Route 66 in the News
Coffe Pot Well Beyond Average Roadside Architecture
2008-02-23 16:43:40
BEDFORD, Penna. - In its home at the entrance of the Bedford County Fairgrounds, the Coffee Pot, one of a few remaining examples of utilitarian roadside art dating to the 1920s, continues to attract sightseers and history buffs.
They come in cars, in trucks and in tour buses.
But the important thing is that they continue to come – with many wanting their picture taken beside the restored coffee and sandwich shop built to catch the eye of Lincoln Highway motorists 70 years ago.
“It gets a lot of visitors. We’ve been surprised,” said John Holbert, president of the Bedford County Fair Board, owners of the Coffee Pot.
It was rolled to the fairgrounds five years ago from its Route 30 birthplace outside Bedford.
“It does do a nice job of gracing our gate,” Holbert said.
Built in 1927 by Bedford businessman Bert Koontz and named the Koontz Koffee Pot, the structure, originally made of chicken wire and stucco – and measuring 25 feet at the base and 18 feet high – was for years a harbor for weary Route 30 travelers.
The percolator – a chunky oddity with a handle, spout and white globe perched atop the lid is considered one of the great structures on the nation’s first east-west highway.
“The building was designed to resemble the product sold there,” said Dennis Tice, executive director of the Bedford County Visitors and Convention Bureau. “The idea was to catch the eye of the motorist whizzing by at 30 mph.”
Termed programmatic architecture, the Coffee Pot was built when other businesses on Route 30 and Route 66 in the western states were taking on the appearance of huge hot dogs, ice cream cones and shoes.
“It’s one of the most unique types of architecture. Most of the 1930s roadside architecture no longer exists,” Tice said.
Documentation shows as many as 15 coffee and tea pots built as restaurants, said Olga Herbert, executive director of the Lincoln Highway Heritage Corridor, with headquarters in Ligonier.
“It’s as cute as a button and people come from all over to see it,” Herbert said of the Coffee Pot. It is now one of only five still intact.
After completion of the Pennsylvania Turnpike in 1940 siphoned many long-distance travelers away from Route 30, the building was sold and resold – most recently as a tavern before closing its doors in 1989.
It spent most of its life on the other side of Route 30 on property now housing an auto repair and U-Haul leasing business.
In a sad state of disrepair, the pot was moved in 2003 to its new home and restored in 2004 at the cost of $120,000 using grants and local contributions.
Handed over to the fair association for safe keeping, the local group of volunteers originally planned to use the inside to house memorabilia from the century-old agricultural fair at the site.
A lack of volunteers and increased security concerns has restricted daily use of the Coffee Pot, Holbert said.
But it continues to inspire travel and history buffs and is being used as a jumping off point for Route 30 projects at five high school technical centers, including those in Somerset and Bedford counties, Herbert said.
A $50,000 grant is being split among the schools which have been asked to adopt a theme and develop a piece of metal roadside art which best depicts their county.
The Bedford County Technical Center will build and locate a 20- to 30-foot roadside giant on the theme of George Washington, who in the late 1700s used Bedford as a staging point to quell the Whiskey Rebellion among farmers to the west.
The Somerset County Technology Center still is determining its theme, Herbert said.
All of the art will be in place by December.
The Koontz Koffee Pot through the years:
- 1927 – Built by Bert Koontz to draw Route 30 travelers in for coffee and sandwiches.
- 1937 – Becomes a stop for the Greyhound Bus Co.
- 1950s – Addition to back changes use into a tavern and nightclub.
- 1960s – Three-story apartment building added to the back.
- 1989 – Closes.
- 2001 – Named one of the state’s 10 most endangered historical sites.
- 2003 – Moved 100 yards from Lashley’s Garage to Bedford County Fairgrounds.
- 2004 – Restored at total cost of $120,000.
- 2004 – Ownership put in hands of Bedford County Fair Board.
~Kathy Mellott, Tribune-Democrat.com
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