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Giant nutcracker coming to South Highway 75

Lead Summary
,
By
Lori Sorenson

Luverne is home to the third-largest nutcracker collection in the world, and it will soon be home to the world’s largest nutcracker — one that towers 73 feet tall and can be seen by interstate traffic from a mile away.
The giant nutcracker is a private endeavor funded by Just For Nuts Inc., a Luverne nonprofit that has amassed more than $200,000 in donations by local citizens and organizations. Of that, $50,000 came from the Blandin Foundation.
Structurally, the 65-foot-tall nutcracker will stand on an 8-foot-tall pedestal supported by an existing 40-foot-tall solid steel post that once carried a “Mobile” sign for a service station.
The property is now home to Those Blasted Things, opened more than 20 years ago by Vance and Becky Walgrave, who granted an easement to the nonprofit in order to build the giant nutcracker.
They and their daughter, Katie, are on the Just For Nuts board, which submitted a variance request to the city for the oversized structure last week. They said they’ll announce a contest to name the nutcracker once a variance is approved.
For motorists traveling west on I-90, the nutcracker will loom on the horizon just as they pass Luverne’s nutcracker billboard.
For local leaders watching tourism traffic, it will boost an already growing number of travelers who stop at the downtown History Center to see the nutcracker collection.
At last count, there are 5,300 original nutcrackers — no duplicates and some quite historic and valuable — in Luverne’s collection.
The History Center guest book has recorded thousands of visitors from across the United States and around the world.
According to History Center staff, there were over 5,000 visitors last year, and most remark that they came to see for themselves the nutcracker collection that’s gaining notoriety by the day.
After WCCO TV aired a Wednesday night segment on Luverne’s nutcrackers, a couple drove from Minneapolis the following Saturday in treacherous winter weather.
They took in the collection, along with Rock County’s history displays, and left with $425 worth of merchandise —nutcrackers offered for sale from a supply of nutcrackers that are duplicates and that are purchased for resale.
“People are coming and spending money here,” said Betty Mann, who donated her personal collection of nutcrackers in 2016.
“I never in my wildest dreams expected to do what we’re doing. … It’s crazy.”
 
‘Crazy nutcracker lady’
It’s so crazy, in fact, that when Luverne leaders first started talking about promoting the community based on the nutcracker collection, Mann became known as “the crazy nutcracker lady.”
Before donating her collection to the History Center, she had entertained busloads of travelers who had heard about her nutcrackers and wanted to see them.
Recognizing an opportunity for the History Center, Mann donated the nutcrackers when the local museum moved from the Masonic Temple on North Freeman into the historic Ford Motor building on East Main Street.
The “new” History Center was built with space for the nutcrackers to be prominently displayed near the entrance, and it didn’t take long for the guest book to prove Mann’s hunch.
The nutcrackers might be the reason visitors stopped, but while they were there, they stayed to tour the museum and learn about Rock County’s history and its people. “People are amazed at our museum,” she said. “Especially our sod shanty, covered wagon and buffalo.”
Around that same time, Luverne Initiatives For Tomorrow (LIFT) hired community consultant Roger Brooks to help improve the town’s image with better branding and self-promotion.
Among other things, he urged the town to use Mann’s nutcrackers as its unique “hook” to attract visitors. “This is flat out amazing,” he said about them. “This is worth getting off the interstate for.”
He pointed to Bemidji’s Paul Bunyon and LeSueur’s Jolly Green Giant as examples of other oddities that attract traffic.
The Jolly Green Giant three years ago was attracting 20,000 visitors per year. Since the community started promoting it, visits rose to 46,000 last year.
Brooks showed an artist’s rendering of an I-90 billboard, “Luverne: Home of the largest nutcracker collection in the Midwest,” and encouraged putting nutcrackers on every corner.
Some locals pushed back on the notion and on social media complained about the “crazy nutcracker lady.”
Mann, meanwhile, quietly continued her work at the History Center where the nutcracker numbers grew along with the guest list of travelers visiting the collection.
“They know about us on the East Coast and on the West Coast, and they come from Australia, Africa, some places in South America, Japan,” Mann said. “And they come specifically to see the nutcrackers.”
To continue the momentum, the Rock County Fine Arts and Chamber dedicated several 7-foot-tall nutcrackers that were creatively painted by local artists.
Tourism brochures and advertisements about Luverne in state and national publications encourage visitors to see the nutcracker collection.
And by this fall, as tourism continues to flow from I-90 to downtown Luverne, a 73-foot-tall nutcracker on South Highway 75 will welcome them to the “Nutcracker Capital of the World.”

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