The Big Duck enjoys top billing as a quirky roadside attraction!

Flanders, New York – At the dawn of the Great Depression, Long Island duck farmer Martin Maurer and his wife. Jeule on a road trip and enjoy a cup of joe inside a large coffee pot.

They decided, as the story goes, that if the world could have a great deal of coffee, it really needed a big duck, and they would be the ones to give us all.

And so in 1931 one of the strangest and most influential roadside attractions in American history was born. The large duck is 20 feet long, 18 feet wide, and 30 feet long. It’s knit with wood frame, wire mesh, and white plaster cement–and 91 years of love, thanks to countless caretakers and visitors. Red duck eyes come from the tail lights of a Ford Model T.

This was the Great Depression, and it used to be practical.

To say the big duck is still a popular tourist destination does not do it justice. A visit to the Big Duck isn’t just a stop on a vacation trip or a side trip during a weekend in the Hamptons. It takes some time to make your way to the Big Duck in the Long Island’s East End. It is a pilgrimage, something people do because they hear about it and are determined to witness it for themselves.

The big duck is made for bucket lists.

This is what the couple and their daughter told ABC’s Local recently while enjoying the splendor of Big Duck, on Route 24 in Flanders, New York. They saw it in a book years ago, and now, they’re finally seeing it in person.

The Big Duck is a bustling place at a time when the East End had dozens of duck farms.

There’s only one left today, and it’s not the big duck. The only ducks you’ll find sold inside their stomachs these days are assorted souvenirs, but Big Duck’s main draw has long been its delightful architecture.

Visitors to the Big Duck are likely to meet Janice Jay Young, but she’s not just about bringing your T-shirt and mug at the cash register. Young has encyclopedic knowledge of Big Duck and is one of his most proud promoters. When visitors come, pouring in all day, from far and wide, she’s ready with a compact but compelling history of the Big Duck.

She talks about the Maurer family, who had the plucking to build the duck. She’ll talk about how the wandering Pekin, who first settled in nearby Riverhead, has moved so many times over the years, until she finally nests, probably forever, in her long home in Flanders, at Big Duck Ranch. She will talk about the 1980s campaign to save her, after the duck farm was closed down.

You’ll point to a collage on the wall with dozens of pictures, postcards, and articles about other examples of architecture—large coffee pots, big tea kettles, big fish, big bottles of ketchup that popped up across America decades ago, when the road was ruled for flights and plane flights were fictional—or they weren’t. Still just fancy trips.

Richard Martin, director of historical services for the Suffolk County Parks Department, explains the stuck term “duck” as a way to describe this type of architecture — buildings designed to look like the product they’re selling, hoping to lure motorists off the road to spend a few bucks and maybe take a picture or two. .

As the duck owner, Suffolk County is tasked with taking care of it with the help of big duck friends. The land on which the duck sits belongs to the city of Southampton, and is protected from evolution. People will be able to visit the ducks and the surrounding farm forever.

Young said the duck means a lot to the locals here in Flanders. In this small village, The Big Duck is the center of their community.

“Flanders is kind of no-man’s land. You know, we’re the western part of Southampton Town. And sometimes we feel a little forgotten here. So there’s no bank, no post office, no zip code. You know, actually we don’t have a grocery store, Young explains.

She points out that Flanders has something that no one else has.

“We have a big duck.”

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