Highlights Archives
A Trip to the Past Can Save on Gas
If high gasoline prices have put a crimp in your summer travel plans, you might want to reshuffle your itinerary to include some close-to-home destinations that offer fun and adventure without breaking the bank at the gas pump. The Wisconsin Historical Society's nine historic sites should be at the top of your list. The historic sites dot the state map, and each one offers a unique window into the state's rich and colorful past.
Old World Wisconsin near Eagle, about a half-hour drive from Milwaukee, provides the broadest look at the state's past with 10 ethnic farmsteads and an 1870s crossroads village situated on nearly 600 acres of rolling, wooded hills in Kettle Moraine State Forest's Southern Unit. The site's 69 historic structures include houses, barns, farm buildings, schools, meeting halls, businesses and churches — all arranged and furnished to interpret the lifestyles and the ethnic and cultural traditions of people from many countries who came to Wisconsin to build new lives in an adopted homeland. Upcoming events to mark on your calendar include Old World Wisconsin's Midsummer Magic on June 17, Base Ball History Day on June 24, Swedish Midsommar Celebration on June 25, and the site's 30th Anniversary Celebration on July 4.
A drive from Milwaukee up the Lake Michigan coast leads you to Wade House in Greenbush, an 1860s stagecoach inn built to serve traffic along the old plank road that connected Sheboygan and Fond du Lac. Here you can explore daily life on the Civil War home front and step inside one of the nation's only working water-powered sawmills — the Herrling sawmill. A short horse-drawn carriage ride away stands the Wesley Jung Carriage Museum, which houses the state's largest collection of hand- and horse-drawn carriages and working wagons. Each year Wade House presents two of the most popular and exciting events in Wisconsin: Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show on August 26-27 and the annual Civil War Weekend on September 23-24.
Less than an hour's drive from Madison, Circus World Museum in Baraboo promises to delight young and old alike with a rollicking new daily circus show featuring an amazing troupe of Chinese circus acrobats, a magic show, Elephant Encounters and much, much more. And Circus World isn't just about the entertainment. It stands on the grounds of the original winter quarters of the Ringling Bros. Circus, now a National Historic Landmark. New daily guided tours of historic Ringlingville take you inside the very buildings where the Ringling Bros. housed their circus animals and cared for their circus costume collections.
A 25-minute drive to Wisconsin Dells takes you to the H.H. Bennett Studio & History Center, where you can discover the man who made the Dells famous. Here, inside legendary 19th-century landscape photographer Henry Hamilton Bennett's historic studio, you'll see firsthand where he rendered thousands upon thousands of his magnificent Wisconsin Dells photographs as stereo cards for viewing with hand-held stereoscopes in Victorian-era parlors from coast to coast. Bennett's stereo images went a long way toward popularizing Wisconsin Dells as a vacation destination even before the turn of the 20th century.
A picturesque drive through south-central Wisconsin takes you to Pendarvis in Mineral Point, which tells a wholly different story. This complex of restored stone and log cottages, built in the 1840s and '50s by immigrant Cornish miners, stands in the heart of what once was territorial Wisconsin's most populous region — a population explosion brought about by the lead- and zinc-mining boom, which drew the Cornish settlers to the region. Pendarvis, too, will celebrate midsummer with a daylong Midsummer Festival and a special evening Midsummer Pub Night on June 17.
Nearby, in the hills and dales of Wisconsin's southwestern corner, enter the world of Victorian America through the grand halls of the Villa Louis mansion and country estate, located on the banks of the Mississippi River in historic Prairie du Chien. Roam the same luxurious rooms that members of the wealthy Dousman family did during the mansion's heyday in the 1890s, and revel in one of the nation's most authentic restorations of a historic house. The very ground on which the present-day mansion stands is historic in its own right. For it was here, on what is now the Villa Louis' back lawn, that the only battle of the War of 1812 fought in Wisconsin soil took place, an event the historic site will recall during its annual War of 1812 in Wisconsin reenactment on July 15-16.
Just downriver from the Villa Louis, in Cassville, experience rural Wisconsin life in 1900 at Stonefield, where you can explore a picture-book village reminiscent of those that dotted the hills of southwestern Wisconsin at the turn of the 20th century. Stonefield tells the story of that era, including the tale of Wisconsin's first governor Nelson Dewey. Stonefield's State Agricultural Museum details the history of agriculture with exhibits that include Wisconsin's largest collection of historic farm machinery. Stonefield's historical focus for the 2006 season will be the history of railroading in the state, with a new special event called Railroad Days set for August 19.
For those living in northern Wisconsin or Minnesota, Madeline Island Historical Museum offers an excellent excursion into Wisconsin's distant past on one of the state's earliest inhabited sites. This museum tells the story of the island's native Ojibwe inhabitants, the era of exploration and the fur trade in the 17th and 18th centuries, and the island's evolution as a tourism haven in the late 19th century. Each year the island marks the beginning of the summer travel season with a festive Celebration on the Green, culminating with a colorful parade and patriotic oratory on the museum green.
So as you and your family talk over some things you would like to see and do together this summer, think history — and have a summer of fun and historical adventure close to home at Wisconsin's historic sites or design your own heritage tour.
:: Posted June 5, 2006
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