The Sunsphere
Tower · Knoxville, Tennessee
A 266-foot steel tower topped with a gold-tinted glass sphere, built as the theme structure of the 1982 World's Fair in Knoxville and left standing when the fair closed. The gold in the glass is real, which is the detail everyone likes. It sits in World's Fair Park with an observation deck near the top, and it has spent four decades as the thing Knoxville is drawn as, helped along by an episode of The Simpsons that called it a wigsphere.
810 Clinch Avenue, Knoxville, Tennessee, 37902, United States
World's Fair Park is free and open at all hours; the tower is lit at night. The observation deck keeps its own hours and its access arrangement has changed several times since 1982 — verify current opening and pricing before travelling.