Minnesota's first Freedom Rock arrived in Kasson on July 4th, 2018, as the fifth stop on Ray Bubba Sorensen II's 50 State Freedom Rock Tour, with the 17 ton rock donated by Brooks Excavating and placed beside the Kasson American Legion Post #333 through a community effort. Its north side depicts the nearby Wasioja Recruiting Station, built in 1855 by Colonel James George, which helped recruit 200 men into the Union at the outset of the Civil War, and also honors the 1st Minnesota Volunteer Infantry, whose charge at Gettysburg under orders from Major General Winfield Scott Hancock, while outnumbered by at least 5 to 1, bought crucial minutes at the cost of at least 82% casualties and helped preserve a key Union position on Cemetery Ridge; President Calvin Coolidge later said that Colonel Colvill and those eight companies of the First Minnesota were entitled to rank as the saviors of their country. The west side shows a WWII veteran holding a can of Hormel SPAM, recalling the 100 million pounds of SPAM shipped to troops during the war. The east side is dedicated to LeRoy Neiman of St Paul, Minnesota, who served as a US Army cook in WWII, used his artistic skill to paint sets for Red Cross shows during the war, and later became famous for brilliantly colored expressionist paintings and screen prints of athletes, musicians, and sporting events. The south side portrays United States Air Force Chaplain Colonel Russell L. Blaisdell of Hayfield, Minnesota, who organized the Kiddy Car Airlift during the Korean War on December 20, 1950, using 16 C-54 transport planes to rescue 964 orphans and 80 staff from Seoul as Chinese forces advanced.