Confusion Hill is a

roadside attraction A roadside attraction is a feature along the side of a road meant to attract tourists. In general, these are places one might stop on the way to somewhere, rather than actually being a destination. They are frequently advertised with billboards. ...

Piercy, California Piercy is an unincorporated community in Mendocino County, California. It is located on the South Fork of the Eel River, north-northwest of Leggett, at an elevation of . The first post office at Piercy opened in 1920. The name honors Sam Pie ...

. The attraction, which opened in 1949, includes what is dubbed as a "gravity house", a structure built to give the interior visitors tilt-induced

optical illusion Within visual perception, an optical illusion (also called a visual illusion) is an illusion caused by the visual system and characterized by a visual perception, percept that arguably appears to differ from reality. Illusions come in a wide v ...

s, similar to the perspective on a

gravity hill A gravity hill, also known as a magnetic hill, mystery hill, mystery spot, gravity road, or anti-gravity hill, is a place where the layout of the surrounding land produces an optical illusion, making a slight downhill slope appear to be an uphi ...

. Occupants experience the need to stand upright when they actually already are. Also included in the attraction is the Mountain Train Ride a

narrow gauge A narrow-gauge railway (narrow-gauge railroad in the US) is a railway with a track gauge narrower than standard . Most narrow-gauge railways are between and . Since narrow-gauge railways are usually built with tighter curves, smaller structu ...

built in a switchback layout along the side of a steep hill. For 60 years, Confusion Hill was on the heavily traveled

US 101 U.S. Route 101, or U.S. Highway 101 (US 101), is a north–south United States Numbered Highway that runs through the states of California, Oregon, and Washington, on the West Coast of the United States. It is also known as (The Royal Roa ...

highway, also known as the Redwood Highway. Due to repeated mudslides obstructing the road, US 101 was realigned in 2009 to the

Confusion Hill Bridges The Confusion Hill Bridges (aka. Confusion Hill Realignment, Confusion Hill Bypass or South Fork Eel River Bridges) are a pair of high bridges carrying two lanes of U.S. Route 101 over the South Fork Eel River in Mendocino County in the U.S. sta ...

, bypassing the attraction. In 2010 Confusion Hill was granted

California Points of Historical Interest California Points of Historical Interest are sites, buildings, features, or events that are of local (city or county) significance and have anthropological, cultural, military, political, architectural, economic, scientific or technical, religious, ...

status.

''Gravity Falls''

In August 2016,

Alex Hirsch Alexander Robert Hirsch (born June 18, 1985) is an American voice actor, animator, writer, storyboard artist, and producer. He is the creator of the Disney Channel series ''Gravity Falls'', for which he provided the voices of Grunkle Stan, Soo ...

, creator of the television series ''

Gravity Falls ''Gravity Falls'' is an American mystery comedy animated television series created by Alex Hirsch for Disney Channel and Disney XD. The series follows the adventures of Dipper Pines (Jason Ritter) and his twin sister Mabel (Kristen Schaal) wh ...

'', installed a statue of series villain Bill Cipher at Confusion Hill after it was removed from its initial home of

Reedsport, Oregon Reedsport is a city in Douglas County, Oregon, United States. As of the 2020 census, the population was 4,310. History Reedsport was established on the estuary of the Umpqua River on January 7, 1852. It was named for a local settler, Alfred ...

following a global scavenger hunt to locate the statue known as

Cipher Hunt The Cipher Hunt was an alternate reality game and international scavenger hunt created by animator and voice actor Alex Hirsch based on his animated series ''Gravity Falls''. The goal was to find the real-life statue of the series' antagonist B ...

. In 2020, Confusion Hill faced closure due to financial hurdles brought on by the

COVID-19 pandemic The COVID-19 pandemic, also known as the coronavirus pandemic, is an ongoing global pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The novel virus was first identif ...

. A

GoFundMe GoFundMe is an American for-profit crowdfunding platform that allows people to raise money for events ranging from life events such as celebrations and graduations to challenging circumstances like accidents and illnesses. From 2010 to the b ...

was set up and with help from Hirsch and the ''Gravity Falls'' fanbase, the target goal was raised and exceeded.

References

External links

* {{Gravity Falls Narrow gauge railroads in California Gravity Falls Gravity hills Roadside attractions in California Tourist attractions in Mendocino County, California 1949 establishments in California Railways with Zig Zags