The Big Coffee Pot

Winston-Salem, North Carolina, United States

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Listed, not yet checked · Oct 2026

This Big Thing is recorded as still being here.

The Mickey Coffee Pot is a tin shop sign, about 7 feet 3 inches tall according to the Wachovia Historical Society, made in the 1850s for a tinsmith's shop. WStoday reported in 2024 that it stands on a pole at Brookstown Avenue and South Main Street, Winston-Salem.

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The Big Coffee Pot

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Site-level location · 36.0955° N, 80.2571° W

FIELD GUIDE

The story

A tin coffee pot more than seven feet tall, mounted on a pole beside the historic quarter of Old Salem, began as a tinsmith's shop sign.

The Wachovia Historical Society says the brothers Julius and Samuel Mickey, tinsmiths, erected it in 1858 in front of their shop at South Main and Belews Streets. The Encyclopedia of North Carolina (2006) gives 1859 and names Julius Mickey alone. Both give a height of 7 feet 3 inches; the society puts its volume at 740 gallons and the encyclopedia at about 740½. WStoday, in a June 2024 feature, called it a 12-foot-tall pot holding 740 gallons.

Construction of Interstate 40 forced the pot from its original position. According to the encyclopedia, members of the Vogler family stored it for several years, and in 1962 it was placed on a pole on a small grassy island where Brookstown Avenue joins South Main Street. The Wachovia Historical Society dates the move to 1960 and says it placed a commemorative plaque at the base on 14 March 1976.

The encyclopedia records that neighbourhood youths knocked the pot off its pole during many Halloweens. Local tradition says a soldier once hid inside: the encyclopedia describes a Confederate soldier, possibly in April 1865, while the society says a Union soldier is reputed to have hidden there but that no details have been found.

WStoday reported in June 2024 that the pot still stands on its pole at the junction of Brookstown Avenue and South Main Street.

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WHAT TO EXPECT

A tin coffee pot on a pole at a road junction beside Old Salem, with a Wachovia Historical Society plaque at its base (placed 1976).

ACCESS

At the junction of Brookstown Avenue and South Main Street, beside Old Salem, Winston-Salem, North Carolina; a street-side landmark.

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The Fratellis Bull

Winston-Salem, North Carolina

A red-and-white fiberglass and steel bull statue, about 11 feet tall and weighing almost a ton according to the Winston-Salem Journal, stands beside Fratellis Italian Steakhouse at 2000 Reynolda Road, Winston-Salem, on the site of the former Staley's Charcoal Steak House (1957-2003). The restaurant's owners bought it in December 2019 from Thrift Way Meats and Produce, where it had stood on steel poles as a sign, and installed it in January 2020. The Journal first reported it as the original Staley's bull; a Clemmons Courier column said the next day that the original's owner came forward and called it a case of mistaken identity.

Animals and creatures

2.8 km away

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