A mermaid, a snowman and a raspberry: What quirky landmarks bring to the suburbs

The 38-foot fiberglass mermaid that had beckoned motorists speeding down Mounds View Boulevard for decades is back.

She’d been shot at, battered by weather and possibly started sinking into the building’s roof before she came down in 2018. And Dan Mueller, a longtime resident who helped purchase the statue for restoration, said Mounds View just wasn’t the same without her.

“You always kind of looked over, at least I did,” Mueller said. “There was always something missing.”

As Twin Cities suburbs bleed one into the next, he said, the mermaid atop the Mermaid Entertainment and Event Center was how people found Mounds View.

Such landmarks, some quirkier than others, foster a sense of place amid big-box stores and chain restaurants often found in the suburbs, according to people who track them. Many of them popped up as highways and development sprawled in the early- and mid-1900s — a dinosaur statue, a polar bear and numerous others — and have endured into the era of social media as backdrop of selfies.

“I hate that word, ‘kitschy,’ because they’re cultural landmarks, really, important to both locals and tourists,” said Debra Jane Seltzer, whose Roadside Architecture website chronicles thousands of statues, signs and buildings around the U.S.

Statues like the Mounds View mermaid, which dates to the 1960s and is now on the ground near the Mermaid, not on the roof, have their origins in the early days of car travel, Seltzer said: Suddenly, people were speeding by and businesses wanted to catch their eyes.

“With sign code, you can’t even, but barely, build anything fun,” she said.

That hasn’t stopped cities from trying to build local landmarks in more modern ways, or at least capitalize on the interest of the unusual monuments they have.

A four-story stucco snowman greets North St. Paul visitors with a smile and a wave just off Hwy. 36.

“We need more of that nowadays,” former North St. Paul Mayor Terry Furlong said. “We need more landmarks that’ve got a big smile and a welcoming attitude.”

The snowman, finished in 1974, was the brainchild of local barber Lloyd Koesling, who had visited Disneyland and thought North St. Paul needed a symbol. The city’s Jaycees had made a huge snowman for a winter festival every year, so why not a permanent version?

The snowman has become a bigger part of North St. Paul’s self-image over the years, on the city’s logo and on street signs, and in smaller snowmen statues, decorated by artists, downtown.

Less obvious but no less loved is the whale car parked outside South City Motors in South St. Paul’s warmer months.

The whale was built out of fiberglass on the chassis of a 1980 El Camino and originally served as a mascot for the WAYL radio station, said Mike Madland, who found the whale car in a Newport junkyard about two decades ago and restored it.

Madland, who owned South City Motors before passing it on to his grandson, said the whale car might have been the best investment he’s ever made.

“People ask, ‘Where is your place located?’” he said. When he asks if they know where the whale car is — and they usually do — he doesn’t have to give them directions.

Back when Eden Prairie was largely farm fields, the red neon Pegasus sign outside the Mobil gas station at Flying Cloud Drive and W. 78th Street told travelers by road and sky where they were.

First installed in the 1930s, the sign beckoned motorists to the gas station and its Wye Cafe, named for its location on the Y-shaped intersection, said Kathie Case, president of the Eden Prairie Historical Society. It also told pilots landing at Flying Cloud Airport they were almost there.

The sign went into storage after the gas station became a Holiday. When the family that owned it offered it to the Historical Society, the city helped fundraise to restore it.

The restored horse sign was reinstalled as part of a sign for Eden Prairie’s Town Center, the development on Metro Transit’s Green Line extension. It’s a new location, but a throwback to its original purpose of welcoming visitors.

“That will be one of the first things they see when they enter Eden Prairie,” Case said, when trains start running in 2027.

In 2017, Hopkins unveiled a new, 22-foot “World’s Largest Raspberry” sculpture off Mainstreet near the terminus of the Lake Minnetonka Regional Trail, a symbol of the city once called the raspberry capital of the world.

Peter L’Allier, then-owner of the Hopkins Health & Wellness Center, came up with the idea to build the raspberry on his business’ land. The western suburb hosts an annual Raspberry Festival and features a raspberry on its logo.

He told the City Council in 2016 he wanted the sculpture to be a destination. In the age of social media, he also wanted to make sure it was ripe for selfies, with proper angles and lighting for photos.

Mayor Patrick Hanlon said the statue complements the city’s other public art, including murals, that make walking the city enjoyable.