Largest Twine Ball Rolled by One Man, Darwin, Minnesota.

World's Largest Twine Ball

Darwin, Minnesota

One runs across more than a few balls on the obsession landscape -- balls of stamps, or of barbed wire. But special tribute must be paid to the Mother of all moss gathering pursuits -- the giant twine ball. These balls have become symbols of civic pride for a few lucky communities.

Francis Johnson's original Twine Ball shrine, with the 6-Foot Tall Hinged Man (seated).

For many years, the world's largest twine ball has resided in Darwin, MN. It weighs 17,400 pounds, is twelve feet in diameter, and was the creation of Francis A. Johnson. He started wrapping it in March of 1950 -- four hours a day, every day. Francis lifted it with a crane to continue proper wrapping. For 39 years, this magnificent sphere evolved at Johnson's farm, and eventually moved to a circular open air shed on his front lawn.

Francis died in 1989; the city moved the ball into a special city lot across from the park. The gazebo that shelters it today allows viewing from all sides through Plexiglas panels, but you have to crouch close to a vent for a good whiff. The town's "Twine Ball Days" festival is the second Saturday in August.

Frank Stoeber of Cawker City, KS, saw Johnson's twine ball as a challenge. He started amassing his own ball, and soon had over 1,600,000 feet of twine rolled into a sphere 11 feet in diameter -- only a foot shy of the Darwin champion. Success seemed inevitable. Then, in 1974, Frank Stoeber died.

Cawker City, in a touching tribute, built an open-air gazebo over his ball and set it up on Highway 24 in town, where it can still be touched and whiffed by travelers.

Cawker City's Community Project.

The Cawker City ball has become a community project, where locals and visitors can add twine. Every August at the Twine-a-thon, locals celebrate Frank's legacy. As of 2003's Twine-A-Thon, total twine length was recorded as 7,049,191 feet of sisal twine, over 17,000 lbs, giving Cawker City twine ball supremacy. But it is no longer the work of a lone fanatic. [More on Cawker City's Twine Ball

Ripley's Believe It Or Not joined the big ball fray when they purchased a bruiser for one of their museums.

In their Branson, Missouri location, they host a six-ton plastic string ball discovered in Mountain Springs, Texas. In 1992, owner J.C. Payne, a 71 year old rancher, asked Guinness and Ripley's to declare him the new king of string. His multicolored ball of string sat in his barn, had a 41.5 ft circumference, 18 inches greater than the largest on record. It stands 13 feet, 2.5" tall. Officials at Darwin maintain this is another "group effort" -- not the work of one man. And Cawker City twine scholars note that the Branson ball uses "plastic string," bloodlessly procured, applied, and displayed -- no lifelong labor of love there.

September 2005: Twine Ball Wallpaper! Decorate your desktop.

August 2005: A relatively unknown twine ball, rolled by James Frank Kotera at Lake Nebagamon, Wisconsin since 1979, threatens upset with its claim as the heaviest. No puffy cotton candy effort like the Ripley's string ball, or group-hug like Cawker City's, JFK's solo project tips the scales at over 19,336 lbs., by his calculation. And he's still rolling....