World’s Largest Horseshoe Crab, Blanchester, OH
We missed this one when we went to Ohio over Memorial Day! This month’s guest post – about the world’s largest horseshoe crab — comes from Terri Weeks, a family travel writer in the Cincinnati area and mom of three. I love her family’s mission — to visit all 50 states by the time her kids graduate from high school! She blogs about their adventures at Travel 50 States With Kids.
And, all you Twilight fans, take note — this crab has a small cameo in the movie, The Twilight Saga: Eclipse! Terri was intrepid in her research; read on:
Where we went, and who was coerced into going:
I took my husband and three kids, along with my daughter’s friend and her mom, to the World’s Largest Horseshoe Crab, in Blanchester, OH, which is about 35 minutes northeast of Cincinnati, OH. It is owned and maintained by the Freedom Worship Baptist Church. It was originally built for the Baltimore Columbus Center Maritime Museum, then obtained by the Creation Museum and donated to the church.
WHY did you go there, exactly?
Who doesn’t love roadside attractions? We fell in love with giant roadside attractions on a trip out west a few years ago. North Dakota boasts the world’s largest Holstein cow, sandhill crane, and buffalo, and we stopped at all of them. So why not check out a horseshoe crab and see how it measured up? This giant was a mere 20-minute jaunt from my house, but I’d never seen it before.
World's Largest Horseshoe Crab!
Okay, what was so cool about it?
We weren’t expecting a very tall structure, and it isn’t, but it is definitely long! A garden which was blossoming with daffodils and other spring flowers surrounds the crab. Walking toward the back of the crab, we found that the crab is hollow.
The kids thought it was really cool that you could walk underneath the crab. Benches are available if you want to sit under the crab for a while. (I’m not sure why you’d want to sit under a crab, but if you did, the benches are there.)
I bet there's a fun echo in there!
According to the sign, the crab was also seen in the movie, The Twilight Saga: Eclipse.
I hadn’t seen that movie yet, so I rented it and watched the entire movie looking for the crab. I didn’t find it. I even watched parts over again, to see if I had missed it somehow. Still I couldn’t find it. So I Googled it and found out that the crab itself doesn’t actually appear in the movie. Instead, it appears on a T-shirt that Bella’s mom made into a quilt, along with many other T-shirts from trips they’d taken together.
The quilt is only in a couple of scenes and I didn’t see the crab in the movie itself, but one of the special features on the DVD is a 6-part documentary about the making of the movie. Part 2 is titled Pre-Production: Setting the Stage. This 12-minute feature covers various topics including vampire boot camp, set construction, and the making of props, including the quilt.
Bella's Quilt
Quite a lot of effort (400 hours) was put into making the quilts (they made three of them) from researching T-shirt companies, to making the shirts, to aging the shirts, then finally constructing the quilt.
While you’re visiting the World’s Largest Horseshoe Crab, you can also view the church’s other garden, Calvary’s Hill and Garden Tomb, which has three crosses and an empty tomb. Blanchester’s other main draw is the movie theater. It is a bargain hunter’s dream with first run movies with $2 matinees.
How it rated on a scale of 1 to 10 (1 = snoozefest, 10 = add to your bucket list): [rating=6]
Hey YOU! Go BIG!:
The World’s Largest Horseshoe Crab
664 West Main St. (Rt. 28), Blanchester, OH, 45107
937-625-4091
Well, I’m not sure -why- I would want to sit underneath a crab, but it’s good to know that the benches are there…just in case! I’ve got to make sure I check this one out next time I travel further south in Ohio.
I had no idea the World’s Biggest Horseshore Crab resides in Ohio. My family is headed to Cincinnati in a few weeks so I’ll this to our stop.
Are you going to the American Sign Museum? It’s re-opening in Cincy soon. That’s someplace I would love to see!
The museum (http://signmuseum.org/) reopened today in its new location and will now be open five days a week (Wed-Sun) on a regular basis. It’s a dandy.
Oh my gosh, I had no idea that Ohio had a World’s Largest anything. Definitely worth a trip to check it out. Thanks for the fun idea!
There’s also the world’s largest rubber stamp and the world’s largest collection of rock music memorabilia…check some of our recent posts! 🙂
Fun post. I too am surprised that the World’s Largest Horsheshoe Crab resides in Ohio. Learn something new everyday…
I definitely did not expect it to be in OH! I figured FL since we see them here all the time! Yes, learn something new everyday!!
Being featured on a T-shirt in a quilt in the special features of a DVD of a movie is a new one for me. Not many roadside attractions can claim that I’d guess. Gene Sullivan’s 2008 motorcycle jump over the crab was filmed by TBN for later broadcast so there may be an official movie appearance (there are plenty of amateur YouTube videos) out there. Searching the TBN site for “crab” mostly turns up references to The Crabb Family and none of them appear to be especially large.
Someone jumped over the crab on a motorcycle?!? Wow; I had no idea! Thanks for the info!
Interesting, funny place.
Did you know that the horsehoe crab is one of the world’s oldest creatures? Not the individual crabs themselves, but today’s horseshoe crabs are direct descendants from identical creatures which inhabited the seas over 240 million years ago.
Really? I didn’t know that! We went to Gatorland last week in Orlando, and learned that alligators have been around for quite some time, as well. We also saw a few of those timeless cockroaches, but we didn’t have to go to a special attraction for that!