Video: Pepper with questions: Traer tries to shake up tourism »

TRAER -- No mountains, lakes or caves grace the landscape of northern Tama County, just rolling hills and grain bins. It is a good place for harvesting crops, not necessarily for harvesting tourist dollars.

Instead of giving up hope on tapping into a $5.4 billion industry in Iowa, members of Traer Community Betterment got creative.

"We don't have any natural attributes that are going to draw people, so then the next stage is to look around and see what do we have that people might come and see," said Ellen Young, director of the nonprofit organization.

Members of the City Council approved $12,500 in local option sales tax money to buy a collection. What they will get is more than 14,400 pairs of salt and pepper shakers assembled by Ruth Rasmussen of Traer.

The money will pay half of the cost. Matching funds will come from donations or grants. The collection will likely be on display next year.

Facing a similar challenge, other towns around Northeast Iowa have also turned to unconventional attractions. They run the gamut -- from Iowa's largest frying pan to the world's smallest church -- and appear to be effective tools to get people into towns they would otherwise never visit.

Room for two

Traer already has a unique local feature, a winding iron staircase leading to the former headquarters of the Traer Star-Clipper. The stairs were built in 1894 as a way to access the newspaper's second-floor entrance.

The attraction is as ingrained in the character of the city as the Golden Gate Bridge is for San Francisco. The spiral steps show up in both Traer's slogan -- "Wind Up in Traer" -- and its annual celebration -- the Winding Stairs Festival.

Some felt the town could use another draw. Young said the idea to start a shaker museum came during a conference about tourism several years ago. She had thought about the collection on and off over the years, but Rasmussen, 84, only recently agreed to sell.

"I'm happy to have a good place for them, and I can't take care of them anymore," Rasmussen said.

The collection is reportedly the second largest in the world. At one point, however, the Guinness Book of World Records certified her collection as the largest.

Rasmussen began modestly in 1949. She picked up her first two shakers at the Brookfield Zoo in Chicago. They were shaped like silver bells with a nameplate for the zoo attached. Her biggest purchase came in 1950 when she bought a group with 1,500 sets. Her collection spans decades, the nation and several countries.

One pair is a gift from a soldier who picked them up while serving in Iraq. The soldier carried the shakers in his pack for a year before hand-delivering them to Rasmussen.

The collection over the years attracted visitors from far and wide. Rasmussen keeps stacks of photos and logbooks signed by people from a variety of countries, like Germany and Switzerland.

"There are some more, but I've forgotten them," she said.

Young said donations for the matching funds are coming along well. She is applying for grants as well. Once Traer Community Betterment buys the collection, the organization can look at building a museum.

Phyllis McKee, a pharmacist at NuCara Pharmacy, thinks Rasmussen's unique collection will be enough to divert motorists off U.S. Highway 63.

"If we can bring more tourism, that'll be a good thing," she said.

Not everyone in town shares her opinion, including a member of the City Council.

The council approved the purchase on a 4-1 vote at a meeting Sept. 4. Larry Ohrt, the only member to vote against the project, said city money shouldn't be used to buy salt and pepper shakers. He called the allocation a "slippery slope."

Young thinks people opposed to the concept haven't seen the collection yet, and the investment will pay off in the future. People are tired of seeing the same "cookie-cutter" attractions and are looking for something else, she added.

"They want to do and see some different things and things they can tell their friends about."

Grain of salt

The Salt and Pepper Shaker Museum in Gatlinburg, Tenn., is home to the world's largest collection and features more than 20,000 sets. The museum sees up to 22,000 visitors a year, Andrea Ludden said. Her mother, also named Andrea, began the collection 23 years ago.

Ludden said the museum attracts guests from as far away as Australia and Japan. In some cases, visitors plan their vacations around a stop in Gatlinburg.

Those attendance figures may not be matched by Traer's museum. The Ludden family moved its collection from Texas to Tennessee to tap into the about 12 million people visiting Gatlinburg annually. The family thought they wouldn't be able to make such a museum float unless it was situated near such a tourist hub.

But Ludden said the idea might work other places. She thinks everyone can identify with salt and pepper shakers.

"It's one object that everyone can associate themselves with," she said.

Other niche museums may not appeal to everyone, Ludden added. People who don't fly, for example, may not appreciate an aerospace museum.

When Traer's museum does open, it will be one of the many off-beat attractions across Northeast Iowa.

Some are family heirlooms that evolved into regional landmarks. Others are purposeful ploys meant to put towns on the map.

One in that category is the world's largest strawberry in Strawberry Point. The giant berry was first thought up in 1966 by the Strawberry Point Jaycees.

"Being Strawberry Point, I'd say we got a bigger draw with a big strawberry up there than we would have with a big watermelon or a muskmelon or something like that," said Gene Rima, secretary-treasurer for the chamber of commerce.

Rima said the town's claim about the berry hasn't been challenged. The town of Poteet, Texas, however, claims it has the tallest strawberry -- which sits on top of a water tower.

Strawberry Point's giant fiberglass offering weighs 1,430 pounds and stands 30 feet tall including a 15-foot pedestal. The berry is 12.5 feet wide. It cost the Jaycees $5,200.

The gamble worked, Rima said. After a strong advertising campaign, people started coming to see the oddity. Many people stop by for a quick photo while on their way to Backbone State Park, he added.

"I wish I had a dollar for everybody that took a picture of it," Rima said. "It'd be better than my retirement."

Thinking big took on new proportions in Brandon as well. The Buchanan County town lays claim to Iowa's largest frying pan. The attraction was built in 2004 to promote the town's Cowboy Breakfast. The town's community club holds the fundraiser twice a year.

"A couple of people thought, 'Let's have a big skillet,'" said Marlene Brown, president of the Brandon Historical Society. "All of a sudden, they talked about it and it was there."

The pan's rim measures 9 feet in diameter. The handle is 5 feet long. It weighs more than 1,000 pounds. Town lore says the pan could cook 374 Iowa pork chops at the same time -- if it were functional.

A large sign along Interstate 380 proudly advertises the pan. The local convenience store also carries a variety of souvenirs following the theme. And Brown said hardly a day goes by when someone isn't snapping a photo.

Family feel

A lonely sign off a blacktop road outside Fort Atkinson points to another approach. The marker guides the way to St. Anthony of Padua in Festina, dubbed the world's smallest church.

The Roman Catholic chapel was built in 1885 by Johann Gaertner and John Huber. The structure measures 12 by 16 feet inside for 192 square feet of space, large enough to accommodate up to eight parishioners. While the Archdiocese of Dubuque still owns the property, Gaertner's descendants assumed the task of caring for the landmark.

Gaertner, a French immigrant, fulfilled a promise his mother made: If he returned safely from the Napoleonic Wars, she would build a church. His mother died before she could fulfill that vow.

The only service still held at the small chapel is on the Sunday closest to June 13 each year, the feast of St. Anthony of Padua. It is a reunion Mass for family members, said Art Huber, one of Gaertner's descendants.

Huber said family members know if the "smallest church" claim is ironclad.

"There's at least some question," he said.

The smallest church is a frequent claim for attractions. In Iowa alone, two other churches in Waukon and Elk Horn are smaller. Both have less than 45 square feet of floor space.

Huber said the family's goal hasn't been to profit from tourism. In fact, he said the family doesn't advertise its heirloom as an attraction beyond a sign on the road and a listing in brochures promoting Winneshiek County.

"We didn't advertise it at all because it's kind of out of the bounds of decorum or what we felt was right for the church," he said.

Oftentimes, though, people visit as part of a circuit through the county. The tourists will visit other attractions like the Vesterheim Norwegian-American Museum in Decorah or the Bily Clocks Museum and Antonin Dvorak Exhibit in Spillville before going to Festina.

Local residents say the church helps by attracting people to surrounding towns.

"It puts them on the map. People are apt to come and visit, and who knows, maybe they'll spend some time here or make it an overnight stay," said Neal Holthaus, owner of Neal's Auto Body Shop in Festina. "That's all helpful for the communities around here."

Best bet

Young, director of Traer's betterment organization, doesn't look at the off-beat attractions as pointless or tasteless. She said people probably laughed at the idea of creating the world's largest ball of twine (in either Cawker City, Kan., or Darwin, Minn., depending on the criteria.) But things changed when people showing up.

"I bet you a lot of people kind of jumped on that bandwagon, and there's probably a lot of people taking advantage of that attraction to build up their own businesses and things," she said.

Ultimately, though, the idea of these attractions isn't to carve out a niche with the world's most obscure creation.

They help get people in the towns, and maybe get them to look around some more, she said.

Young points to successful exhibits like the Salt and Pepper Shaker Museum or another regional attraction, Matchstick Marvels in Gladbrook, as what her vision could net.

In Gladbrook, an artist named Pat Acton turned a hobby, carving and shaping matchsticks, into an art form that won fans around the world. His creations have been featured in Ripley's Believe It or Not museums and the House of Katmandu in Majorca, Spain.

"I'm amazed at how many busloads of people go to see Matchstick Marvels," Young said. "You'd think a little town of Gladbrook, people wouldn't go there, but people are just fascinated with them.

"Hopefully we can pick up some of those people once we get the salt and peppers set up."

Contact Josh Nelson at (319) 291-1565 or josh.nelson@wcfcourier.com.