Darwin’ s
Twine Ball Museum
Above is the Darwin Museum, located on First Street, featuring the twine ball. The inset shows the man who created the ball of twine, Francis Johnson.
The Darwin Museum um is most commonly known as the home of the largest bal l of twin e made by one man, recently featured in a documentary. The museum, however, has much more to share that helps tell the story of the small town’ s history. V isitors at the museum will l not only get a close-up of the twine ball, but they will also see many donated items throughout, including baseball memorabilia as part of an exhib it on Darwin town ball. Darwin was once quite the baseball town, with nearly 1,000 fans showing their support at each hometown game.
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Possibly the most legendary of Darwin’ s baseball history are two of its own players – Fred“ Lefty” Miller and Milt Goemer, who went off to play professional baseball.
In August 2011, a painting titled“ Lefty Miller on the Mound,” painted by Lavona Keskey, was donated to the museum and city. It portrays the July 4, 1908, double-header game when Miller pitched a four-hit shutout for the St. Paul Saints, defeating the Minneapolis Millers 3-0 at Lexington Park in St. Paul.
Pictures of the town’ s teams can also be seen in an exhibit located in the museum’ s new addition, along with baseball uniforms and the Goemer MVP trophy and ring.
The famous Darwin Twine Ball
What truly has put Darwin on the map, bringing thousands of visitors from around the world to the town each year, has been its famous ball of twine.
Spreading the word even further has been father / daughter fi lmmakers makers KC and Bryan Duggan, who completed a documentary based on the 8.7-ton world-renowned wned attraction.
The hour-and-18-minute-long
-18-minute-long documentary highlights the motivation behind Francis Johnson, the creator of the original largest ball of twine, and the two other balls of twine that have competed for the same notoriety.
As the story of the balls of twine unfolds, the documentary also portrays rays the grassroots values of conservation, patience, and perseverance, and America’ s obsession with“ bigger is better,” Bryan explained.
Johnson, who was the son of US congressman Magnus Johnson, wound his fi rst piece of baler twine in March 1950.
As the ball grew, Johnson could no longer wrap the twine by hand and had to use large railroad jacks, that were built to lift boxcars, to move the ball of twine.
The ball was completed in 1979, and recorded in the Guinness Book of Worl
d Records as the world’ s largest ball of twine.
It weighs 8.7 tons, is 11 feet high, and measures 40 feet in diameter. Although this is still l the largest ball of twine made by one man, it was removed from the book in 1994, by a ball of plastic twine made by several people and weighing considerably less.
Every summer, the town celebrates what it’ s most famous for with Twine Ball Day, scheduled annually the second Saturday in August. The museum is open during the Twine Ball Day celebration, and by appointment; con ontact t Chris Hansen at( 320)
275-4016.
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Offi cial Guide to Dassel-Cokato 2018-19