MENTONE Ask just about anyone who is familiar with Mentone, and they will tell you the town’s most unusual feature is the infamous big egg.
Built in 1946, the egg is constructed of concrete plaster and steel rods and sits at the corner of Main and Morgan streets on land donated to the town by Northern Indiana Co-op.
One of the largest egg sculptures in the world, the concept of the egg came to Ed Ward sometime around 1946.
Ward, who was the manager of the Northern Indiana Co-op Association, and several farmers in the Mentone area decided to pay Hugh Rickel to design and build the egg.
Rickel, of Palestine, constructed a frame of horizontal and vertical steel rods welded into the shape of an egg.
Concrete plastering was applied to the frame and then the egg was painted and lettered by Harry Meredith.
Once it was finished, the 3,000-pound egg was loaded onto a truck (a task that took 12 men) and transported to Warsaw, where it sat on the courthouse lawn for about two weeks to advertise the Mentone Egg Show of 1946.
When the egg returned to Mentone, town officials were not sure what to do with it until the co-op’s board of directors donated land for the sculpture.
