About a decade ago I wrote a column based on the local landmarks featured in the 1992 book, &uot;Monumental Minnesota,&uot; by Moira F. Harris and published by Pogo Press of the Twin Cities.

My interest in the Harris book was revived after checking out the newer book, &uot;Oddball Wisconsin,&uot; at the Albert Lea Public Library. Maybe it would be nice to update my column about the area monuments. By the way, I don’t consider them to be oddballs at all.

In her book Harris featured five monuments in Albert Lea. Now, with her book as a partial reference, here are some added details about these particular landmarks.

The first is the Civil War statue which was placed on the Freeborn County Courthouse block in 1914. It was cast by the Perkins and Kratzert Co. This firm also cast similar soldier statues which are now in Stillwater, Faribault, and in Lakewood Cemetery in Minneapolis. And as I emphasized in an Lifestyles article earlier this year, our statue has the name of Ezra Epitome.

The second place featured in the Harris book is the Itasca Rock Garden northwest of the city near the corner of Bluegrass and Itasca Roads and not far from the Wedge Nursery.

The third Albert Lea monument is the facade of Christ in brick relief on the east exterior wall, facing U.S. Highway 69, at the United Methodist Church. This religious gem was created by Arthur Stolp in 1957.

The fourth and fifth monuments in Albert Lea were created by George Bassett of rural Winnebago and sponsored by the Danish Brotherhood. Thus, fourth on the local list is The Danish Immigrant statue in what’s now New Denmark Park. It was dedicated in 1981.

When Harris did the research for her book in 1991 or early ’92, the &uot;Mermaid&uot; was a papier-mch and fiberglass creation which was used in parades and as a floating statue in both Albert Lea and Fountain Lakes for several summers. This changed when the present bronze statue perched on a rock in Fountain Lake and just off shore from New Denmark Park was dedicated in 1994.

Bassett, incidentally, also created &uot;The Girl by the Pool&uot; statue in Blue Earth’s Putnam Park, the pioneer statue in the Delevan City Park, and &uot;The Harvest&uot; statue in Winthrop.

One of the really startling and most unusual artistic creations in the county is the Indian statue near the entrance of Arrowhead County Park south of Freeborn. This statue was crafted from odds and ends of metallic parts years ago by Curt Miller who lives nearby.

In the last column I mentioned the F.A.S.T. Corp. over in Sparta, Wis. This firm is the nation’s major creator of fiberglass critters. It’s likely that the folks at F.A.S.T. made the big fish perched on a pole in front of Clarks Grove’s

Go-Pher One Stop just off Exit 18 on I-35. &uot;Pitchfork Pete,&uot; out in front of the Fleet Farm Supply on East Main Court, and the moveable bovine, or big bull mounted on a trailer which has been used as a roving billboard in Albert Lea, also likely originated in Sparta.

Harris listed two examples of outdoor sculpture over in Austin in her 1992 book. One is the Soldiers and Sailors Memorial installed during 1906 in Oakwood Cemetery. The second is a 1937 bronze statue of George Washington near the Mower County Courthouse.

Now there’s an even newer addition to monumental Minnesota in Austin. It’s the statue of a man and a pair of hogs near the entrance to the SPAM Museum.

There are two ways to interpret the symbolism of this particular statue. One is based on the concept of the farmer persuading his porcine pals to get into the big trailer for a ride to the Hormel plant in Austin. The other is based on the stockyards where the market-ready hogs are being driven to the chute on their way to becoming a whole array of meat products, including SPAM.

Tribune Feature Writer Ed Shannon’s column appears Fridays in the Tribune.