Sparta Teapot Museum facts for kids

The Sparta Teapot Museum of Craft and Design was a museum in Sparta, North Carolina, United States. It closed in January 2010.

The museum drew mainly from the teapot collection of Gloria and Sonny Kamm. The Kamm Collection, comprising more than 6,000 teapots, is the largest teapot collection in the United States and arguably the world.

The Sparta Teapot Museum received its official 501(c)(3) status from the Internal Revenue Service in November 2005. This designation made the Museum a charity organization.

In 2006, in what was widely regarded as an example of pork barrel spending, the United States Congress controversially appropriated nearly $500,000 in federal funding for construction of a new building for the museum. However the project was cancelled before any of the money left federal hands.