Giant Sugar Beet

Halstad, Minnesota, United States

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Listed, not yet checked · Oct 2026

This Big Thing is recorded as still being here.

A 21-foot sugar beet sculpture, 8 feet in diameter and weighing 10,000 pounds according to Agweek in 2020, stands in Sugar Beet Park in Halstad, Minnesota. Sculptor Josh Porter shaped it in spray foam over a concrete-mixer drum.

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Giant Sugar Beet

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47.35155° N, 96.82690° W

FIELD GUIDE

The story

Halstad, a Red River Valley town of about 600 people in 2020, has put a 21-foot sugar beet at its main crossroads and calls it the World's Largest Sugar Beet. Agweek reported in July 2020 that the sculpture is 8 feet in diameter and weighs 10,000 pounds, and stands in what was to be called Sugar Beet Park, where US Highway 75 meets Minnesota Highway 200.

The idea came from a local farming family talking around a backyard campfire in 2017, looking for something to set the town apart. The Halstad Business League led the fundraising, which began with a community event in March 2018. Agweek put the cost at about $65,000: $30,000 for the sculpture and $35,000 for the park and an electronic sign for community notices.

Sculptor Josh Porter of Merrifield, Minnesota, built the beet around an inverted concrete-truck mixing drum. He formed it over about ten days in spray-foam insulation, including the groove characteristic of the root, then added a bedliner-type protective coating, paint and a seal coat. The five steel leaves cost $1,500 each, which is why the design stopped at five.

The title is the town's own claim. A member of the family told Agweek that an Idaho beet made of mesh might be taller or longer, but that Halstad's is the heaviest. The City of Halstad says the sculpture commemorates the impact of sugar beets, which it says grow on more than 500,000 acres of the Red River Valley, about 57 percent of the sugar beet acreage planted in the United States.

A December 2025 Forum Communications feature describes the beet standing in the middle of town, with a sign of sugar beet facts and a historical timeline, and says it is listed with the Historic King of Trails, an association of attractions along US 75.

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WHAT TO EXPECT

An outdoor sculpture in Sugar Beet Park. A December 2025 Forum Communications feature describes a sign with sugar beet facts and a historical timeline and a board of donors.

ACCESS

In Sugar Beet Park in downtown Halstad, Minnesota, where US Highway 75 meets Minnesota Highway 200, according to Agweek in 2020. A December 2025 feature describes it standing in the middle of the town.

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Find another Big Thing nearby

Big Bruce is a 13 ft 5 in white-ash baseball bat turned in 2000. Guinness World Records lists it as the largest wooden baseball bat, owned by the Fargo-Moorhead RedHawks, and North Dakota Tourism places it at the team’s home, Newman Outdoor Field in Fargo.

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50 km away

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