Side Dish: The World's Largest Ball of Twine > Cawker City, KS 5/26/12

The front door to the Great Plains Gallery creaked and groaned with age and unsettling portent, soon followed by a distinct smell that rarely precedes the discovery of good news. Nothing inside appeared to stir, until my own heart was shocked out of its normal rhythm by the sight of a curled up figure just shy of the register. The blanketed lump, positioned ever so awkwardly in an unusually respectable chair, remained motionless for what felt like hours, until the squeaky floor betrayed my presence above her disheveled head. "Morning," she croaked, as if speaking for the first time in weeks. It was late afternoon. "Made most of these myself," she said, gesturing in the general direction of the far wall, as if stubborn pride had suddenly interrupted a life wasted.

What appeared before me was shelf after shelf of an ancient crypt keeper's single-minded devotion to Cawker City's one and only claim to fame. Items ranged from clay balls resembling oven-fired hush puppies to mini, child-proof plastic bottles housing tiny pieces of the town's treasure, forever entombed, much like this gray-topped prune in her musty tower of trinkets. A shot glass or magnet made little sense, as whatever one takes from this shuttered town on the Kansas prairie, it must bear the stamp of twine. Glorious, heartbreaking twine, now reduced to keeping the death knell at bay.

This warehouse of lost dreams, for all of its dilapidation and stark sadness, remains one of the few buildings actually open to the public in Cawker City. Main Street is, as one would expect, the epicenter of the economic tsunami, and as we snapped our photos on this wildly hot day in May, few cars stirred to life, and the sidewalks ached with a raw, all-too-typical loneliness. According to the literature, the town can and has come alive during any number of “Twine-a-Thons” or “Twine Walks” (a painted loop on the concrete reminds visitors of this very fact), but as the prairie wind whipped, little evidence remained that anyone still gave a damn. No one walked, ate, pumped gas, or tipped their cap; this was numbed, absent humanity in its purest form, a hamlet so bereft even the zombies stayed away for lack of anyone to eat.

It was not always thus. In 1953, ambitious Kansan Frank Stoeber had a dream; a dream based not on humanity’s betterment through colossal invention, but rather the slow, steady accumulation of twine in ball form. It would grow as the corn grew, and from all around, people would come to observe the most awesome display of devotion anyone from the Sunflower State had witnessed since John Brown left several hapless farmers in pieces. The town would care for this twine, ensuring fidelity to Stoeber’s vision, and the annals of Roadside America would never be the same again. Then, in 1988, Cawker City’s faithful moved the ball of twine to its current location, forever protected from the elements by a roof so fair, few would question its durability or national importance. And yes, the World’s Largest Ball of Twine is of such noble distinction, as it holds firm on every last map sold, even if the Nicodemus National Historic Site (just a bit west) does not. History it seems, is written not with lightning, but twine. Even if the “ball” shape has yielded somewhat to that of a slightly squashed apple.

So if you’re ever along Route 9, forty-two miles north of Interstate 70 (near Waconda Lake), damn near the exact point on the atlas that claims to be the “Geographic Center of the Conterminous U.S.,” pay a brief visit to the edifying grandeur that is the World’s Largest Ball of Twine. For us, it at last completes the Great Triumvirate, joining Nebraska’s Carhenge and Amarillo’s Cadillac Ranch as roadside staples. So what if the damn thing’s size hasn’t been updated in almost a quarter-century (a nearby sign, appropriately, freezes everything in time); this is what driving the highways and the byways is all about. Americana at its most ridiculous; a random commemoration of little importance that still packs ‘em in, even if no one remains behind to applaud the effort.