Cowlossus of Roads

Salem Sue, 38 feet high and 50 feet long, poised regally over the verdant fields of North Dakota.

Neillsville, WI's Chatty Belle.

On the roads of America, cows rule. Of all the animals that graze at the edges of the collective driving unconscious, our rural milk-machines enjoy the most frequent cement and fiberglass tributes. While many big bovines are identical, cast from standard molds by F.A.S.T. and like fiberfolks, each is important to its host community, local dairy, or cheese boutique. The best place to start our cow round-up is Cheese-proud Wisconsin. If you're lactose intolerant, turn back now...

In Neillsville, (clark County seat, fourth in the state in milk production), stands Chatty Belle, the world's largest talking cow. Visitors can press the button mounted on Chatty's base and Chatty will tell them many things -- like that a cow her size would produce over 270 pounds of milk a day. Or that your best food value lies in one hundred percent natural Wisconsin Dairy cheeses. Next to Chatty is her baby boy, Bullet, a mute. (World's Largest Talking Cow, WCCN Wisconsin Pavilion 1201 Division St., Neillsville ) [Update 2003: After reports that Bullet had fallen over a few times, vandals struck and seriously damaged the calf. Bullet has been removed.]

Kadie the Cow, Columbus, GA.

A herd of prime bovines can be found around the Madison, WI, area. DeForest once claimed the World's Largest Cow -- Sissy the Cow the mascot of Ehlenbach's Cheese Chalet,. It's the same size as Chatty Belle (but is not currently talking). It's 19 feet tall, 20 feet long, and two tons -- a holstein cow made of structural steel and fiber mixed with epoxy. But it's not the largest.

Janesville is home to Bessie the Cow, at the Oasis Restaurant, Motel and Cheese Shop. According to visitor Craig Thom, Bessie has seen better days. "Her paint is fading and one horn and two teats are held together with duct tape. On the positive side, she's wearing a bright yellow Cheesehead hat." Further east in Wisconsin, Manitowoc is home to a big cow at Cedar Crest Ice Cream, named "Betsy."

In Harvard, Illinois, near the Wisconsin border, Harmilda the Cow is the symbol of the annual Harvard Milk Day Festival (Har-Mil-Da, get it?). She's been a fiberglass fixture in Harvard since 1966. An ill-conceived plan to move Harmilda from the downtown intersection sparked a protest by townspeople and children carrying signs that read "Don't Mooove Harmilda." She stayed put. The plaque underneath Harmilda carries Harvard's civic claim, "The Milk Center of the World."

South to Stephenville, TX, to marvel at "Moola," a Holstein Cow Statue on a Pole, paying tribute to Erath County's dairy industry. She's just bigger than life-size, on a platform mounted on a pole at one corner of the town square.

Kadie the Cow guarded the Kinnett Dairies from her hill overlooking a shopping mall in Columbus, GA. She's about 20 feet tall. Kadie wears a Santa's cap at Christmas. Update 2004 - Since the dairy has been torn down, Kadie has taken up station in front of the Best Buy on the same hill.

Salem Sue's udderly impressive teats, New Salem, ND.

The most gargantuan cow is undoubtedly Salem Sue, in New Salem, ND. She stands 38 feet tall on School Hill, the only hill in sight, overlooking I-94. Sue stares intently over the flat fields that stretch to the horizon, her reinforced fiberglass skin taut and shiny.

While most giants are clustered in the Heartland, cow appreciation can be found from coast to coast. In Carnation, Washington, the Champion Milk Cow statue next to Carnation Dairy headquarters salutes the "Foster Mother of the Human Race," producer of a record 16,500 quarts of milk in the 1920s. Woodstock, Ontario weighs in with the Springfield Snow Countess Memorial, a statue of the World's Leading Butterfat-Producing Cow. She churned out 9,062 pounds of butterfat and 207,000 pounds of milk before her death in 1936.

And milk fans can still visit the Grave of Elsie the Cow, Borden's milk mascot, in Plainsboro, NJ.