World's Largest Frying Pan

Brandon, Iowa, United States

·

Roadside giants

✓

Current

Listed, not yet checked

This Big Thing is recorded as still being here.

Iowa's Largest Fryin' Pan is a roadside frying pan in Brandon, Iowa, built in 2004 by local men to promote the town's semi-annual Cowboy Breakfast. Travel Iowa gives its rim as 9 feet 3 inches across and its total length with the five-foot handle as 14 feet 3 inches; it weighs about 1,020 pounds. It is billed as the largest in Iowa, not the world. A December 2023 magazine report described it beside the road into town.

Private to your Passport.

PLAN YOUR VISIT

No recommended arrival yet

We have not checked a recommended place to arrive or stop here yet.

This takes you to the Big Thing itself. If stopping, choose a safe and legal place nearby.

World's Largest Frying Pan

This pin marks the Big Thing itself. If stopping, choose a safe and legal place nearby.

Approximate location · 42.226° N, 91.950° W

FIELD GUIDE

The story

Brandon, Iowa, a town of fewer than 400 residents according to a 2023 magazine article, was reported in December 2023 to have a roadside frying pan about 14 feet long that is billed as the largest in the state.

Travel Iowa says the pan was built in 2004 by several local men to promote Brandon's Semi-Annual Cowboy Breakfast. It lists the work at 41 volunteer hours and says the pan was modeled on a 10-inch cast-iron skillet, scaled up to a 9-foot-3-inch rim, a 5-foot handle, a total length of 14 feet 3 inches and a weight of 1,020 pounds. The listing gives the address as 802 Main Street and says the pan could hold 528 eggs, against six in a 10-inch pan. Travel Iowa's page carries a notice that its information has not been updated within the last 12 months.

A December 2023 article in Little Village magazine, updated in February 2024, described the pan as visible on the way into Brandon, a town reached from I-380 between Cedar Rapids and Waterloo. It reported that a sign explaining the pan gives the same 1,020-pound weight and capacity figures, and it called the pan a marketing ploy for the Cowboy Breakfast. The magazine describes the breakfast as held from 8 a.m. to 1 p.m. on the third Sunday of September every year (Travel Iowa calls it semi-annual), with food cooked over open fires in cast-iron frying pans and proceeds helping maintain the Brandon Area Community Center. It says that since 2000 around 1,000 people have gathered for it, a figure it notes is large for a town of under 400.

Add a photo

PRACTICAL