Your guide to Wisconsin’s giant roadside statues
Next time you hit the road in Wisconsin, plan to stop at some of these unique (and massive!) roadside statues.
It’s important to keep your eyes on the road when you’re driving, but sometimes that can be pretty tricky to do in Wisconsin because the state is filled with distinctive and eye-catching roadside statues.
Some of these statues celebrate local folklore, like the hodag in Rhinelander, while others celebrate local accomplishments. Others are just up for fun, like Vienna’s Pinkie the Elephant. No matter the reason that they were built, Wisconsin’s giant roadside statues are always worth a stop.
Next time you hit the road in Wisconsin, keep your eyes on the street, but make a plan to stop every once in a while to spot some of the state’s most unique, and largest, roadside statues.
The World’s Largest Hodag Statue
450 W. Kemp St., Rhinelander
Plenty of intimidating creatures can be found throughout Wisconsin — bears, cougars, wolves — but none are as fearsome as the hodag, if you believe in Rhinelander’s most famous piece of folklore. According to legend, a hodag has horns on its head, spikes going down its tail, and sharp teeth to catch fish fresh out of Boom Lake. The hodag has become such a beloved piece of folklore in the northern Wisconsin city that there’s a park, Hodag Park, in Rhinelander, as well as the World’s Largest Hodag Statue.
The statue can be found in front of the Rhinelander Area Chamber of Commerce & Visitor Center, and is always open for visitors, even when the visitor center is closed. More information on the hodag can be found inside the building.
Ben Bikin’
101 E. Wisconsin St., Sparta
Cyclist Amanda Coker holds the record for the most miles ridden in a year at 86,537, and cyclist Denise Mueller-Korenek holds the record for the fastest speed on a bike, at 183 miles per hour. But the biggest bicyclist? That record goes to Ben Bikin’, a 32-foot-tall statue of a cyclist riding a penny farthing bike in Sparta, Wisc.
The statue was built by F.A.S.T. Corp to commemorate Sparta’s claim of being the Bicycling Capital of America. The city has good reason to make the claim, as it lies along the Elroy-Sparta Bike Trail, a trail that spans 32.5 miles and is one of the most popular bicycling trails in the country, with approximately 60,000 annual cyclists. Ben Bikin’ is now called Big Ben, as there’s a smaller version of the statue in Sparta, nicknamed Little Ben.
World’s Largest Penny
820 Third Ave., Woodruff
You can’t buy a lot with one penny, but one penny in particular means a lot to the community of Woodruff, Wisc., a town in the northern part of the state. The one penny in particular just happens to be the largest penny in the world, standing 15 feet tall and weighing more than nine tons, and it’s on display near the Dr. Kate Museum.
Dr. Kate Pelham Newcomb moved to northern Wisconsin in 1931, where she saw patients over a vast expanse of area, sometimes walking to reach her patients in the winter if they lived in places where snow plows couldn’t access. Newcomb began raising funds for a new hospital in the area in 1949, and when funding came up short, a geometry class at a local high school began fundraising through seriously small donations: their goal was to collect one million pennies. They were successful, and received even more donations, and the Lakeland Memorial Hospital opened in 1954. The penny was built to commemorate the efforts by Dr. Kate, the students and the community who pitched in.
World’s Largest Talking Loon
5150 N. U.S. Highway 51, Mercer
With just 1,649 residents, according to the 2020 U.S. Census, Mercer, Wisc., doesn’t have the largest human population in the state. But it certainly has a large population of loons. The town has nicknamed itself ‘The Loon Capital of the World,’ after an environmental study found that the town has the highest concentration of common loons in the world.
To commemorate this, the town put up Claire d’Loon, a 16-foot-tall statue of a common loon, which is located in front of Mercer’s Chamber of Commerce. The statue weighs approximately 2,000 pounds, and unlike its fellow loons, can’t fly because it’s cemented to the ground. The town also hosts Loon Day each year, with hundreds of arts and crafts exhibits, a flea market, live music, and importantly, a loon calling contest.
World’s Largest Six-Pack
1111 Third St. S., La Crosse
La Crosse, Wisc., is proud of its brewing history. So proud, in fact, that it’s celebrated with the world’s largest six-pack of beer. While you can’t take a sip from one of the massive tanks, they actually do serve as six incredibly large cans of beer. The World’s Largest Six-Pack was first built by the G. Heileman Brewing Company in 1969 to hold excess beer. A year later, the storage tanks were painted to look like cans of Old Style, one of the brewing company’s most popular beers.
The cans, which stand at 54 feet tall, and each hand more than 688,000 gallons of beer, were painted white in 2000, after the G. Heileman Brewing Company closed, and the building was purchased by the City Brewing Company. In 2023, the tanks were again made to look like cans of Old Style beer.
World’s Largest Fish
10360 Hall of Fame Drive, Hayward
On average, muskies range between 28 and 48 inches long. The musky on display in front of the Freshwater Fishing Hall of Fame, in Hayward, Wisc., is 143 feet long, and 41 feet tall. The massive, fiberglass musky statue sits on top of an 88,000-gallon pond, and is one of the several buildings that the Freshwater Fishing Hall of Fame is housed in.
Visitors can walk inside of the fish, entering through a doorway in the giant musky’s tail. The inside of the fiberglass fish contains the names of the charter members of the Freshwater Fishing Hall of Fame, and eventually leads up to an observation deck in the fish’s mouth. The museum costs $8.95 for adults to enter, and $6.95 for kids between the ages of 3 and 17. Kids under three, and active military members can enter for free.
Pinkie the Elephant
4995 County Road V, DeForest
Travelers driving along I-90/I-94 might stop at the Shell gas station at exit 126 to fill up on gas, have a bathroom break, or pick up some snacks, but they’re most likely not leaving before grabbing a picture with Pinkie, a massive, beloved pink elephant statue that looks over the freeway.
The large elephant has been at the gas station, in a northern suburb of Madison, since the 1960s. Pinkie is adorned with a pair of thick-rimmed glasses, and admirers can pick up Pinkie-themed souvenirs in the Shell gas station.
World’s Largest Soup Kettle
U.S. Highway 8, Laona
There’s no longer any soup made in the world’s largest soup kettle, but it continues to represent a wholesome tradition in Laona, Wisc. In the 1920s, the Russell family invited the community over for a bowl of soup, served out of a massive soup kettle, and started a longstanding tradition that has continued for more than a century.
Laona still holds community soup events, where attendees can get a free bowl of soup, although the famous kettle doesn’t factor into the making of the soup. Although, it could certainly feed plenty. The massive kettle is three feet deep and measures seven feet around in circumference.
World’s Largest Potato Masher
3400 Innovation Drive, Plover
Many of Wisconsin’s roadside statues have been around for decades, attracting tourists and passersby. But the World’s Largest Potato Masher is one of the state’s most recent additions to its collection of unique, and extremely large, roadside statues.
The statue is located in front of the Food + Farm Exploration Center, a museum that teaches about the process of how food is grown and created. The giant potato masher stands 39 feet tall, and weighs 7,500 pounds, and the museum said that it honors the agriculture industry, growers, innovators and consumers.
Giant Mouse with Cheese
400 Oasis Road, Black River Falls
Wisconsin’s a state that loves its cheese, and one mouse in Black River Falls, Wisc., is no exception. The large statue of a mouse holding a slice of cheese stands outside of the Black River Crossing Oasis, off of I-94 exit 116.
The mouse, which is adorned with a red shirt and a pair of blue overalls, and is made out of fiberglass. While it might be the most noticeable giant statue when cars pull into the oasis, it’s not the only one. The Black River Crossing Oasis also hosts a statue of an orange moose, and a large jumping deer nearby.
World’s Largest Cone Top Beer Can
Brewery Hollow Road, Potosi
While visitors to the Potosi Brewing Company might clink cans and bottles of beer together, there’s one can across the street from the brewery that they’d never be able to lift. That’s because it’s absolutely massive — the world’s largest cone top beer can is more than 40 feet tall, and could hold more than 18,000 gallons of beer.
The can was built outside of the original Potosi Brewery, which closed in 1972. While the brewery has been closed for more than 50 years, the massive can of beer stands as a memento to the city’s brewing history, and serves as a bar. It’s put in use for events at the next-door Holiday Gardens Event Center.
Our stories may be republished online or in print under Creative Commons license CC BY-NC-ND 4.0. We ask that you edit only for style or to shorten, provide proper attribution and link to our web site. Please see our republishing guidelines for use of photos and graphics.
