How an old jar of pickles put a St. Louis suburb on the map

livemint.com:

DES PERES, Mo.—Susan Plank had been using an unremarkable highway exit next to a busy mall in this St. Louis suburb for about 4-1/2 years when her daughter finally spotted what avid fans say makes it special: a jar of pickles sitting atop a concrete barrier. Why in the world are there pickles in the median of the highway and who put them there? they wondered.

Then they did some research and found out that nobody really knows. That day last fall was when the pickles “started to bring joy to my life," said the 49-year-old organizational development manager, who lives in St. Louis.

“Now, I look for them every day on my way to work and text my daughter if I see any significant changes." On April 19, she texted Adele, now 13: “Live report from Manchester and 270, all pickles are gone. I repeat, all pickles are gone." Then four days later: “Two jars of pickles are now at the post." The routine is one way the pair bond, she said. “It brings me great pleasure to picture my daughter reading these at school and smiling." If you haven’t heard of it, the Des Peres pickle jar is a pretty big dill.

It features on the Wikipedia page of the city of 9,100, which is pronounced duh-PAIR, under the headline “Jar of Pickles," among entries on “History," “Economics" and “Culture." An eight-second TikTok video showing the pickle jar from a car has garnered more than 100,000 views. It’s listed as a historical landmark on Google maps. But many of the pickle jar’s true devotees can be found on a Facebook page, “Team Pickle," with 29,000 followers from around the world.