Search the Wisconsin Historical Society's collections
Filter: Categories of Odd Wisconsin Stories
| A Bizarre Story of Land Prospecting Gone Awry |
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| Read the amazing story of a man who watched his potential 10,000-square-mile northern Wisconsin empire disappear into thin air. |
| The Rise and Fall of Isaac Walker |
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| Discover the story of Isaac P. Walker, the first Wisconsin presidential contender in 1850. |
| A Frenchman's Disastrous Expedition |
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| Learn about explorer Robert de La Salle's iron-handed chief lieutenant, Henri de Tonty, and what resulted in the worst winter of his life. |
| Buffalo and O-Sho-Ga Protest Forced Removal |
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| Discover how two Ojibwe chiefs traveled to Washington DC and negotiated with President Millard Fillmore to keep rights to their land. |
| The Virgin Mary Appears to an Illiterate Peasant Girl |
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| Learn about the first and only manifestation of the Virgin Mary in the United States near Green Bay, confirmed by the Vatican. |
| An Unreliable Text and Other Evidence |
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| Wisconsin History books teach that Jean Nicolet was the first white person to reach the state, but he may have been the second. |
| A Warrior Prepared to Die is Disappointed |
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| Discover the story of a Ho-Chunk warrior who surrenders and is grieved at receiving a fair trial. |
| A Fortification That may not Have Existed |
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| Learn the story surrounding the building of Fort Koshkonong by General Henry Atkinson. |
| A History of Disease in Wisconsin |
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| Read this informative collection of all the outbreaks and epidemics in Wisconsin's history. |
| Where Exactly did it Start? |
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| When and where did The Gideons International really begin? There are more answers then you would think. Give this a read and decide for yourself. |
| Some Interesting Stories of the Winnebago Chief |
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| Read about Ho-Chunk Chief Dandy's interesting and friendly interactions with white settlers in Wisconsin, even while he was a fugitive. |
| How a Town was Rebuilt Better Than Ever |
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| Discover how the small lumber town of Elcho, Wisconsin was transformed into an English village. |
| A Strange Man's Strange Dwelling |
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| Discover the bizarre story of a castle built on the shore of Lake Mendota in the 1800's. |
| Spirits Lead a Woman to Fortune |
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| Morris Pratt was a well known psychic medium whose legacy is his eponymous spiritualist institution in Whitewater, known locally as "Pratt's Folly." |
| From Under a Tree to Madison's Most Popular Lodge |
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| Discover the story surrounding the planning and construction of the first building erected in Madison. |
| How Plans to Make Madison's First Home Went up in Flames |
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| Discover the Brief History and Tragic Ending of Madison's First Home |
| The Constitutional Convention's Influence on the City |
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| Find out where some of the most traveled streets of Madison got their names. |
| Speculating on a Dream |
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| Join cantankerous British geologist George Featherstonehaugh as he travels to Madison in 1837 and finds things not as he expected them to be. |
| Argument and an Unpopular Choice |
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| Discover how Madison became the capitol city during the first Wisconsin territorial convention |
| The First White Men in Madison |
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| The first white residents of Madison were fur traders Wallace Rowan, Olivier Ammel and Michel St. Cyr. |
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