Some places have a giant dinosaur… others a big spaceship. Marietta is no different on the we-have-a-giant-monument front… it has a giant mechanical eye-rolling chicken.
The Big Chicken is often used as a directional waymark by locals. On my way into Marietta, when I saw the landmark and knew exactly when to turn left because most Marietta directions online refer to The Chicken. It’s not just people on the ground who use the chicken in giving directions. Pilots flying into the Atlanta airport use the chicken as a reference point on approach.
The base wasn’t always a Kentucky Fried Chicken restaurant. The chicken was built in 1963 atop a restaurant called Johnny Reb’s Chick, Chuck and Shake. It was later sold to Johnny’s brother and became a KFC franchise.
As an aside, it’s actually kind of ironic that the chicken has an advertisement for PepsiCola on it’s neck… Georgia is where Coca Cola was invented.
