World's Largest Strawberry

Strawberry Point does not do subtle: its town name is a fruit, and since 1967 a 15-foot strawberry has towered over City Hall. Iowa PBS recounts that the military moving through the area in the mid-1800s, during the relocation of the Winnebago tribe from Wisconsin, came across wild strawberries and staked a campsite as Strawberry Point; later settlers argued over naming the settlement Franklin, but everybody called it Strawberry Point. In the 1960s, the segment says, residents wanted a central piece to draw people to town and hired an advertising company that made signs. The fiberglass fruit, about 1,400 pounds and 12 feet wide, was built in California, shipped to Dubuque and assembled in town, and hoisted on Commercial Street on June 20, 1967. Five months later a windstorm snapped its pole and smashed it; it went back up in the spring of 1968. Roadside America calls the town "probably the technical champion" of the World's Largest Strawberry title, if water towers and red-painted buildings are ignored, and describes the maker as a local ad agency, whereas Iowa PBS says the strawberry was built in California. In early 2025 weather had left the fiberglass no longer structurally sound, Iowa PBS says, and it was taken down for a 49-day makeover. KWWL reported on April 16, 2025 that K&W Coatings had repaired and repainted it and that it had returned that morning; city administrator Deno Andrews said it "looks even better than we could have ever imagined". Iowa PBS says that if you are posing for a selfie or a family photo there, anybody will stop and take your picture.