World's 2nd Largest Fork

Springfield, Missouri

The giant fork in Springfield is impressive even at night. A guard in a security vehicle idling nearby sensed that we had no destructive intent. He let us be, at least until we placed a camera on the pavement for a long exposure -- and then he was just interested in the digital camera (and its pixel resolution).

At 35 feet high, the fork angles up toward a three-story building occupied by Noble and Associates, a Springfield ad agency. Although no longer the world's tallest -- it was bested by a 37-foot-high fork in Oregon in 2022 -- it remains, at 11 tons, the world's heaviest.

Our own local associates tell us that in 1998 the fork stood in front of a restaurant that failed on South Glenstone, in otherwise booming Springfield. The ad agency hauled the fork across town to its new office building, where it's been ever since. Noble does a lot of work for the food service and retail industry, so the fork makes sense....

Here behind the ad agency, not immediately visible along the main thoroughfare, the fork seems placed mostly for the benefit of employees and visiting clients. International symbol signs on nearby highways would only result in misdirected traffic -- for although the greenery at its base could be interpreted as food, there's nothing to eat here, folks.