Jolly Green Giant statue

The Jolly Green Giant began as the mascot of a vegetable canning company, a friendly green figure who came to symbolize peas, corn, and other canned vegetables in kitchens across America. Blue Earth's ties to the canning industry made it a fitting home for a giant statue of the brand's beloved character.

The town raised the towering figure as a landmark and a celebration of that heritage, and it quickly became a favorite stop for travelers on the interstate. Generations of families have pulled off to pose beneath the giant, making him one of Minnesota's best-known roadside icons.

Blue Earth sits in the rich farm country of south-central Minnesota, land whose deep, fertile soil made it ideal for growing the vegetables that fed the canning industry. The county's dark earth even gives the town its name, from the blue-gray clay along the Blue Earth River.

This is the homeland of the Dakota, whose name gives Minnesota its own, from Mni Sota Makoce. The prairie they knew was later broken by the plow into some of the most productive farmland in the country, and the canning heritage the giant represents grew directly out of that agricultural bounty.

The giant belongs to a great American tradition of roadside attractions, oversized figures built to catch the eye of passing travelers and lure them off the highway. Minnesota is especially rich in them, from giant statues of loons and walleyes to Paul Bunyan, and the Jolly Green Giant is among the most famous of all.

At his base there is a small park and gift area, and the whole stop is designed for a quick, cheerful pause. He is the kind of landmark that turns a long stretch of interstate into a memory, a giant grinning down at everyone who stops to look.

The giant serves as an ambassador for Blue Earth, a small, welcoming prairie town that wears its connection to him with pride. A stop pairs naturally with a look around the downtown and the surrounding farm country, a slice of small-town Minnesota life.

He greets travelers in every season, grinning above the summer fields, the autumn harvest, and the winter snow. Whatever the time of year, the Jolly Green Giant is a landmark that makes people smile and reach for a camera.

The closest Boutel™ stays, so you can turn this stop into an overnight. Each is an independently owned, editorially selected place to stay.