J.C. Payne, a retired Texas brick mason, rolled a ball of plastic twine that stood 13.5 feet tall, according to Roadside America. From 1987 to 1991, he gathered all the twine he could from neighboring ranches and dairies.
Guinness World Records lists Payne, of Valley View, Texas, as the record holder for the largest ball of string, set in 1992. It measures 13 feet 2.5 inches across and 41 feet 6 inches around. It weighs about six tons, per 99% Invisible.
Two other towns have balls of their own. Darwin, Minnesota, has a sisal ball rolled by one man, Francis Johnson. Ripley’s tried to buy it first, but Darwin residents refused, Edward Meyer, then Ripley’s vice president of exhibits and archives, recalled. Cawker City, Kansas, has a ball of old-fashioned brown sisal twine, Roadside America said, and the town dismissed Payne’s as a “plastic string” ball.
Payne did not think much of Cawker City’s ball either, because a whole community built it. He considered that cheating, Edward Meyer, then Ripley’s vice president of exhibits and archives, recalled.
In 1993, Payne sold the ball to Ripley’s for a rumored $25,000, Roadside America reported. Ripley’s trucked it to its new museum in Branson, Missouri, that November, where it still sits today.
Payne gave a different figure in a 1997 interview with Farm Show. He said he sold the ball for $21,000.
Meanwhile, the museum had to be built around the ball, so getting it out would mean taking off the roof or blasting out a wall, 99% Invisible reported. “We’d have to take the roof off to get it out of here,” museum manager John Dixon told Roadside America. A placard calls it the “World’s Largest String Ball.”
Payne did not stop rolling after the sale. He started a ball of barbed wire, which reached 11 feet 6 inches across and weighed about 12 tons, Farm Show reported. He kept adding to it until he died in 2004, per Roadside America.
Payne was not the only person to build a roadside attraction in 1987. That year, Jim Reinders’ Carhenge went up in a Nebraska field as a circle of 39 cars.
This story was originally published by Parade on Oct 25, 2026, where it first appeared in the News section. Add Parade as a Preferred Source by clicking here.