{"nrhp_refnum":"11000543","name":"Tepee, The","other_names":[],"category":"building","location":{"address":"7632 US 20","address_restricted":false,"city":"Cherry Valley","county":"Otsego County","state":"NY","lat":42.80976332900008,"lon":-74.68419649399993,"geom_source":"nps_gis"},"listed_date":"2011-08-18","is_nhl":false,"nhl_designated_date":null,"areas_of_significance":["Entertainment/Recreation","Architecture"],"significance_levels":["local"],"summary":{"what_it_is":"A roadside gift shop built in 1954 in the shape of a Plains Indian tepee, on the south side of US Route 20 about three miles northeast of the hamlet of Cherry Valley, Otsego County, New York.","why_significant":"The nomination argues it is a distinctive example of mid-1950s mimetic roadside architecture and is tied to recreation and tourism along US Route 20. Built by Ken and Iris Gurney as a larger replacement for their first tepee, it has become a well-known landmark that still serves its original function and retains a high level of integrity.","narrative":"Rising fifty feet above a wooded hillside on US Route 20 northeast of Cherry Valley, this gift shop takes the form of a Plains Indian tepee. Ken and Iris Gurney completed it in the spring of 1954 after a new highway bypassed the village and left their first tepee store, opened around 1950, off the main traffic. The building is a wood frame clad in galvanized steel on a concrete slab, forty-two feet across, with three decorative poles at the top. A wood-frame wing and a vestibule were added within a few years. Originally painted silver with zigzags, a thunderbird and other motifs, it now wears tan paint. It reflects the postwar boom in automobile travel, when businesses used oversized, eye-catching shapes to draw speeding motorists. Tepees were a popular roadside theme, though the form has no connection to the region. The building still operates as a shop and food stand and is known to travelers and roadside-architecture enthusiasts.","period_of_significance":"1954-c1960","architect_builder":"Ken Gurney, builder","architectural_style":"No style","criteria":["A","C"],"status_note":"Still in use as a gift shop and food stand; original silver paint and some painted decoration have been lost, and the exterior was recently repainted tan.","vacant_flag":false,"machine_generated":true,"model":"claude-sonnet-5-5","prompt_version":"v1.0-2026-10-29","generated_at":"2026-10-29 02:50:47.998847-05","source_pdf":"https://s3.amazonaws.com/NARAprodstorage/lz/electronic-records/rg-079/NPS_NY/11000543.pdf"},"photo":{"url_800":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/media/11000543/d56eb0a937-800.webp","url_1600":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/media/11000543/d56eb0a937-1600.webp","licence":"CC BY-SA 3.0","author":"NYroadside","credit_html":"<a href=\"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:The_TePee_-_Cherry_Valley,_NY.JPG\" rel=\"noopener\">NYroadside</a>, <a href=\"https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0\" rel=\"license noopener\">CC BY-SA 3.0</a>, via Wikimedia Commons","source_page":"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:The_TePee_-_Cherry_Valley,_NY.JPG"},"district":null,"sources":{"nps_snapshot_date":"2026-05-22","nara_catalog":"https://catalog.archives.gov/id/75320992","wikipedia":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Tepee","wikidata":"https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q22061085"},"indexable":true,"url":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/new-york/otsego-county/tepee-the-11000543/"}