‘City of nutcrackers’ thinks bigger with latest addition

Betty Mann gave herself a belated Christmas present more than 20 years ago.

The $6 nutcracker, marked down to half-price at the Cracker Barrel restaurant in Sioux Falls, originally was meant to be nothing more than a way to lift her spirits after months of grieving.

Instead, it became a passion for Mann, who soon had two nutcrackers, then 20, then 200, then 2,000.

Now, in the seven years since Mann donated her nutcracker collection to another one of her passions — the Rock County Historical Society — it has expanded and become a theme for her hometown of Luverne. The southwest Minnesota community of 4,900 residents doesn’t mind admitting that there are more nutcrackers than people in town.

And to capitalize on being the home of the United States’ third-largest nutcracker collection, some Luverne residents are thinking big. Big-big. Sixty-five-feet big, in fact.

Vance and Becky Walgrave, who have operated businesses in Luverne for more than 30 years, last week watched as construction workers poured an 8-foot-tall concrete platform that next year will hold the world’s largest nutcracker — complete with the signature working jaw.

“Right now, the largest nutcracker with a working jaw is 33 feet tall and in Luxembourg,” Vance Walgrave said. “We’re pushing the limits on him for a reason — it would be really painful to have someone build something bigger.”

At 65 feet on an 8-foot platform, the Luverne nutcracker will be easily visible from Interstate 90. The Walgraves’ businesses — they operate the rock shop Those Blasted Things and also sell cemetery memorials — are only about a block away from the interstate exchange, and that’s where Luverne’s giant nutcracker will stand.

“He’s going to look like a traditional nutcracker, but he is going to be dressed in stars and stripes with his hand over his breast, very patriotic,” Walgrave said.

A nonprofit 501(c)3, Just for Nuts Inc., has been created to help raise money for the venture. The nutcracker will be built around a stanchion that once displayed a Mobil gas station sign; the Walgraves donated the land on which the nutcracker will stand.

While they may be seen as the main force behind the giant nutcracker, it has a wider base. The Walgraves said the giant nutcracker has good support. Just for Nuts has a board of directors and several backers helping guide the project.

The nutcracker is being fabricated by a company in Utah. That firm was chosen after several others hesitated to tackle a project of this size, Walgrave said. The work should be done by the time winter is over.

“When spring rolls around and we have nice weather, hopefully they should be done with it and ready to bring it out,” Walgrave said. It will be transported in pieces and assembled at the site.

The Walgraves prefer not to share the fiberglass figure’s cost but said the fundraising efforts are about halfway there. Since the giant nutcracker was conceived five or six years ago, prices have risen astronomically, Walgrave said.

Not everyone is enthused about the giant nutcracker. A Facebook group named Say No to the Nutcracker has 950 members, and a Reddit poster wrote: “Truth be told, if the jaws don’t crack nuts, it’s just a $350,000 selfie stop. I’m sure it will do what they propose, pull traffic off I-90. And it will bring business to Luverne. But we should be transparent about the entire proposal. It’s not going to be a Guinness Book of World Records draw. Lots of people will make fun of us. Lots of people will like it. News organizations will come to report on it. Businesses right near it will see increased profits.”

It will have a working jaw, the visionaries behind the nutcracker said.

“On special occasions we’ll open him up and close him up, just to show he does work,” Walgrave said. “Most cranes can’t get up that high anyway to stuff something in his mouth. It’s mostly so we didn’t have to listen to ‘Yeah, it’s a big nutcracker, but it’s not a working nutcracker.’”

The nutcracker’s presence should have a good effect on Luverne’s commerce, said Jane Lanphere, director of the Luverne Area Chamber of Commerce.

“The whole story is we just need to work together on how we can use it to market and bring more people here,” she said.

Lanphere pointed to a Minnesota town about 110 miles to the east on Interstate 90. Blue Earth put up a tall Jolly Green Giant figure in the 1970s, which drew moderate attention. In the late 2010s, however, the city began marketing the Jolly Green Giant, and it now draws thousands of people annually.

Visitors like unique roadside attractions, Lanphere said.

“The world’s largest ball of twine — they have 300 people in the town and have 25,000 people come and see it,” she said. “That’s the reason they have a gas station and restaurant there — they have a ball of twine.”

But until the giant nutcracker takes its place in Luverne, the town still has its collection of nutcrackers. Last week, the collection had grown to 5,983, said Wendel Buys, the historical society’s executive director. During the holidays, businesses and residents display nutcrackers, and a scavenger hunt is held to find the nutcrackers scattered around town. Nutcracker-themed events take place year-round, competing with Luverne’s Buffalo Days, the Tri-State Band Festival and the nearby Blue Mounds State Park as favorite attractions.

The nutcrackers have been housed in the Rock County History Center since it moved into a former car dealership in 2016. The collection now fills two small rooms in the building, Buys said.

“Every one is unique,” he said of the nutcrackers. “When we get a new one, we check the whole collection. If we find we already have it, we put it on sale in our Christmas House Gift Shop.”

The museum accepts all kinds of nutcrackers, including the metal vises that emerge at Christmastime to crush mixed nuts. The vast majority, however, are the kind popularized over the years — upright figures with jaws that drop and a lever that makes them snap shut. A Sioux Falls man, Robert Black, donated about 1,300 nutcrackers from his own collection.

“Most of what we have are made of wood, the traditional nutcracker with the jaw that opens, but if you tried to crack a nutb it would break the nutcracker,” Buys said. “We have nutcrackers less than an inch all the way up to 6 feet tall. We have a few made of plastic, a few made of metal, a few of plaster of Paris or different composite materials. Some made of acrylic. If we have a pillow or a rug or a tie that has a nutcracker on it, that can also be part of our collection.”

Luverne’s collection likely is the most colorful in the country, Buys said. A collection in Texas is larger but contains many more plain metal nutcrackers. Another collection that outnumbers Luverne’s can be found in Leavenworth, Washington; that one also features more traditional nutcrackers.

Mann comes to the history center almost daily to spend time with her former collection and to see the new pieces that have been donated. Nutcracker dolls originated in late 17th century Germany; they often were given as gifts and became associated with the Christmas season.

Mann’s oldest daughter and her husband died in 2000, and Christmas that year was difficult for the Luverne woman, now 93. The first Saturday in January 2001, after eating at the Cracker Barrel, a nutcracker on a table in the gift area caught her eye.

“He was a Santa, 14 or 15 inches tall, and he had a cape on, and he’s holding some presents in his hand,” Mann said. “That started the whole thing.”

Mann already had one collection at home — she has sought out miniature glass shoes for years and has amassed 10,000 — but she made room for another. Until she reached about 2,500 nutcrackers. With the new museum opening in Luverne, Mann decided it needed a special attraction.

Even after other donations started coming in, Mann didn’t fully realize the importance of her collection. At least not until travel and tourism expert Roger Brooks came to Luverne.

“He said you have to have a hook to get people into a community, and you have a perfect hook in Betty’s nutcrackers,” she recalled. “I about fell off my chair. It all just kind of happened. I only bought the one nutcracker because I wanted a nutcracker, and it mushroomed.”

Mann and her husband farmed near Luverne, and she is a retired schoolteacher who once led the Rock County Historical Society. Except for her husband’s two years in the service, Luverne has been home her entire life.

Once a year, the history center’s No 1. volunteer and others will begin to dust the shelves that hold the nutcrackers.

“Last time we dusted, it took a little over a month,” she said. “It’s not a hard job, but it’s time-consuming.”

She will be excited to see the giant nutcracker put in place, Mann said, and she’s excited for the future.

“It’s a Christmas theme, but people come here just to see the nutcrackers in the summertime, too,” she said.

Travelers are always on the lookout for roadside attractions, something new and different, Walgrave said. Luverne’s giant nutcracker will draw people in, and then they have plans to send the travelers deeper into the community.

A map on their building’s side wall will show the town’s layout, including the new bike trails and how to find the history center and chamber of commerce. Another board will give businesses the opportunity to place QR codes that tell their hours and offerings.

“This has always been about figuring out how to drag people off the interstate and visit our town,” Walgrave said.