Odd Wisconsin Archives: Bizarre Events
The New York Times reported this week on a Stoddard, Wis., couple who build homes not from dead lumber but from living trees. Apparently their methods have many advantages, including not only beauty but also unexpected structural strength and minimized ecological impacts. Their story reminded us of John Krusback, president of the Embarass State Bank, who had a similar idea... :: Posted on November 5, 2009
In honor of Halloween, here are a handful of Wisconsin ghost stories that we've reported in Odd Wisconsin. There's the horrible case of Monsieur Nadeau, hounded to death in 1830 by the ghost of the woman he had murdered (or perhaps by his conscience). The Hille farm in Waukesha Co. was haunted after a family tragedy in 1918. At the... :: Posted on October 28, 2009
In Encore! The Renaissance of Wisconsin Opera Houses author Brian Leahy Doyle tells the chilling story of a devoted opera house employee who refuses to vacate the premises...despite having been dead for more than 40 years. The brain-child of five local businessmen, the Grand Opera House in Oshkosh first opened its doors in 1883. Designed by architect William Waters,... :: Posted on September 18, 2009
In the spring of 1838, Martin Rowney, a discharged soldier who had been trading with the Indians on Puckaway Lake in Green Lake County, returned to Portage for a drunken spree that lasted for two weeks or more. At the end of it he took an oath before fellow-trader John De La Ronde that he wouldn't drink another drop of... :: Posted on July 27, 2009
That's the headline of a Wisconsin State Journal editorial from 1898, when a seemingly noble military intervention spawned a wave of blind, unthinking nationalism, and the U.S. quickly became embroiled in a messy foreign occupation with a Wisconsin soldier in charge. When the Spanish government set up concentration camps in 1896 to suppress a rebellion in Cuba, thousands of the... :: Posted on June 1, 2009
John Lawe (1780-1846) was one of the first English-speaking residents of Green Bay, arriving in 1797 to trade for furs. He grew to be one of the village's most respected and affluent residents, building this house (luxurious in its day) and holding various public offices. None of that kept him from bold or impetutous action. This newspaper story recounts how... :: Posted on May 7, 2009
February 8 was the birthday of Nathaniel Tallmadge (1795-1864), Wisconsin's strangest chief executive. After serving as U.S. senator from New York, he was appointed governor of Wisconsin Territory in 1844. He served less than a year, though, losing the office when administrations changed in Washington. In addition to being a politician, Tallmadge was a medium who claimed to have many... :: Posted on February 8, 2009
Recent media coverage of flooding from hurricane Ike evokes memories of some of Wisconsin's own floods. One of the most dramatic in living memory was the deluge that nearly swept away the village of Spring Valley, 66 years ago this week. The 973 residents of the little Pierce Co. town were used to floods. Their village, strung out lazily... :: Posted on September 18, 2008
"Mrs. Murphy came over to our house first thing in the morning, and she says to my father, 'Hitch up the horses and take me to town. I seen my son Mike in a dream,' she says, 'standing at the foot of my bed when I wake up in the night, and he screams to me I should help him.'"... :: Posted on August 7, 2008
In late August 1862, a coalition of Sioux bands in Minnesota, angered by continuing white incursion and failure of the U.S. government to make payments authorized by treaties, attacked settlers and Indian Agencies southwest of the modern Twin Cities. In what came to be known as the Sioux Uprising, warriors of these bands attacked New Ulm and nearby villages, killing... :: Posted on May 28, 2008
This past weekend more than 1,000 Wisconsin residents leaped into the icy waters of Green Bay, Oshkosh, and Wausau to raise funds for the Special Olympics. This is a measure of how far Wisconsin has evolved, not just in creative philanthropic work but also in material comfort. Until recently, to fall into a lake or stream in mid-winter almost certainly... :: Posted on February 24, 2008
The current frigid conditions sent us searching the historical record for similar outbreaks of arctic weather. Here is Ebenezer Childs (1797-1864), describing a trip from Madison to Portage in the winter of 1836-37: "There were then but three other families in Madison. The doctor from Fort Winnebago [at modern Portage, who had been tending a Madison patient] designed to return... :: Posted on January 21, 2008
Were the airline ticket counter staff unfriendly? Security officers rude? Put them in perpective with this memoir of an 1843 voyage down the Great Lakes in a steamship commanded by a fire-breathing captain. The writer was a teenager when his family left upstate New York in the fall of 1843. It took 20 hours to be towed 40 miles along... :: Posted on November 25, 2007
James Buck came to Milwaukee in 1837 and helped construct many of its first homes and businesses. For decades he would also drop in on friends in the city's newspaper offices, who would give him fragments of papers with stories about local life. These he pasted into scrapbooks alongside other memorabilia which, combined with his memory, allowed Buck to ultimately... :: Posted on September 16, 2007
When Rev. Alfred Brunson (1793-1882) retired in 1873, his colleagues celebrated his career at their annual conference in Eau Claire. Brunson was a pioneer missionary who had spent several decades serving his faith. In 1837 he travelled 1,500 miles through the upper Mississippi Valley trying to prevent war between the Ojibwe and the Sioux. His account of the trip, including... :: Posted on August 27, 2007
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.
|
