One Illinois exit off I-70 leads to a town where everything is 40 times too big

Casey’s big things aren’t going anywhere

Casey, Illinois, sits just off Interstate 70 in east-central Illinois, roughly halfway between St. Louis and Indianapolis. About 2,400 people live here.

Twelve Guinness World Records call this place home, all for oversized everyday objects scattered across a few walkable blocks. More than 20 other big things fill in the gaps.

Most of them sit outdoors, cost nothing to see, and you can touch them. The whole town covers 2.6 square miles, but you’ll want hours to take it all in.

One man’s plan to pull drivers off the interstate

Around 2009, a lifelong Casey resident named Jim Bolin had a problem. His wife and daughter wanted to open a tea shop, but nobody was stopping in town.

Bolin ran a pipeline and tank company called Bolin Enterprises, and he had plenty of recycled pipe, scrap metal, and old telephone poles lying around.

So he built a massive wind chime, got Guinness to certify it in 2012, and kept going. Over 15 years, he built all 12 record holders and dozens more.

Bolin passed away on Jan. 27, 2026, at 61, but his company and the town have committed to continuing his work.

Pull a rope and ring the 54-foot wind chime

The wind chime stands 54 feet tall on East Main Street, and it started everything. Five metal tubes hang 49 feet off the ground, the longest one stretching 42 feet.

The whole thing weighs close to 17,000 pounds. You walk up, grab a rope, and pull.

The sound is deep and low, the kind you feel in your chest. Christian and Jewish symbols run through the steel support braces.

Guinness certified it on June 22, 2012, and it remains one of the most photographed spots in town.

A 56-foot rocking chair that took ten men to prove it rocks

Directly across the street from the wind chime, a wooden rocking chair rises 56 feet 1 inch. It weighs 46,200 pounds and took two years to build.

Carved into the headrest, you’ll spot a dove and olive branches. Guinness required proof the chair could actually rock, so ten grown men climbed up and pushed it.

You can’t ride it yourself, but standing at the base and looking straight up gives you a sense of scale that photos just don’t capture.

Climb inside the mailbox and send a letter from the top

About a block west on Main Street, a giant white mailbox holds 5,743 cubic feet of space inside. You climb a built-in stairway up the post and get a clear view of downtown Casey from the top.

Drop a letter in the working mail slot, and a giant red flag raises on the side. Guinness required it to function, so it has its own postal cancellation stamp.

Your letter falls to a locked compartment at ground level, so the mail carrier never has to make the climb.

A 60-foot pitchfork guards a local farm restaurant

The pitchfork stretches over 60 feet long and weighs 1,940 pounds.

You’ll find it at a well-known local farm restaurant that has been part of Casey for decades, a nod to the town’s agricultural roots.

About a mile from downtown, the golf course holds another record: a golf tee standing over 30 feet tall, carved from yellow pine boards glued into a solid block and shaped with chainsaws.

Guinness certified the pitchfork in 2015 and the tee in 2013.

Step inside the giant Dutch shoes at the bakery

The World’s Largest Wooden Shoes sit indoors at a local bakery and candy shop. Each clog weighs about 2,500 pounds, and you can step inside with up to 15 people per shoe.

Toss a coin in to help with maintenance. Outside a downtown barber shop, the World’s Largest Barber Pole rises in red, white and blue, certified in 2019.

Down the street, the World’s Largest Teeter-Totter stretches 82 feet long with gated sides for safety. On select days, you can walk right across it.

The 12th record sits 20 miles away at a courthouse

A giant truck key replicates the key to Jim Bolin’s own Chevrolet work truck, built from over 8,000 pounds of steel. The World’s Largest Swizzle Spoon stands over 11 feet tall near a downtown coffee shop.

At the visitor center, the World’s Largest Golf Club runs nearly 50 feet long and weighs more than 3,000 pounds.

The 12th record, the World’s Largest Gavel, sits 20 miles east at the Clark County Courthouse in Marshall, Ill., so you’ll need to take a short drive to complete the full set.

Find the giant mousetrap and the bookworm too

Beyond the 12 record holders, more than 20 other oversized sculptures fill the downtown blocks.

You can sit inside a big birdcage, pose next to a giant mousetrap with a playful photo-op sign, and find a big bookworm outside the public library.

A giant pencil, ear of corn, ice cream cone, piggy bank, rocking horse and pizza slicer round out the collection. Local businesses added their own, like a taco and pizza slicer outside their shops.

Grab a scavenger-hunt map at the visitor center and check them all off.

Old telephone poles and junk pipe got a second life

Nearly every sculpture in Casey comes from reclaimed materials: old telephone poles, damaged pipe, retired oil tanks and scrap steel. Bolin Enterprises supplied the raw goods and the fabrication know-how.

The bookworm, for example, came from junk pipe that Bolin had saved for 20 years before he found the right use for it.

This approach kept costs low and turned industrial cast-offs into something people drive hours to see. You can watch new pieces take shape at the Big Things in a Small Town Workshop downtown.

Downtown went from empty storefronts to 1,500 weekend visitors

Before the big things went up, Casey’s downtown was largely empty. No tourism, no foot traffic.

Now, up to 1,500 visitors show up on a given weekend, and the town had to drop its speed limit to 20 mph for pedestrian safety.

New shops, cafes and small businesses have opened in the years since that first wind chime went up, and locals have started shopping downtown again.

Fairview Park, a green space near downtown, gives you picnic spots, a fishing pond and a disc golf course when you need a break between stops.

Shops open Thursday through Saturday, big things open always

Casey sits about three hours south of Chicago, two and a half from St. Louis and one and a half from Indianapolis. Every outdoor attraction is free and visible at all times, day or night.

But if you want the full experience with shops open, come Thursday through Saturday from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. The indoor attractions, like the wooden shoes, follow shop hours.

A visitor center at 4 South Central Ave. has maps, the giant golf club and the giant mousetrap inside.

Explore the big things in Casey, Illinois

If you’re driving I-70 through east-central Illinois, Casey is worth the detour.

The town sits in Clark County, roughly halfway between St. Louis and Indianapolis, and you can see most of the 12 Guinness World Record holders and 20-plus other big things in a half day.

Nearly all of them are free, outdoors and within a few walkable downtown blocks.

Check the official website or the Casey Chamber of Commerce for visitor information, maps and current shop hours before you go.

This article was created with AI assistance and human editing.

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