George Vanderbilt began building the 250-room Biltmore House in Asheville, North Carolina, in 1889, a year after he traveled to the city on a family vacation with his mother. Roughly 1,000 people worked on the project, ranging from local laborers to internationally known artists. Indiana limestone, Italian marble and other supplies were shipped into Asheville by rail. Vanderbilt built a private railroad track from the village depot to the construction site, while an on-site kiln produced up to 32,000 bricks daily, and a woodworking factory supplied oak and walnut for the house’s floors and walls. The house was completed in 1895 and opened to the public in March 1930.
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The eight-foot-tall bronze statue of John Coltrane in downtown High Point, North Carolina, was dedicated in September 2006. The acclaimed saxophonist is best known for his work with famed trumpeter Miles Davis and pianist Thelonious Monk. Coltrane was born on September 23, 1926, in Hamlet, North Carolina, and his family moved to High Point when he was three months old. He graduated from High Point’s William Penn High School.
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The World’s Largest Chair was first built in the early 1920s when the city was know known as “The Chair Town.” That was in large part to the Thomasville Chair Co. The original chair, a 30-foot-tall replica of a Duncan Phyfe armchair, was erected in 1922. The chair — made of lumber and Swiss steer hide — was scrapped in 1936, less than two decades after it originally appeared. However, circa 1950, local organizations built a new chair out of concrete. The city apparently covered the cost of the base while contributions covered the cost to construct the chair. The chair was refurbished in 1993 and re-dedicated in 2001. Over the years, the chair has been considered the world’s largest, a title that could be disputed.
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The World’s Largest Chest of Drawers, also know as the Bureau of Information, was built in 1926 as a way to bring some attention to High Point, the Furniture Capital of the World. The building, modeled after a 19th-century dresser, stands 32 feet tall. It was renovated in 1996. The building features a pair of six-foot-tall socks dangling from one of the drawers.
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