Ho, Ho, Ho Green Giant!
Green Giant, Blue Earth Minnesota.
The Green Giant statue stands more than 55 feet tall. He is 8,000 pounds of sculpted green fiberglass. And Little Sprout was added later!
Still raining and foggy but the cross country adventure off off the beaten track locations continues. I am making the best of the weather and dark skies (hoping I can lighten the dark sky in photoshop later! I met a young family in an RV touring the same same off the beaten path places. The first of many new friends!
The story of the Green Giant goes like this…. This section of the road was set to open in the late 1970s, and some local buisnessmen came up with the idea of installing a Green Giant statue nearby in hopes of luring motorists to pass through town. They received permission from the President of Green Giant to build the statue, but were told they would need to raise the necessary funds. Luckily, the $50,000 needed for construction of the statue was raised by local businesses within only a week.
Work on the statue began in Sparta, Wisconsin, in 1978. While Green Giant advertising was able to provide some of the necessary guidance for the statue, the Giant's backside had to be designed from scratch, as it had never been depicted in any ads.
The completed statue was too large to fit in a flatbed truck, so its arms and the rest of its body were transported separately (that would be great to see), and everything was put together upon arrival in Blue Earth.
On July 6, 1979, the statue was erected on an eight-foot-high base with a staircase so that tourists could climb up and pose for pictures between the Giant's legs. Upon its completion, the smiling Giant was the fifth-largest free-standing statue in the United States.
Every winter, the Blue Earth Fire Department gives the Giant an enormous red scarf to keep his neck warm in the Minnesota cold.
