Leaning Tower of Texas (Leaning Tower of Britten)

Groom, Texas, United States

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Current

Listed, not yet checked · Oct 2026

This Big Thing is recorded as still being here.

A deliberately tilted 75-foot water tower lettered "Britten U.S.A." stands beside the westbound Interstate 40 frontage road east of Groom, Texas. Ralph Britten set it at an angle in the early 1980s as advertising for his truck stop, which burned in 1988.

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Leaning Tower of Texas (Leaning Tower of Britten)

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

Approximate location · 35.202° N, 101.107° W

FIELD GUIDE

The story

A water tower made to look as though it is falling over, and still stopping travellers more than four decades later, the Leaning Tower of Texas is one of the Panhandle's best-known roadside attractions, according to Texas Highways.

According to Texas Highways in June 2025, Ralph Britten planned a truck stop at Groom and bought a water tower from a gas plant near Lefors, about 30 miles away. It stood 75 feet tall and 22 feet wide, and the family hauled it on its side across farmland and dirt roads. For two years it lay horizontal while the truck stop was finished. Truckers on CB radio kept talking about the sideways tower, and once it was upright the chatter stopped, which gave Britten his idea.

The lean is engineered. Texas Highways reports that two of the four legs are anchored to concrete pillars and that buried crossbars hold the tower steady, working like a bicycle kickstand, while the other two legs hover two to three feet off the ground. The magazine puts the lean at about five degrees from vertical and says the family never filled the tower with water to balance it, contrary to some accounts. A 2022 Route 66 blog gives a 10-degree tilt, a start around 1980 and a truck-stop fire in 1985; Texas Highways dates the installation to the early 1980s and the fire to 1988.

Painted "Britten U.S.A." in red, white and blue, the tower worked as a roadside billboard for the Tower Fuel Stop. After an electrical fire in the kitchen the truck stop was never rebuilt, and Britten later moved to Amarillo. The magazine says his children repaint the tower every few years.

The tower is on the I-40 frontage road east of town, so it suits a short stop on a Route 66 drive across the Panhandle.

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PRACTICAL

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WHAT TO EXPECT

A 75-foot water tower tilted about five degrees, lettered "Britten U.S.A.", with two legs hanging a few feet above the ground. Texas Highways (June 2025) says it still stands; the truck stop it advertised burned down in 1988.

ACCESS

Beside the westbound frontage road of Interstate 40, east of Groom in the Texas Panhandle, along the old Route 66 line. The truck stop it advertised no longer exists.

COMMUNITY

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66 Super Service Station

Alanreed, Texas

The 66 Super Service Station is a 1930 service station at Main and 3rd Street in Alanreed, Texas, on an early alignment of Route 66. The Old Route 66 Association of Texas says it closed in 1982; Route 66 News reported restored pumps installed in 2026.

Buildings and structures

33 km away

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