Some towns are famous for a cathedral or a battlefield. Others are proud of a monument you can only find in America. In the little town of Cawker City, Kansas, the pride and joy is a ball of twine, and it's still growing.
Cawker City, home to just 457 people as of the 2020 census, has one of the biggest balls of twine on Earth. As of 2014, it had the largest circumference of any of the contenders. By March 2025, the town's sign said the ball measured 46 feet around and weighed over 27,000 pounds. But it's not the only claim to the title. Several American towns have giant twine balls, each record-holder in its own category.
How Cawker City's Ball Got Rolling
It started with a local man named Frank Stoeber. By the time he died in 1974, his ball contained 1.6 million feet of twine and was about 11 feet across.
Instead of letting it gather dust, the town took over. Cawker City built an open-air gazebo over the ball and started a yearly "Twine-a-thon" every August, when people add more twine. Visitors don't even have to wait for the festival. They can pick up twine at city hall during the day and add their own strand.
The ball kept growing. By 2006, it weighed nearly 17,900 pounds and held more than 7.8 million feet of twine, which is close to 1,480 miles. The 2025 sign put the total at more than 8.5 million feet of twine.
Minnesota's One-Man Masterpiece
Not far behind is Darwin, Minnesota, home of a ball wound by one man, Francis A. Johnson. He started in March 1950 and wrapped it for four hours a day for 29 years. The result is about 12 feet across and weighs 17,400 pounds.
Darwin's ball held the Guinness record for biggest ball of twine from 1979 until 1994. It became even more famous thanks to "Weird Al" Yankovic's 1989 song, "The Biggest Ball of Twine in Minnesota." In 2019, the town renamed the street leading to it "Weird Alley." Today the ball sits in an enclosed gazebo, and the town holds Twine Ball Day each August.
The Heaviest and the Lightest
In Lake Nebagamon, Wisconsin, James Frank Kotera built the heaviest twine ball ever made. He started in 1979 and kept going until his death in January 2023. It weighs an estimated 24,160 pounds and now rests under a shelter near the town hall.
Meanwhile, a ball of nylon twine built by J. C. Payne of Texas sits in the Ripley's Believe It or Not! museum in Branson, Missouri. Guinness certified it as the world's largest ball of twine in 1993, though at 12,000 pounds, it's the lightest of the four big contenders.
A Roadside Classic
Giant twine balls have a special place in American pop culture. In the 1983 movie National Lampoon's Vacation, Clark Griswold teases his family about seeing the "second-largest ball of twine on the face of the earth." And Cawker City's ball even appeared in the Doonesbury comic strip in 2012.
So which town truly has the biggest? It depends on whether you measure by size, weight, or who did the winding. Either way, if you ever find yourself on a road trip through Kansas, stop by Cawker City and add a little twine of your own. It's a wonderfully American way to become part of history.
