December 2007 Odd Wisconsin
We live in a frantic culture of transient gratifications where, to most people, the past is an irrelevant distraction. But at the turn of the year everyone recognizes the passage of time. Even people who might otherwise never think about history sing Auld Lang Syne and wish that old acquaintance be not forgot. True, their minds may be more focused...
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Posted in Curiosities on December 27, 2007
During the 1880s Otis Terpening was a brawling lumberjack in the Wisconsin northwoods. He logged from the St. Croix River across Douglas County into Michigan's Upper Peninsula, wintering in the forest and riding logs downriver to mill in the spring. Forty years later Charles Brown was collecting lumberjack folklore and asked for his recollections. This unleashed a deluge of densely...
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Posted in Curiosities on December 24, 2007
This month's record snowfalls have sent lots of us outside skiiing, sledding, and skating. In the winter of 1885-1886, so much snow fell in La Crosse that a group of local guys formed a toboggan club and built a 25-foot wide run in a marsh by the river. It was three stories tall and illuminated by electric lights so it...
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Posted in on December 20, 2007
Winter has descended with a vengeance, and here at the Society headquarters in Madison, runny noses and sore throats are beginning to accompany aching shovel-muscles. Relief is in sight, though. Our Museum staff recently stumbled upon a bottle of skunk grease made in New Glarus about 1920 to help relieve chest congestion (read their account here). When doctors were scarce...
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Posted in Curiosities on December 11, 2007
This weekend's ice storm may be the first of many blizzards this winter, but it's only the latest in a long line of memorable storms. One that was recalled for a lifetime started on Wednesday, March 2, 1881. The previous Saturday had been warm enough for a thunderstorm; lightning even struck the Capitol. Every low-lying field was still flooded when...
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Posted in Curiosities on December 2, 2007
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