recorded in 1913.
"It's a clutter-buster," says marketing consultant Scott Harris of Thousand Oaks. "If you see nine gas stations and the 10th one has a giant Paul Bunyan statue, where are you going to stop?" ¶ 10:21 PM
Giant Thermometer Puts Calif. Town on Map
BAKER, Calif. - Paris has the Eiffel Tower, New York the Statue of Liberty. But only this wide spot in the road to Las Vegas has "The World's Tallest Thermometer."
At 134 feet, the biggest roadside attraction on Interstate 15 between Los Angeles and Las Vegas is just 17 feet shorter than the Statue of Liberty. And that's nothing to look down on in a town of 700 people.
"I asked my grandson, `What's the greatest thing about living in Baker,' and he said, `We're the place with the world's largest thermometer,'" said Susanne Layes as she sipped a Coke at the Bun Boy restaurant, which sits in the thermometer's shadow.
Although some are embarrassed by it, the locals all seem to agree; it is the big pink beacon with its 4,900 light bulbs that really put this little town on the map.
"People would say Baker was a pit stop. They used that word: pit stop. I resented that," said Willis Herron, 80, who forked over $700,000 to build the giant thermometer.
"Awww, I know it's tacky," he told the Los Angeles Times when it was going up in 1991. "But I also know people won't be able to pass it more than four or five times without saying, `What is that?'"
It got a good deal of attention soon after it was built when 70 mph winds snapped it in two and the top half demolished a gift shop and a parked truck.
It was rebuilt, reinforced with concrete this time, and soon people were showing up to gaze at its temperature markings, which range from 30 to 130 degrees. Those are not unrealistic numbers, either, in an area on the edge of Death Valley, where the country's record high 134 degrees was recorded in 1913.
"It's a clutter-buster," says marketing consultant Scott Harris of Thousand Oaks. "If you see nine gas stations and the 10th one has a giant Paul Bunyan statue, where are you going to stop?" ¶ 10:21 PM
