World's Largest Ball of Twine

Location:  Downtown Cawker City on South side of Hwy US 24

Town:  Cawker City

Contact:  Visit the Cawker City Website for more information on the town as well as historic and current photos of the ball of twine.

In the small Central Kansas town of Cawker City is found what is claimed to be the world's largest ball of twine.  It weighs about 15,000 pounds and contains over 1,100 miles of twine with more being added all the time.   This is enough twine to reach half way across the United States!!!  The ball was started by Frank Stoeber in 1953. 

Those are the facts, which only leaves the question, uh...well, Why?  It turns out that  the late Mr. Stoeber, a local livestock farmer, started the ball in 1953 as a way of disposing of the twine used to bind bales of hay he fed to his livestock .  By 1961, it had grown to the point that he could barely get it through the barn door.  At this point he donated it to the city of Cawker City which built a shelter for it.  The ball continued to grow as he added still more twine, in fact the ball has out grown two previous shelters and it currently has a circumference of more than 40 feet.  The community now sponsors an annual "Twine Winding" each August.

(Special thanks to Kay Thull for emailing much of this information in regards to the ball of twine.) 

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