Rothsay, Minnesota

Rothsay, Minnesota declared itself the Prairie Chicken Capital of Minnesota, and to make sure nobody forgot it, the town built a giant sculpture of a greater prairie chicken in nineteen seventy-six. The town itself was named for Rothesay, in Scotland, and has had a post office since eighteen eighty. The bird is many times life size.

The statue depicts a male prairie chicken in full booming display, air sacs inflated on his neck, tail fanned, in exactly the posture male birds hold when they gather on open leks in early spring to compete for mates. The greater prairie chicken once ranged across the tallgrass prairie of the Red River Valley, and a few small populations still survive in western Minnesota. The prairie chicken connection is real: the habitat here, open grassland and brushy edges, is exactly what these birds need.

The giant booming chicken on the edge of Rothsay has been pulling drivers off the highway since its unveiling in nineteen seventy-six. The bird stands near the northwest edge of town, in a community of about five hundred people that straddles the line between Otter Tail and Wilkin counties. The only building in Rothsay on the National Register of Historic Places is not a bird at all, but the Johnson Blacksmith Shop, built in nineteen oh three.