{"nrhp_refnum":"05000097","name":"Coffee Pot, The","other_names":[],"category":"building","location":{"address":"Business Rte 30","address_restricted":false,"city":"Bedford Township","county":"Bedford County","state":"PA","lat":40.02335932900007,"lon":-78.51654476699997,"geom_source":"nps_gis"},"listed_date":"2005-02-24","is_nhl":false,"nhl_designated_date":null,"areas_of_significance":["Architecture"],"significance_levels":["local"],"summary":{"what_it_is":"The Coffee Pot is a round two-story building in the shape of an old-fashioned coffee pot, located on the south side of Route 30 (the Lincoln Highway) just west of the borough of Bedford, Pennsylvania, at the eastern entrance to the Bedford County Fairgrounds. It was constructed in 1927.","why_significant":"The nomination argues the building is significant under Criterion C as an example of early twentieth-century programmatic architecture, where buildings are designed in the form of everyday objects to attract motorists. It is described as one of the few surviving examples of such buildings from the 1920s and 1930s along the Lincoln Highway, and it retains its relationship to that highway despite relocation in 2003.","narrative":"Built in 1927 beside a filling station on the Lincoln Highway west of Bedford, this two-story round building was shaped like an oversized coffee pot, with concrete spout and handle appendages and a shallow overhanging roof resembling a lid. Its original owner, Albert Koontz, ran the adjacent station, and the building later served as a restaurant and then a bar. Its design aimed to catch the eye of motorists and signal that food and coffee were sold inside, merging architecture and sign. Its importance lies in being a rare surviving example of the programmatic roadside architecture that flourished along early automobile routes in the 1920s and 1930s. The building was moved in 2003 and restored in 2004, and it remains close to the highway it was built to serve. Its stucco exterior, the interior round rooms, and its overall silhouette preserve the form that made it an early landmark of automobile-oriented commerce in Pennsylvania.","period_of_significance":"1927","architect_builder":null,"architectural_style":"Other: Programmatic architecture","criteria":["C"],"status_note":"Relocated in December 2003 about 500 feet to the fairgrounds entrance and restored in summer 2004; the document says businesses failed and the building became vacant.","vacant_flag":true,"machine_generated":true,"model":"claude-haiku-5-5","prompt_version":"v1.1-2026-10-29","generated_at":"2026-10-29 17:10:27.522072-05","source_pdf":"https://s3.amazonaws.com/NARAprodstorage/lz/electronic-records/rg-079/NPS_PA/05000097.pdf"},"photo":{"url_800":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/media/05000097/a2304a6158-800.webp","url_1600":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/media/05000097/a2304a6158-1600.webp","licence":"CC BY-SA 2.0","author":"Jeff Kubina from Columbia, Maryland","credit_html":"<a href=\"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:TheCoffeePot.jpg\" rel=\"noopener\">Jeff Kubina from Columbia, Maryland</a>, <a href=\"https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0\" rel=\"license noopener\">CC BY-SA 2.0</a>, via Wikimedia Commons","source_page":"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:TheCoffeePot.jpg"},"district":null,"sources":{"nps_snapshot_date":"2026-05-22","nara_catalog":"https://catalog.archives.gov/id/71994596","wikipedia":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Coffee_Pot_(Bedford,_Pennsylvania)","wikidata":"https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q7726606"},"indexable":true,"url":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/pennsylvania/bedford-county/coffee-pot-the-05000097/"}