It is mid-October and we are passing through Tennessee on our way home to Pennsylvania. On our route is what is advertised as “The World’s Largest Cedar Bucket.” It’s a no-brainer for us to stop and check it out, especially when there is a local brewery located just a few miles away where we can stay overnight. Little did we know that we were on the cusp of a surprising secret.

Mayday Brewery is a fun gathering place for Murfreesboro, Tennessee residents. It’s a Harvest Host, and on the Tuesday night we visited, it was packed with patrons. We had a fun evening at the brewery and met a few locals. The next morning we drove into town to see the bucket.

“The World’s Largest Cedar Bucket” is located in “Cannonsburgh Village”, which describes itself as a “Rural Southern Village of the 1800’s”. Cannonsburgh is not a real village. It began in 1974 as an American Revolution Bicentennial Project. The project received $75,000 from the federal government to recreate a “mid-south village from the 1800 to 1920 period”. Buildings were purchased and moved to this location to form the village. The City of Murfreesboro owns and maintains the site. The name “Cannonsburgh” came from the original name for Murfreesboro.

Cannonsburgh Village has over 19 structures, including a general store, grist mill, one room log cabin and one room school house.

Cannonsburgh also is home to “The Worlds Largest Cedar Bucket”. The original bucket was built in 1887 by the Tennessee Red Cedar Woodenworks Company, which manufactured buckets and other cedar wood products in Murfreesboro. The bucket is large. It is 6 foot wide at the base and 7.5 foot wide at the rim.

The original bucket traveled to the 1893 and 1904 World’s Fairs. Unfortunately, it was severely damaged by arson in 2005. (Why do some people feel the need to destroy?) In 2011, the bucket was reconstructed Rutherford County Blacksmith Association using the original brass hardware and displayed in Cannonsburgh, where it remains.

So what is the secret? The bucket may not actually be a bucket. We were surprised to look inside and see that the outer rim of the “bucket” is supported by an internal frame and it appears to have no bottom. The Tennessee Red Cedar Woodenworks Company built the original as a promotional item, so we presume it was an actual bucket when it was first built.

So is this really a bucket (defined as a “cylindrical vessel used for holding or carrying liquids or solids”), or is it a bucket-shaped object? We’ll leave that decision to you.