EDITOR’S NOTE: Western North Carolina is weird – and it always has been. From Cherokee myths to Bigfoot and alien encounters, the Blue Ridge Mountains host the quirky and bizarre from past and present. We would not have it any other way, and neither would you. Join us in unfolding the histories and unraveling the mysteries of this strange land we call home.
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Along Asheville Highway stands a 55-foot ring of signs, having marked the way for travelers for several generations. Hendersonville’s advertisement Ferris wheel has become accepted as part of the local cultural canon, although it is not clear exactly when the strange steel structure was placed along the route.
The land where the Ferris wheel stands was owned by Charles “Bill” Tillman, founder of Bildon Inc. According to his daughter, “the wheel was actually the second of two that had been on the company property. A friend of Tillman’s, Larry Justus, had found a water wheel from an old mill on his property and wanted to restore it,” as reported by the Hendersonville Times-News.
Tillman assisted Justus with repairing the water wheel. Once completed, Tillman left the wheel outside of his shop for his friend to pick up. But it took Justus a long time to pick it up, long enough that locals began to use it as a landmark.
“One of the steel drivers called and said he had been up and down three times and couldn’t find it [Bildon’s warehouse]. He had never delivered before and was told to just go up 25 and there’s the Ferris wheel and that’s it,” Tillman’s daughter, Shirley Crafton, explained.
Recognizing the usefulness of the monument, Tillman decided to build a new wheel in the 1970’s. This time, he built it with steel. Wanting more visual intrigue, he added batteries to make the contraption spin. In each carriage, he added advertisements for local businesses. Apart from seats for passengers, the towering metal monolith was a fully functioning Ferris wheel.
Allegedly, the spinning wheel distracted drivers enough to cause several car accidents on the busy highway.
“So many people got angry when they found out their grandchildren couldn’t ride the Ferris wheel,” Crafton told the Hendersonville Times-News. The reporter wrote, “So Tillman stilled the wheel and stopped offering advertisement space to other companies, though he kept a few ads for his business.”
And that is how the billboard wheel stood for around three decades.
By the early 2000’s, the three owners of Bildon Inc. had reached retirement age with no clear heirs to their business. Collectively, they chose to close shop at 37 years of operations.
They put the business up for auction with all its assets – 32,000 square feet of floor space, construction equipment, nearly 30 vehicles and the Ferris wheel. Jackson Steel, a fellow steel manufacturing company in Hendersonville, outbid several other businesses for the 6.5-acre property, paying $1.1 million.
Opened in 1952, Jackson Steel had been doing similar work to Bildon for far longer. The new equipment Jackson Steel acquired in the acquisition helped expand their family business – except for the Ferris wheel.
“We will probably eventually get rid of the Ferris wheel,” owner Doyle Jackson told the Hendersonville Times-News in Sep. 2007. “It’s a pain and it doesn’t work. I can see it eventually being taken down in a special ceremony here.”
Jackson’s apprehension to the steel wheel seems to have been quelled. Today, the advertisement Ferris wheel continues to stand in front of the family business, nearly 20 years after he bought the land.
Do you have a bizarre, weird or extraordinary story about Western North Carolina? Let us know by emailing jvander-weide@avlradio.com. Your tall tale could be the next Strangeville story.
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