Culture
Brainerd claims lumberjack Paul Bunyan as its native; the world's largest animated statue of him, once located at Paul Bunyan Amusement Center in nearby Baxter, was moved a few miles east of the town to This Old Farm after the amusement center closed in 2003.
Much of the Coen brothers' 1996 movie Fargo takes place in a fictional version of Brainerd. The critically acclaimed film, produced by MGM, was ranked #84 on the American Film Institute's "100 Years...100 Movies" list in 1998, although it was removed from the 2007 version, and #93 on its "100 Years...100 Laughs" list. The landmarks pictured in the film (the Blue Ox Bar, the Paul Bunyan statue) are not, however, those actually located in Brainerd. The scenes set on the highway near Brainerd, most likely highway 210, in the movie were filmed in Bathgate, North Dakota.
On June 30, 1999, then-21-year-old Farrah Slad of Brainerd won what was Minnesota's largest lottery prize, $150 million in the multi-state Powerball game. (The state record was broken on May 3, 2008, by a ticket purchased in Faribault).
Brainerd is mentioned in the title and lyrics of the song "ToolMaster of Brainerd" by Trip Shakespeare.
In sports, Brainerd has been the home to a number of small baseball clubs, most recently the Brainerd Lakes Area Lunkers of the Northwoods League, a collegiate summer baseball league. The Lunkers played at Mills Field in Brainerd for three years until closing down after the 2011 season.
Brainerd is home to a landfill gas collection system that reduces methane gas that would otherwise go into the atmosphere. The collected gas is used in a boiler, replacing natural gas as the source of heat. This project has received carbon credits from TerraPass as its sole source of revenue.
Read more about this topic: Brainerd, Minnesota
Famous quotes containing the word culture:
“The fact remains that the human being in early childhood learns to consider one or the other aspect of bodily function as evil, shameful, or unsafe. There is not a culture which does not use a combination of these devils to develop, by way of counterpoint, its own style of faith, pride, certainty, and initiative.”
—Erik H. Erikson (1904–1994)
“I am writing to resist the view that Europe and civilization are going to Hell. If I am being “crucified for an idea”Mthat is, the coherent idea around which my muddles accumulated—it is probably the idea that European culture ought to survive, that the best qualities of it ought to survive along with whatever cultures, in whatever universality. Against the propaganda of terror and the propaganda of luxury, have you a nice simple answer?”
—Ezra Pound (1885–1972)
“Here in the U.S., culture is not that delicious panacea which we Europeans consume in a sacramental mental space and which has its own special columns in the newspapers—and in people’s minds. Culture is space, speed, cinema, technology. This culture is authentic, if anything can be said to be authentic.”
—Jean Baudrillard (b. 1929)