The amazing maize maze-Truth!

The "God Bless America" Corn Maze in Lawrenceburg, Tennessee-Truth!

Summary of the eRumor This eRumor is a picture from the air or a cornfield that has been cut to show a map of the United States along with the words "God Bless America." It says it is the work of a farmer in Lawrenceburg, Tennessee who made it by being guided by a GPS device connected to his computer.

The Truth This story introduces us to a hobby that is a growing one in the United States...wandering through mazes that have been designed and cut in cornfields. This picture of an elaborate maze on the farm of John Rose of Rose Farms in Lawrenceburg, Tennessee. There are dozens of such corn mazes in the United States where enthusiasts pay a few dollars to the farmers for the fun of trying to solve the mazes. There are several websites dedicated to either finding the mazes or helping farmers design and make them such as www.cornfieldmaze.com. John Rose's first project was a horse and buggy design, which he figured would cover about 8 acres and would take a 7-man crew about a week to make. Rose contacted Navtech GPS supply to ask if there was a way to use GPS to streamline the process. A GPS device uses signals from various satellites space to plot an exact location on the earth. The folks at Navtech sent a GPS to Rose and asked him to drive around the 8 acres with it so a precise map could be drawn of the dimensions of the field as well as its location. They then used computer software to lay out the picture of the horse and buggy, converted that to data that could be entered into the GPS, and Rose used a special riding mower along with the GPS and a laptop computer to hack out the maze in the maize. It took about 3 hours. The next project was the United States map and the message of "God Bless America." Last updated 4/27/03