There's No Other Museum In The World Like This One In Tennessee
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Meghan Kraft
Author
Everyone needs to have that one kooky, crazy vacation memory. Whether you visit Daffodil Hill or take your kids to a fish hatchery (these are true stories, folks) there has to be one interesting, wildly memorable trip that your little ones will laugh over until they’ve long had babies for themselves. And we’ve found the best place to make memories for a lifetime – the Museum of Salt & Pepper Shakers.
The Ludden family opened their Salt & Pepper Shaker Museum in Gatlinburg in response to their daughter, Andrea's, 12,000 pairs of salt and pepper shakers. It was a collection of the heart, and has grown with startling speed.
The museum has been a labor of love, with the collection of 20,000 sets slowly growing over three decades. That's thirty years of table condiments, guys. Thirty years of complete and total commitment to the kitsch is quite commendable, if you ask us.
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The museum has become something of a tourist mecca in Gatlinburg, especially for those with kids. This is the kind of eye candy that will keep them walking and oohing and aahing through the whole museum. It's a lot more interesting than paper mache, you know.
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Andrea, the owner, is a trained archaeologist. She has been working on an anthropological study of salt and pepper shakers, putting her massive smarts behind the daily tools we tend to forget.
She has arranged her museum in a way that makes it "come alive," displaying the suddenly simple with a breath of fresh air. They take on a life of their own.
Admission is only $3, and you can even use the money towards a salt and pepper shaker purchase of your own after your visit.
You can find shakers that honor the Beatles and Mount St. Helens, toilets and feet and chickens and hands. Located in Winery Square, you can visit the museum yourself at 461 Brookside Village Way. Make sure you check their hours, though! You don't want to miss this Tennessee gem.
Are you a TRUE Tennessean? Check out these 11 Things No Self-Respecting Tennessean Would Ever Do to see!
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