Mr. Peanut Fort Smith Arkansas | Planters Landmark
Updated: October 3, 2026
We didn’t call them GPS Mystery Tours yet.
Apparently, that didn’t stop me from doing one.
I had somewhere in Fort Smith I wanted to take Zach, but I wasn’t telling him where. I gave him turn-by-turn directions and let him drive. No destination. No context. Just trust me and turn here.
Sound familiar?
Yeah. Looking back, I’m pretty sure this was the original GPS Mystery Tour.
There was just one problem with my brilliant plan.
He could smell the destination.
As we turned onto Planters Road, the smell of roasted peanuts hit us. Zach looked at me and said, “Wait… is this about the peanut guy?”
Dammit.
A few seconds later, there he was: an approximately 30-foot-tall Mr. Peanut, complete with top hat, monocle and cane, standing outside the Planters facility in Fort Smith.
My surprise had been spoiled by airborne peanuts.
Mr. Peanut Had a Life Before Arkansas
Fort Smith isn’t Mr. Peanut’s first home.
The giant sign originally stood along Route 1 in Peabody, Massachusetts, where it advertised a Planters store. After the store closed, Mr. Peanut was repurposed as a sign for the Half Dollar Bar.
By the 1980s, the bar had closed too. Rather than lose the old sign, Mr. Peanut was brought to the attention of Planters and shipped to Fort Smith in 1988.
According to the plaque at his base, he got a facelift in 1990 by Larry Lessley, Thomas Goodin, Victor Steffen and Ron Vail.
So before he became our mystery destination in Arkansas, this peanut had already spent decades bouncing around Massachusetts, advertised a bar, narrowly avoided disappearing, and traveled halfway across the country.
Honestly, Mr. Peanut has gotten around.
And There’s More Than One Peanut
The giant Mr. Peanut is obviously the one you notice first, but he’s not alone.
When we visited, there were also two smaller Mr. Peanut statues near the visitor entrance, plus a large copper-colored Mr. Peanut you can sit beside for pictures.
And yes, the place really did smell like roasted peanuts.
That wasn’t something I added later because it sounded cute. The smell literally ruined my surprise.
If You Want to Find Mr. Peanut
📍 Location: 4020 Planters Road, Fort Smith, Arkansas
🚗 Getting there: Right off I-540 near US Highway 71
🥜 What you’ll see: The giant Mr. Peanut is out front. Access to the smaller statues and visitor area may vary.
👃 Warning for future GPS Mystery Tour operators: Your passenger may figure this one out before arrival.
Apparently, Mr. Peanut was the beginning of a format.
I didn’t have the words GPS Mystery Tour for it yet. I just knew it was funny to pick something strange, refuse to tell Zach where we were going, and feed him directions until he figured it out.
Years later, we’re still doing exactly that.
I’ve just gotten better at choosing destinations he can’t smell.
More Around Fort Smith
If you’re already in Fort Smith, we’ve found plenty of other things worth adding to the day.
There’s the World’s Largest Christmas Pickle in Fort Smith. Nearby Alma has Popeye’s Garden and the World’s Largest Spinach Can, plus the Henry D. Humphrey Memorial, which tells a considerably less ridiculous story involving Bonnie and Clyde.
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