This glacial boulder is the symbol for the city. A 17th-century nobleman and poet persuaded 400 inhabitants to drag the 7156 kg stone to Amersfoort, for beer, just to show they would do something useless. The incident made the city the butt of jokes, and it buried the stone for centuries, out of shame. In 1903 the city felt sufficiently rehabilitated to dig it up again, and it became its symbol. In fact, the city started to collect boulders, gifts from other cities: they are displayed on the inner ring road, along the line of the old city wall.