10 Quirky Facts about the Space Needle

I’m not much of a sports fan, but I did grow up in Washington State, so I can’t help but feel excited that the Seattle Seahawks made it to the Superbowl this year. That’s why, for this week’s world travel post, I’m posting a photo of the Space Needle along with ten unusual facts about the Emerald City’s famous icon. I hope you enjoy it:

Ten Quirky Facts about the Space Needle

1. The Space Needle was originally called the Space Cage
2. During the 1962 World’s Fair in Seattle, the Space Needle was topped with a 40-foot high flame which burned natural gas.
3. The city of Fife, Washington once offered Seattle a million dollars to put the Space Needle in its town center.
4. When the Beatles visited Seattle in 1964, they were too afraid of heights to go up in the Space Needle.
5. Speaking of acrophobia, the Space Needle’s first manager, Hoge Sullivan, was also afraid of heights.
6. Iwao Takamoto, one of the design artists for the The Jetsons cartoon took inspiration from the Space Needle when creating that futuristic family’s skypad apartment.
7. The Space Needle’s revolving restaurant is the 2nd one ever built. (The first one was in Hawaii’s Ala Moana shopping mall.)
8. During the 1992 Miss USA Pageant, the Miss Washington contestant (Stina McLynne) wore a hat shaped like the Space Needle. (I want one of those!)
9. Building designers originally intended for a population of storks to permanently dwell atop the building. This idea was scrapped when they realized storks require warm weather and would not exactly thrive in Seattle’s climate.
10. According to The Committee Hoping for Extra-Terrestrial Encounters to Save the Earth (CHEESE), the real purpose for the Space Needle is to broadcast messages to extraterrestrials.