Paul Bunyan's Fry Pan: World's Largest?
Libby, Montana
The town of Libby doesn't claim that Paul Bunyan's Fry Pan is the world's largest, but it could. According to our giant frying pan database, the only one with a larger diameter is in Rose Hill, North Carolina -- and it's nowhere near as picturesque as Libby's big skillet, which is displayed as a photo-op, emphasizing its giantness for snapshot-craving tourists.
Paul Bunyan's Fry Pan was forged in the early 1970s by a construction crew that was building the Libby Dam. For years it cooked at Libby's annual Logger Days festival -- french bread, oysters, fried fish -- then later saw service at the Northwest Montana Fair, with the capacity to fry an amazing 75 dozen eggs at a time. The pan is 18 inches deep, 11 feet wide, and stretches 24.5 feet from the tip of the handle to the front edge of the skillet.
A pan of such prodigious ability was unfortunately too much work to maintain and store, and it was eventually retired and donated to Libby's Heritage Museum. The skillet is exhibited lengthwise, outdoors, proudly defying winter weather that could make Paul Bunyan hungry enough to eat 75 dozen eggs.