Route 66, a ketchup skyscraper, and ancient ruins: Collinsville is not what you expect

Shutterstock

Collinsville’s got more going on than ketchup

About 15 miles east of downtown St. Louis, Collinsville, Illinois, is the kind of town that earns a second look.

It has a 170-foot water tower shaped like a catsup bottle, a UNESCO World Heritage Site inside its borders, and a claim to producing most of the world’s horseradish.

Any one of those would be enough to put a small town on the map. Collinsville has all three, plus a stretch of Route 66 running through it.

Wikimedia Commons/Boucher, Jack E.

A condiment company that needed its own water tower

The story behind the bottle starts in 1891, when local businessmen pooled money to open the Collinsville Canning and Packing Company…

Story continues

TRENDING NOW

LATEST LOCAL NEWS