Martin mower was a duck farmer on Long Island, New York. Duck farming at the time was a pretty big business,

but it was the Great Depression, so like everything else, his business had fallen on hard times.

As the story goes, Martin wanted to get away for a while, maybe figure out how he could boost sales on the farm and

stand out from all of the competition. There were plenty of other duck farms out there.

So Martin and his wife set out for Los Angeles.

Somewhere along the way, they stopped at a coffee shop.

It was kind of a standard roadside poor.

But what caught Martin's attention was the building itself, because it itself was

shaped like a giant coffee pot.

And that is when Martin got his big idea.

He was going to build his very own building, his very own big duck. I'm Dylan Thuris and this is Atlas Obscura, a celebration of the

world's strange, incredible, and wondrous places. Today we learn the story of that big idea and that big duck and how it would go on to become

a kind of incredibly important architectural landmark and influence buildings all around

the world.

More after this. And the The eastern end of Long Island is best known for the Hamptons, the fancy, fancy beach getaway for celebrities and well-to-do

New Yorkers. And it has all that stuff. There are pristine beaches, there are extravagant summer

homes guarded by hedge walls.

But right outside of that fancy seaside hamlet

off of Route 24, you will hit a tiny town called duck sitting up tall on the side of the road

it is a very large white duck sitting up tall on the side of the road

it is a two-story high duck-shaped monument. This is Martin

Maurer's big duck. It has been welcoming visitors since 1931.

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