You can drive hundreds of miles across the Texas Panhandle and see nothing but flat horizon, rolling sky, and the hypnotic white line of I-40 stretching endlessly ahead. But then — somewhere between Amarillo and McLean — a strange shape leans out of the prairie. A water tower, tilted just enough to look like it’s frozen mid-fall.
People take notice.
“Hey what’s going on over there?! Looks like that tower’s about had it!”
Some take the nearest exit or frontage road just to see it up close.
Welcome to Groom, Texas, home to one of Route 66’s most recognizable roadside oddities: the Britten Leaning Water Tower, a landmark that has survived fire, time, interstate bypasses, and every story travelers have invented to explain it.
A Landmark Born From One Man’s Imagination
The leaning tower didn’t happen by accident. It wasn’t bent by storms, sinking soil, or Panhandle winds. Its tilt was deliberate — the product of Ralph Britten, the owner of a once-busy truck stop and restaurant that sat along old Route 66.
Britten installed the tower at an angle on purpose, creating that uneasy, impossible lean that still makes drivers glance twice. It became his unofficial billboard — a visual calling card far more effective than any metal sign.
Years later, the truck stop burned down in a fire that ended the business but not the landmark. The foundation was gone, the restaurant erased, but the tower stayed. Thankfully, no one was injured in the blaze.
Many would have torn it down.
Britten didn’t.
He left it standing, partly out of nostalgia and partly because everyone in the Panhandle already knew it. And in a region that measures stubbornness like it measures rainfall — by rarity — the tower’s slant became something of a trademark. It’s probably the only structure in the county allowed to lean that far without getting a citation.
Route 66’s Oddball Highway Guardian
Before interstate chains homogenized the American road trip, Route 66 thrived on personality — giant neon cowboys, oversized pistols, motels shaped like tipis. The leaning tower fit perfectly into that era: local, humorous, a little odd, and unforgettable.
Even now, decades after Britten’s truck stop disappeared, the tower still gives travelers something to talk about. It doesn’t explain itself. It doesn’t try to be profound. It simply stands there quietly, leaning into the open sky, keeping watch over the stretch of land where Route 66’s spirit still lingers.
The View From the Pull-Off
There’s no official sign, no museum, no admission fee. Just a gravel pull-off, a sweep of prairie wind, and a tower that looks like it should have fallen long ago — but hasn’t.
Families pull over for pictures. Photographers crouch low to exaggerate the angle. Truckers lean on their horns as they roll by. During Christmas, a bright star sometimes crowns the tower, as if the Panhandle decided it needed a holiday accessory.
In a place as wide and quiet as the Texas plains, even steel structures become storytellers. And this one — a leaning survivor standing on the bones of a burned-down truck stop — tells a story of humor, resourcefulness, and that particular Panhandle flavor of practicality: if something’s already famous, why take it down?
A Town of Two Icons
Groom isn’t big, but its landmarks are.
Just down the road stands the 190-foot Cross of Our Lord Jesus Christ, one of the tallest crosses in the Western Hemisphere. Its surrounding bronze Stations of the Cross and reconstructed tomb draw visitors from across the country.
And just a few miles away, the leaning tower provides the counterweight: sacred and whimsical, reverent and odd, two wildly different landmarks sharing the same small Panhandle town.
What It Represents Now
The Britten Leaning Tower is more than a quirky photo stop. It’s a small testament to a different kind of travel — one built on curiosity, detours, and whatever oddity happened to be waiting around the next bend.
Its lean isn’t just an angle; it’s a reminder that personality goes a long way on the open road. The tower stands as proof that not every landmark has to be monumental. Sometimes all it takes is one good idea, a bit of local humor, and the decision to leave something standing long after the world around it changes.
It’s a relic of the road culture that once defined America — and it’s still doing its job.
If You Go
Location: South frontage road of I-40, Groom, Texas
Cost: Free
Best time: Sunset for dramatic shadows
Nearby: The 190-foot Groom Cross
Ashes on Air 
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