Atlanta GA The Big Chicken 8 Marietta Georgia Landmark Architectural Art

by Reid Callaway

Title

Atlanta GA The Big Chicken 8 Marietta Georgia Landmark Architectural Art

Artist

Reid Callaway

Medium

Photograph - Photography

Description

Atlanta GA The Big Chicken 8.......By Reid Callaway
Marietta Georgia Landmark Architectural Art

This is one of Atlanta's (Marietta) Georgia most famous landmarks and known affectionally as "The Big Chicken"! If you have not heard about this famous restaurant before, you have now. The Big Chicken was remodeled again in 2016-2017 and no longer looks like this. Oh, the "Big Chicken" is still there for sure but the insides have been updated. See my other images of the Big Chicken to compare the changes. Buy this image for the "chicken lover" in your life!

Enjoy the story and history below.

The Big Chicken is a KFC restaurant in Marietta, Georgia, which features a 56-foot-tall (17 m) steel-sided structure designed in the appearance of a chicken rising up from the top of the building. It is located at the city's biggest intersection of Cobb Parkway (U.S. 41/Georgia 3) and Roswell Road (Georgia 120) and is a well-known landmark in the area. Constructed in 1956, it was rebuilt following storm damage in 1993.

History....
The restaurant was built in 1956 at 12 Cobb Parkway, on the newly constructed stretch of Highway 41, the first divided highway in Cobb County. Taking advantage of the prime location on the new and quicker route for travelers on U.S. 41, Johnny Reb's Chick, Chuck and Shake owner S. R. "Tubby" Davis erected the 56-foot (17-meter) tall structure over his restaurant in 1963 as a method of advertising. The novelty architecture was designed by Hubert Puckett, a Georgia Tech student of architecture, and fabricated by Atlantic Steel in nearby Atlanta (of which Marietta is a suburb). Davis later sold it to his brother, and it became a franchise of KFC.

In January 1993, storm winds damaged the structure, and rather than tear it down KFC was forced by public outcry to re-erect the building. Among those who complained about the Big Chicken being torn down were pilots, who actually used the building as a reference point when approaching Atlanta and Dobbins Air Reserve Base. The new Big Chicken even includes the original design of beak and eyes which move, although this time the vibrations which plagued the first structure (even to the point of breaking windows) have been eliminated. Pieces of the original structure were sold to collectors as souvenirs. In early April 2006, the structure narrowly escaped a small eastward-moving nighttime tornado, which overturned a tractor-trailer at a Kmart across the street, and damaged another building nearby.

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Uploaded

February 3rd, 2022

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