As part of a St. Paul Winter Carnival tradition, Union Depot became home to the country’s largest jigsaw puzzle contest on Saturday morning.

One hundred sixty teams were tested to complete puzzles from 500 to 1,000 pieces. Sixteen minutes and 38 seconds was the fastest time for four people in a 500-piece competition.

More than 300 people did it all by themselves.

The organizer says this event is the largest jigsaw puzzle competition in the Western Hemisphere.

Due to its massive popularity, it’s now a two-day event offering twice the brain-teasing challenges. It’s tripled in size from last year.

More than 1,200 of the puzzles were donated by PuzzleTwist.

“This is fun it’s pretty amazing to see this much enthusiasm around puzzles and the jigsaw puzzle community and racing puzzles and to have people come from California, Texas, Atlanta, in the dead of winter to St. Paul to the Winter Carnival,” said Tony Nelson with PuzzleTwist. “It’s very fun.”

One piece of artwork that competitors had to unravel was called the Heart of St. Paul, featuring city landmarks and was illustrated by Steve Thomas.

“It’s very exciting, I got a lot of compliments,” Thomas said. “It’s fun to meet the people and see what they liked about it and what was difficult. It’s just amazing to see this many people working on something that I helped create.”

The final pieces of the puzzle will fall into place on Sunday as the competition continues at 9:30 a.m.