The most celebrated resident of Frazee, Minn., is 22 feet tall and is known to his friends simply as Big Tom. He lives alone just off Highway 10, past the metal barns but before the railroad tracks, where admirers show up seeking photos at all hours of the day.

Big Tom is a turkey — the world’s largest, locals will tell you — and his fiberglass feathers are more than just a conversation starter. He pays homage to the region’s poultry industry, a cornerstone of the rural Minnesota economy, and to the annual Turkey Days festival in Frazee, a town of 1,300 people about 200 miles northwest of Minneapolis.

While no sculpture is quite like Big Tom, who was roosting over Frazee before Thanksgiving with icicles clinging to his chest, snow on his tail feathers and a stoic expression above his wattle, it does not take long while wandering the Midwestern countryside to see more supersize statuary.

Minnesota alone is home to a giant loon in Vergas, a giant otter in Fergus Falls, a giant prairie chicken in Rothsay, a giant sugar beet in Halstad, a giant crow in Belgrade, a giant pelican in, of course, Pelican Rapids and giant Paul Bunyans in Akeley, Bemidji and Brainerd.

For small places that will never have the tallest building or grandest stadium, having one of the world’s largest of something — truly, anything — can be a way to forge an identity, pull in visitors and, perhaps most of all, share a laugh.