|
Our Motto: Strange but true.
Our Mission: Amuse, surprise, perplex, astonish, and otherwise connect you with your past.
Our Method: Lower a bucket into the depths of Wisconsin history and bring to light curious fragments of forgotten lives.
Odd Wisconsin
When a shotgun blew a fist-sized hole in Alexis St. Martin's side on June 6, 1822, military physician William Beaumont was astonished that the young fur trader worker didn't simply die on the spot. Instead, he recovered -- though with a permanent opening through his muscle wall and into his stomach that required bandaging for the rest of his life....
read the rest.
Posted in Odd Lives on May 8, 2008
In the summer of 1834, Rev. Cutting Marsh of Kaukauna journeyed across Wisconsin into Iowa, keeping a daily diary as he went. On the Mississippi he heard about the recent death of "a very wicked man" named Nadeau, whose fate was worthy of a story by Edgar Allan Poe: "It was said," Rev. Marsh wrote on August 23rd, "that he...
read the rest.
Posted in Strange Deaths on April 30, 2008
As tiny kinglets and gigantic sandhill cranes move north through Wisconsin again, this may be a good time to consider our state's place in American ornithology. Before the Civil War, R.P. Hoy cataloged the birds of southeastern Wisconsin and reported his findings to scholars in the East. Another mid-century scientist, Increase Lapham, built on Hoy's work to create the first...
read the rest.
Posted in Animals on April 24, 2008
That was the headline atop the final section of Industrial Milwaukee, an annual review of business trends and statistics about Wisconsin's largest city that ran from 1919 to 1929. The anonymous writer went on, "Industry still has its ups and downs and good years will still be followed by years not so good. In the aggregate, 1929 was a high...
read the rest.
Posted in Curiosities on April 13, 2008
The first day of air mail service linking Wisconsin to New York was marked by violent weather that not only stopped the mail but claimed the life of a veteran pilot. On June 6-7, 1926, planes were supposed to leave New York at 8:00p.m., Chicago at 5:50a.m. and Milwaukee at 6:50a.m. to arrive in Minneapolis at 10:40a.m. Different pilots flew...
read the rest.
Posted in Curiosities on April 6, 2008
On the evening of March 31, 1918, Prof. E.A. Schimler, a language instructor at Northland College, was kidnapped by a mob of masked men. They took him to a lonely spot outside Ashland, stripped him naked, roughed him up, covered his body with tar and feathers, and left him to fend for himself. Schimler limped back to his boarding house...
read the rest.
Posted in Curiosities on March 31, 2008
Printing presses were not something that pioneer settlers wanted to carry west. They were made of cast iron and weighed as much a winter's worth of provisions. To be useful, they had to be accompanied by an equally heavy load of lead type. Hauling them overland was impossible and shipping them down the Great Lakes was problematic. So it...
read the rest.
Posted in Curiosities on March 25, 2008
This weekend marks the birthday of Wisconsin's most famous practical joker, Eugene Shepard (1854-1923). Shepard began cruising Wisconsin forests for lumber companies as a teenager in 1870. Over the next four decades, he mapped and assessed the market value of vast holdings of forest lands for lumber companies, making and losing more than one fortune. He was equally at home...
read the rest.
Posted in Odd Lives on March 20, 2008
Driving from Madison into Dodge Co. yesterday, we saw open water for the first time in months, as well as a foolish turkey walking in Hwy 73 and three majestic sandhill cranes overhead. That part of the state is known for its wildlife, thanks in large part to the preservation of Horicon Marsh. On March 14, 1903, President Theodore Roosevelt...
read the rest.
Posted in Animals on March 15, 2008
The vernal equinox doesn't arrive until next week, but we've already encountered another sure sign of spring --mud season. It's nice to see bare ground poking through the snow (and for the first time in three months), but the consequence of melting snow is rising tides of muck. Here's an early resident's memory of the main street in Fond du...
read the rest.
Posted in Curiosities on March 13, 2008
|
