January 2009 Odd Wisconsin
You think the last few days have been cold? Read this short memoir by Ebenezer Childs. He recalls traveling from Prairie du Chien to Madison early in the year 1838, when the temperature was 32 degrees below zero and the fledgling capital's handful of residents huddled together in a rude shanty to keep warm. He then headed to Portage in...
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Posted in Curiosities on January 24, 2009
Although Dr. King is usually associated with Southern desegregation efforts, he was also supportive of Northern ones, including Milwaukee's violent struggle in 1967. City laws in Milwaukee had supported segregated neighborhoods for decades when Alderperson Vel Phillips introduced open housing legislation in March, 1962. For the next five years, the Common Council voted it down every time she re-introduced it,...
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Posted in Curiosities on January 17, 2009
By all accounts, Charles J. Agrelius (1831-1915) was quite a charmer. The son of a Swedish clergymen, Agrelius settled in southwestern Wisconsin about the time the Civil War broke out, and served with a cavalry unit in Kansas. After the war, he returned to Wisconsin and set up shop in Mount Vernon, Dane Co., as a harness maker --...
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Posted in Odd Lives on January 14, 2009
This weekend we celebrate Martin Luther King Jr. Day to commemorate his life-long struggle to secure "liberty and justice for all" in segregated America. Our own state was no exception to the rule of racial injustice, but the process by which civil rights were guaranted to all Wisconsin children is perhaps unique. When the residents of Wisconsin decided they were...
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Posted in Curiosities on January 14, 2009
This weekend marks the anniversary of one the state's great tragedies. At 4:00 a.m. on the morning of January 10, 1883, passersby saw flames shooting from one of Milwaukee's landmarks. Built by merchant Daniel Newhall in 1856 as one of the nation's most magnificent hotels, the Newhall House was still fashionable, though somewhat down at the heels, 25 years later....
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Posted in Curiosities on January 8, 2009
Did You Know?
The Wisconsin Historical Museum is currently featuring Odd Wisconsin objects in the latest exhibit: Odd Wisconsin. And don't miss the Odd Wisconsin book by author Erika Janik published by the Wisconsin Historical Society Press.
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