A Visit to Cawker City, Kansas

I am beyond excited this morning! Last night I googled Kansas tourist attractions after seeing the giant Van Gogh painting. Hold on to your hats everyone ... I am going to see THE WORLD’S LARGEST BALL OF TWINE!!! I know – I can feel your enthusiasm. This is so awesome – I can hardly contain myself. It is located on our current travel route – but it wouldn’t matter – I would ask (nag) Andy to take me to it wherever it was.  It is my idea of the ultimate tourist attraction – and I can't wait to see it! As I mentioned before ... it's all about the small stuff  :)

We leave Goodland around 9:30am – and we hit central time zone soon after. It’s about a 3 hour drive to THE WORLD’S LARGEST BALL OF TWINE!!!

Andy is afraid that I will be disappointed - but I assure him that is not remotely possible. After all – I do know what a ball of twine is. We used plenty of it making Andria’s table decoration for the wedding! My excitement does not diminish.

I try hard to keep my thoughts off THE WORLD’S LARGEST BALL OF TWINE!!!

We pass several small towns with tons of character – but I will not choose these towns for my list. It is so dry here – my skin feels like it is falling off. I don’t know if it’s because we live in beautiful, rainy Oregon or what – but it’s even hard to swallow it’s so dry. If we lived here I would buy stock in some sort of juice or drinking water company - we are going through lots of liquid to help quench our thirst.

We pass through the town of Hoxie - and hear the noon fire whistle. Now that isn't a sound you hear everyday. Growing up in St. Ignace they blew the whistle at noon - as well as the church bells at 6:00. Sometimes I sure do miss living in a small town. 

The landscape is getting prettier. We enter more of a rolling hill topography. Coincidently – it begins at a town called Hill City. Here is an interesting factoid about Kansas from our buddy Bill. All the small towns on these rural routes are between 7 – 10 miles apart. That is the distance a horse & buggy could comfortably travel in a day. He told us that most of these towns have less than 50 people living in them today. I wish I could stop and listen to some of the oldtimers stories. I’m sure they have many interesting tales to tell.

We near our destination of Cawker City, Kansas. As we drive into town we see it - Ta Da! It is magnificent! There is an information plaque out front and a roof covering the ball protecting it from inclement weather. I rush out the door before Andy can get his flip flops on.

There it sits – in all its glory. THE WORLD’S LARGEST BALL OF TWINE!!! 

 I can’t believe there aren't crowds & crowds of people here to see it –  but it’s just us. We read the plaque – here are the facts:

The Twine Ball story began in 1953, when farmer Frank Stoeber, like thousands of his rural brethren, found it tidy and efficient to roll spare bits of sisal twine into a small ball in his barn. But over the years, instead of re-using or disposing of the twine, Frank kept rolling. By 1957, his twine ball weighed 2 1/2 tons and stood 8-ft. tall. By 1961, when he turned it over to the town, Stoeber had over 1,600,000 feet of twine rolled into a sphere 11 feet in diameter. Stoeber died in 1974.

Afraid of another town (Darwin,MN) surpassing the record - the town of Cawker organized an annual Twine-A-Thon, where anyone can step up and wrap more scrap twine onto the ball.

Today, the ominous sphere squats at the center of a whirl of twine ball-related boosterism and activity. Current caretakers Linda and Jack Clover break out the twine spools and wrapping apparatus at a moment's notice, and police for improper wrapping (string and yarn are not allowed). After 2006's Twine-A-Thon, total twine length was recorded as 7,801,766 feet. It weighed in at just under 18,000 lbs.

Andy takes my photo – several photos – and then I walk around the ball a couple of times to revel in it's greatness. We take a walk down Main Street and notice that most of the nearby businesses are closed – maybe it’s a 'closed on Monday' sort of thing. Hope it's not a "nobody cares about THE WORLD'S LARGEST BALL OF TWINE' sort of thing. No souvenirs for us so it's back into the RV to contiue on our way. 

Before we take off Andy turns and asks me if it’s everything I thought it would be. I answer - "Of course, it's THE WORLD’S LARGEST BALL OF TWINE!!!"

Enough said.