This southwest Minnesota town is building a world-record nutcracker

LUVERNE, Minn. — This town in the southwest corner of Minnesota may soon to crack the record for the tallest nutcracker in the world.

Luverne, nestled near the South Dakota border, is building a 65-foot-tall nutcracker, in the hope that seeing a giant Christmas-themed soldier will give drivers on I-90 a reason to stop for a visit.

“You’ve got to known for something,” said Vance Walgrave, who has been working on efforts to build the colossal nutcracker on his property for seven years.

Luverne, population 5,000, already boasts more nutcrackers than people. Most of them are housed at the Rock County History Center downtown, which receives anywhere from 500 to 700 visitors a month.

So far, the emerging giant nutcracker exists as two black boots, each 14-feet-tall and weighing about 1,400 pounds, rising from the prairie. The nutcracker’s legs arrived in Luverne over the weekend and are waiting to be installed next spring, Walgrave, 74, said Monday.

When it’s finished, the nutcracker will stretch to roughly a five-story building and will look like a massive soldier spangled in red, white and blue. From its perch next to Walgrave’s rock shop, Those Blasted Things, it will greet drivers heading west on I-90. It will be made of polyurethane foam, coated in a tough-as-nails truck bed liner material, and supported by a spine made from a repurposed gas station pole.

The hope is for the nutcracker’s body and head to arrive in spring and be assembled in time for the town’s Hot Dog Nite next July, Walgrave said, adding that tourists have already come to take pictures with the giant boots.

Luverne’s nutcracker dreams began with Betty Mann.