11 of the Weirdest Colorado Roadside Attractions Worth Stopping For

Colorado’s Strangest Roadside Stops That’ll Make You Do a Double Take

Colorado’s highways hide some seriously strange attractions that’ll make your road trip way more interesting than just mountain views and ski resorts. Here are 11 of our favorites.

Frozen Dead Guy Shed (Estes Park)

Believe it or not, a frozen body named Bredo Morstoel has been kept on dry ice since 1989 in a shed. An “Ice Specialist” keeps Grandpa Bredo at a chilly -60°F using 1,600 pounds of dry ice each month.

You can’t go inside the shed, but they do celebrate annual “Frozen Dead Guy Days” festival in March, drawing large crowds for quirky events like the “coffin race.”

UFO Watchtower (Hooper)

The truth is out there—at least according to Judy Messoline, who built this UFO lookout in 2000 after locals reported strange lights in the San Luis Valley.

The 10-foot platform offers 360-degree views of an area known for having the most UFO sightings in America.

The dome-shaped gift shop shows over 200 documented visitor sightings. Visitors have left hundreds of special objects in the “Healing Garden,” creating what some believe are real energy vortexes.

Bishop Castle (Rye)

Jim Bishop began building the castle when he was just 15 years old in 1969, and it’s been under construction ever since.

Jim placed every one of the estimated 1,000 tons of rock by hand. It has three full stories of rooms, winding staircases, stained glass, and iron balconies—all built without blueprints or formal training.

Colorado Gators Reptile Park (Mosca)

This surprising reptile park started in 1977 as a tilapia farm that used the valley’s natural 87-degree geothermal water. The owners bought 100 baby alligators to help get rid of fish waste, and things grew from there.

Today, the park is home to over 300 alligators, including Morris, a 13-foot-long gator that weighs almost 600 pounds. The park also houses a variety of other reptiles, including snakes and turtles.

Cano’s Castle (Antonito)

Dominic “Cano” Espinoza built this cool palace using thousands of beer cans, hub caps, wire, and scrap metal. The four-tower structure, which Cano calls “Jesus’s Castle,” has been slowly growing since the 1980s. The main tower rises almost 40 feet.

May Natural History Museum (Colorado Springs)

This amazing museum holds over 100,000 carefully preserved insect specimens that John May collected during 80 years of trips across 60 countries.

Founded in 1952, the museum shows less than one-fifth of May’s full collection, which is considered one of the most valuable private insect collections in the world.

Highlights include the 9-inch Goliath beetle, bright morpho butterflies with 12-inch wingspans, and giant walking sticks longer than your forearm.

The Wonder Tower (Genoa)

This 87-foot lookout claims you can “See Six States” from the top (Colorado, Kansas, Nebraska, Wyoming, New Mexico, and South Dakota). Charles W. Gregory built it in 1926 as a tourist spot on the highest point between New York and Denver, and it once drew 20,000 visitors a year.

Inside, an odd mix of over 20,000 items includes Native American tools, pioneer tools, geologic specimens, and strange things like two-headed calves.

Swetsville Zoo (Fort Collins)

Bill Swets started welding these quirky sculptures in 1985 using car parts, farm equipment, and scrap metal. The collection has everything from dragons and dinosaurs to musical instruments and space aliens, with some standing over 20 feet tall. Swets, a retired fire chief, made each piece without formal art training, working entirely from his imagination.

World’s Largest Fork (Creede)

This giant fork stands 40 feet tall and weighs over 600 pounds. Local artists created the huge utensil in 1995, originally making it for a restaurant in another town before it found its place in this historic silver mining community. Made from aluminum and built to withstand Colorado’s mountain winds, the fork has become Creede’s unofficial mascot.

Mike the Headless Chicken Monument (Fruita)

This statue honors a truly remarkable bird that lived for 18 months after losing his head in 1945. Farmer Lloyd Olsen’s axe missed Mike’s jugular vein and brain stem, leaving enough of the brain to keep the chicken alive.

The determined bird kept “pecking” for food, and Mike’s owner fed him with an eyedropper down his exposed throat. Mike became famous worldwide, toured in sideshows charging 25¢ per view, appeared in Life and Time magazines.

Buckhorn Exchange’s Wall of Dead Things (Denver)

Colorado’s oldest restaurant (opened in 1893) doubles as a natural history museum, with over 500 mounted animal specimens covering every inch of wall space.

The collection includes 35 different species, from powerful buffaloes to delicate birds, all preserved by expert taxidermists. You can also see an impressive collection of antique guns and Old West artifacts.

The building itself is on the National Register of Historic Places and still serves wild game dishes from its original menu.