Winlock, Washington, World's Largest Egg
Washington
Winlock, population roughly twelve hundred, once ranked second in the entire United States for egg production. The town began as a Northern Pacific Railroad camp and grew into prime agricultural country where poultry farming thrived. In nineteen twenty-three, local egg and poultry co-op manager John Lawrence had a canvas egg built to celebrate the opening of the Pacific Highway Bridge over the Columbia River.
The giant egg drew so much attention on the road that, when the boosters returned home, they left it on display near the train depot, and there it has sat ever since in updated forms. The current fiberglass egg dates to nineteen ninety-one and weighs twelve hundred pounds. Ripley's Believe It or Not featured it as the world's largest egg, a title since challenged by a taller egg sculpture in Mentone, Indiana, though the rivalry has been mostly friendly.