Ep. 11- Monument Madness!

Minnesota has no shortage of quirky monuments, statues, and roadside oddities. But which of these kitschy monuments is truly the best in the state? That’s what we asked YOU, the people, to decide! We’ve recently concluded Monument Madness 2026, a contest to decide which is the best roadside monument in the great state of Minnesota. Starting with a bracket of sixteen monuments, we put these roadside marvels head-to-head and solicited comments on social media and votes on our website in a thrilling single-elimination tournament.

In this slightly unhinged episode, we adopt the persona of 1930s newscasters and share the exciting match-by-match results of this tournament as well as the fascinating history behind each contender.

You can see images of each contender below:

Match # 1: Fish Feud

Wally Walleye (Garrison) vs. Big Fish Supper Club (Bena)

Match #2: Giants of Industry and Agriculture

The Iron Man Statue (Chisholm) vs. Jolly Green Giant (Blue Earth)

Match 3: Wing-Helmeted Warriors!

Big Ole the Viking (Alexandria) vs Hermann the German (New Ulm)

Match 4: Sibling Rivalry!

Spoonbridge and Cherry (Minneapolis) vs. World’s Largest Loon (St. Paul)

Match 5: World’s Largest!

World’s Largest Ball of Twine Made by One Person (Darwin, MN) vs. World's Largest Hockey Stick (Eveleth, MN)

Match 6: Battle of the New Legends!

St. Urho (Menagha) vs. Lucette, Paul Bunyan's Sweetheart (Hackensack)

Match 7: Concours des Voyageurs!

Pierre the Pantsless (Two Harbors) vs. Big Vic the Voyageur (Ranier)

Match 8: Battle of the Bunyans!

The World’s Oldest Paul Bunyan and Babe the Blue Ox Statues (Bemidji) vs. the World’s Largest Paul Bunyan Statue (Akeley)

Round One Results:

Sixteen marvelous monuments faced off in round one. After tallying all the comments on our various social media posts and the votes in our Google Form, these were winners of the first eight matches:

Match 1: Wally the Walleye in Garrison, beat the Big Fish Supper Club in Beana, 454 to 339.

Match 2: Coming out of Blue Earth, MN, the Jolly Green Giant came in with a resounding win over the Iron Man Memorial in Chisholm, final score of 849 to 139.

Match 3: Hermann the German of New Ulm beats Big Ole the Viking of Alexandria, 417 to 341.

Match 4: In a surprisingly close match, “the Calling” loon sculpture from Saint Paul wins an admirable 330 votes, but not enough to beat Minneapolis’s “Spoonbridge & Cherry,” which gained 397 votes.

Match 5: The World’s Biggest Ball of Twine rolled by one person in Darwin beats the World’s Largest Hockey stick in Eveleth, 471 to 260.

Match 6: Lucette Diana Kensack, Sweetheart of Paul Bunyan in Hackensack beats the Saint Urho Statue in Menahga, 464 to 236.

Match 7: In this game of dueling voyageurs, Big Vic or Ranier wins over Pierre the Pantsless Voyageur in Two Harbors, 413 to 277.

Match 8: The original Paul and Babe the Blue Ox statues in Bemidji resoundingly defeated the World’s Largest Paul Bunyan in Akeley, 607 to 118.

Round Two Results:

Match 9: The Jolly Green Giant (Blue Earth) beat Wally the Walleye (Garrison), 835 to 144.

Match 10: Hermann the German (New Ulm) beat Spoonbridge and Cherry (Minneapolis), 429 to 266.

Match 11: The World’s Largest Ball of Twine Made By One Person (Darwin) beat Lucette Diana Kensack, Paul Bunyan’s Sweetheart (Hackensack) 360 to 205.

Match 12: Paul Bunyan and Babe the Blue Ox (Bemidji) beat Big Vic the Voyageur (Ranier), 514 to 77.

Round Three (The Final Four!) Results:

Match 13: The Jolly Green Giant in Blue Earth delivered a crushing defeat to Hermann the German of New Ulm, by a score of 1,539 to 376.

Match 14: Paul Bunyan and Babe the Blue Ox in Bemidji beat the World’s Largest Ball of Twine (made by one person) in Darwin, final score 958 to 325.

Final Match Results:

We started with a bracket of sixteen contenders, but in the end it came down to just two: The Jolly Green Giant (Blue Earth) vs. Paul Bunyan & Babe the Blue Ox (Bemidji).

In a way, they are BOTH winners.

In another, more accurate way, the JOLLY GREEN GIANT is the winner!!!!

We tallied the votes from four sources: comments on our Facebook posts, comments on our Instagram posts, comments on our TikTok videos, and votes in the Google form that was available on our website. When all these were added up, the Jolly Green Giant had a whopping 2,335 votes, over Paul & Babe’s 373 votes.

However, when we looked closer at the data, we noticed something interesting. The majority of the Jolly Green Giant’s votes came from the Google form, where the JGG received 2,179 votes and Paul & Babe only got 41. But if we looked ONLY at the social media comments, then PAUL & BABE were the clear winners, garnering 332 votes compared to the Jolly Green Giant’s 156 votes.

With such a disparity, we can't help but suspect that some people were voting for the Jolly Green Giant many, many times on the Google Form. Now, we never said you couldn’t do this, so that’s entirely fair play. The Jolly Green Giant is legitimately the winner of this contest.

However, we couldn’t help but feel sympathy for ol’ Paul & Babe and their strong showing in the comments sections (and we couldn't shake our suspicion that they would have had this thing in the bag if it were only one person, one vote). And as Minnesotans, we are nothing if not conflict avoidant, and so we decided we wanted to ALSO honor Paul & Babe in some way.

Therefore, we spent today creating this original watercolor and ink artwork depicting the Jolly Green Giant lifting up the runners-up onto the winners podium and sharing in the glory. We think anyone this jolly clearly would be a good sport about his win.

So congratulations to the Jolly Green Giant for winning the overall tournament, and congrats to Paul Bunyan & Babe the Blue Ox for gaining the most comments!

Prints and t-shirst of this artwork are now available in our store!