If you look up the St. Louis suburb of Des Peres, Missouri, on Wikipedia, you'll see the usual entries about its history, population, etc. Des Peres, however, is unique in that it also has an entry under "Jar of Pickles," notes the Wall Street Journal. It seems that more than a decade ago—maybe 2011 or 2012—someone placed a jar of pickles atop a concrete barrier along the exit of Manchester on I-270. A commuter named Barb Steen noticed the oddity and started a Facebook page devoted to it. The jar remained in place for a few years until disappearing around 2015—only to be replaced by another. And another. And all these years later, the jar has become something of a cultural phenomenon.
"They were just always there," Steen recalls to Fox 2 Now of the early days of the pickles. "I would Snapchat them to friends or coworkers or share them on my Facebook." The page she created for the jar now has more than 29,000 followers from around the world. "Word got out in some way somehow, and it exploded," she says. The brand of pickle, incidentally, has varied over the years. A Journal reporter investigated a recent iteration—a jar of Mt. Olive Kosher Dill affixed to the barrier with some kind of caulk.
The continued popularity of the jar has raised concerns that it might someday cause a traffic accident if a passerby slows to gawk or take a photo. So far, however, the city has received no complaints, says public safety director Eric Hall. "I don't suspect our people," he adds, referring to speculation that employees of his department might be behind the jar, given their official 24-hour access to the area. "But you never know." (More strange stuff stories.)
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