Mount Horeb, Wisconsin

Norwegian heritage is alive in this magical southwestern Wisconsin town
By Vesna Vuynovich Kovach
In Wisconsin Trails, March-April 2002
Gone for the Weekend, Spring/Summer Travel Guide
Photos: Kortney Kaiser

In Norwegian legend, trolls guard hidden treasures. On visiting Mt. Horeb, a tiny hilltop burg perched just within Wisconsin’s rugged Driftless Region, I figured out the secret to its improbably dense cluster of unique attractions: the place is protected by trolls.

How else to explain, for instance, Cave of the Mounds a few miles away? Discovered in 1939 by miners quarrying for gravel, the cave is a miraculous trove of geologic splendors millions of years old. By rights it should’ve been demolished 10,000 years ago during the last Ice Age—but the glaciers stopped just short. “Any cave in other parts of Wisconsin would’ve been crushed,” Joe Klimczak, who manages the cave’s tourist operations with his wife, Anne Wescott, tells me. “The glaciers really scoured the earth flat.” Joe lets drop that trolls, celebrated in sign and sculpture everywhere in and around Mt. Horeb, have a special affinity for minerals.

So it was trolls who kept this spectacular cache safe and hidden.

As we walk underground, where it’s a comfy 50 degrees year-round, Joe switches various lights on and off. A stalactite appears, slowly dripping water onto a point of rock. Each back-lit drop explodes into a sparkling pompon of light and color. Joe makes other formations appear and disappear: hollow “soda straws,” a painted waterfall, strips of bacon, coral.

Though not as large as some other tourist-accessible caves, this has more variety of shape and color than most. “It’s remarkably decorated,” Joe tells me. “It looks like an artist painted it—minerals like iron oxide and manganese give the different colors.” Then the former electrical engineer uses a term I’ll hear often around Mt. Horeb: “It’s a magical place.”

Cave of the Mounds is located on the 1828 homestead of Ebenezer Brigham, the first white settler in Dane County. Brigham owned the pair of limestone peaks known as the Blue Mounds. His descendants still own the cave and some surrounding East Mound land. Most of this mound is now Brigham County Park, which offers camping, hiking trails, and scenic views. The West Mound is the site of Blue Mound State Park, home to the state park system’s only Olympic-size swimming pool.

At the park, the splashes and squeals of children slip away as I start along a narrow, hilly path winding among huge, green-patched boulders. The day is hot, but the woods are cool, dark, green. At the top of the mound I leave the solitude of the forest to join the groups of people who’ve driven to the upper parking lot to climb the wooden lookout tower and behold, through this day’s blue haze, a colorful, hilly vista of farms and forests. Thanks to the trolls who protected the Blue Mounds from destruction by glacier, this is the highest point in southern Wisconsin.

In a tiny wooded valley nearby, I explore Little Norway, a living history museum patterned after the outdoor museums of Norway. There a guided tour takes visitors through furnished farm buildings: a storage house on stilts, a sod-roofed cabin, a spring house, more.

Once a Norwegian farmstead, in 1927 Little Norway was purchased as a summer retreat. Isak Dahle, a Chicago businessman who grew up in Mt. Horeb, restored the traditional Norwegian farmhouse buildings on the property. He had the furniture and buildings decorated according to Norwegian custom, with paints and carvings. “He was a third generation Norwegian who felt he’d lost his heritage,” says manager Scott Winner, a great-grand-nephew of Dahle. “He recreated the place for his family, not for public display.”

In 1935, Dahle added the Norway Building. This ornate wooden structure, patterned after ancient Norwegian churches and using Viking motifs, was originally built in Norway for the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago.

News of the farmstead and its treasures spread, and people began showing up to see it. “He’d come to visit, and there’d be people walking in buildings, looking in drawers.” Little Norway officially opened to the public soon after.

“This is a place time has forgotten,” Scott says, “The magic here is really special.” Little Norway’s other name is Nissedahle, or “Valley of the Elves.” And there are trolls here, too: wooden carvings by local artist Mike Feeney dot the landscape, part of the Mt. Horeb “Trollway.”

Most of Feeney’s statues are downtown, along Main Street, where, though it’s only 20 miles southwest of Madison and just off a major highway, Mt. Horeb feels like a remote getaway.

Driving westward on 18-151, I pass the site of the original town center at the intersection with 78. Centered around the meeting spot of several roads, the community was once known as “The Corners.” During the Civil War, Norwegian immigrants began calling the place “Stangjii,” or Liberty Pole. Today, long-established local businesses line what was once a military road to the Mississippi: Yapp’s Antiques in a boxy old brick building, the Danish-modern Karakahl Motor Inn. Cheerfully appointed Victorian manses house gift and antique shops.

Soon I reach “New Town,” the heart of Mt. Horeb’s commercial district. When the railway sited a depot here in 1881, businesses relocated and used the name once given to the post office at the nearby farm of a Methodist Episcopal minister (Mt. Horeb is where Moses saw the burning bush). Downtown is a comfortable jumble of old and new: 19th and early 20th century storefronts—some slickly renovated—and modern structures. Particularly striking, in an offbeat way, is the mid-century Mount Horeb Telephone Company building adorned with giant Viking-themed motifs: a horned cap, a ship. Across the street, Dick’s Market, a homey grocery store seemingly out of a Norwegian spin-off of Mayberry RFD, sells homemade brats, jerky and lefse, a sort of Norwegian potato tortilla. Dick tells me, with a jolly smile, that he ships lefse all over the country at Christmas time. Does he advertise? Does he have a Web site? No. How do people find out about him? “Beats me,” he says with a shrug.

Downtown bustles, but somehow I can always find a parking spot right in front of the shop I’m headed for. I chalk it up to trolls.

Though it’s only 20 miles southwest of Madison, just off a major highway, Mt. Horeb feels like a remote getaway. As well as boasting a fine array of gift shops and eateries, Mt. Horeb is an antique shopper’s paradise, with over 100 dealers represented in its many storefronts and antique malls. Wares range from high-ticket items like jewelry and fine refinished furniture to collectibles like glassware and old kitchen tools.

Also on Main Street is the quirky Mount Horeb Mustard Museum (see related article in this issue's State Talk), which displays antique mustard memorabilia and sells thousands of varieties of mustards from around the world; every one is available for a taste test.

A few blocks off Main Street. I visit the house where Isak Dahle, Little Norway’s founder, grew up. Built in 1908 by his father, U.S. Congressman Herman B. Dahle, this graceful Victorian home with unusual neoclassical and mission-style elements is soon to enter the National Register of Historic Places, thanks to the efforts of its newest owners, Don and Peggy Donaldson from Naperville, Ill. In 2001, they renovated the house and opened it for business as the Arbor Rose Bed & Breakfast. Fortunately, Peggy says, the Dahle house was treated well through the years. “Every piece of hardware matches—doorknobs, window pulls, everything. We feel so privileged to be here. It’s not just our house—it belongs to the whole community.”

Before giving me a tour of the rose-themed B&B rooms upstairs—cozy antique-furnished rooms, a step-up 4-poster canopy bed, a shady upstairs porch—the Donaldsons ply me with homemade sweet treats and coffee. Peggy tells me about her trademark apricot-glazed Arbor Rose rolls, which rise overnight in a fruity almond sauce. “They’re gooey, but good,” Peggy says. “I usually share recipes, but this one, I’m keeping secret.”

A winding ride from the center of town through Stewart County Park takes me to another B&B: Othala Valley Inn, a cozy, Norwegian-style limestone lodge on an 80-acre organic farm. Farmer/innkeepers Linda Derrickson and Mark Kessenich set out a mini smorgasbord, all grown on the premises or crafted by neighboring artisans. Dane County Farmers Market fans will recognize these names: Bleu Mont cheese, Cress Springs Bakery bread, Gentle Breeze honey. “We produce what we can here, and support local growers,” says Linda. The sausages are made from the hardy Highland cattle that Linda and Mark raise. Mark gives me a tour of the farm, and I get to meet chickens, ducks, and a small flock of Jacob sheep.

Linda explains how they chose this dappled, four-horned breed, which look much like goats to the neophyte (me): “We wanted delicious meat and great fleece. Plus, we like the horns.” They’re attractively curved, and, says Linda, “Horns act like antennae—they bring in good energy.”

At dawn, I watch from my enormous bed as the valley slowly fills with light. The birches light up first: glowing, dappled white rods. Rocks poke out in places from the impossibly steep hillside. I remember Linda’s telephone description of the valley: “It’s magic here.”

Many of Othala’s furnishings are Norwegian antiques. “We collected these for years, not knowing what we’d ever do with them,” says Linda. In the living room near the huge fireplace, she shows me a print hanging prominently among the books and games. “I put this up on a whim at first,” she says. “Didn’t really think about it. But one of our guests was all excited when she saw it. Seems it’s a real find.”

I take a look. Long, bushy tails, four fingers on each hand, big, warty noses, patched clothes: it’s a family of trolls.

Vesna Vuynovich Kovach is editor in chief of Erickson Publishing, a Madison-based company which produces niche publications and events celebrating the people and places of Wisconsin.

WHERE TO STAY
ARBOR ROSE BED & BREAKFAST—$85-$125. (608) 437-1108 or ArborRoseBandB@aol.com.

OTHALA VALLEY INN B&B—$65-$120. 3192 County Hwy JG, Mt. Horeb. (608) 437-2141 or www.othalavalley.com.

WHERE TO DINE
SCHUBERT’S OLD FASHIONED CAFE AND BAKERY—[Now defunct -VVK, 2006] Step back in time in this retro luncheonette with its classic soda fountain. Try the delicately seasoned Norwegian meatballs. Bakery specialties include lefse, rosettes and Swedish rye bread with a lovely, light, even texture. 126 E. Main St. (608) 437-3393.

THE GRUMPY TROLL BREWPUB—Great burgers, excellent beers in a former Swiss cheese factory. Try the five-beer sampler for $3.75. Troll’s Beer & Cheese soup is delightful. 105 S. Second St. (608) 437-BREW or www.grumpytroll.com.

MT. HOREB MAIN STREET PUB AND GRILL—Official pub of the Mustard Museum; ask for the free sampler basket. Famous burgers, meat fresh ground daily at Dick’s Market across the street. Wisconsin beers on tap. Friday fish fry, Saturday prime rib. Sugar River Euchre League, in its 75th year, meets Saturdays, 6 a.m. More euchre Saturday evenings. 120 E. Main St. (608) 437-5733.

WHAT TO DO
GENERAL INFORMATION—The Mt. Horeb Area Chamber of Commerce can provide maps, event listings and guides to antique dealers. (608) 437-5914, 1-88-TROLLWAY (1-888-765-5929) or www.trollway.com.

LITTLE NORWAY—$8. Open May through October. Cave of the Mounds Road exit from State Highway 18-151. (608) 437-8211 or littlenorway.com.

CAVE OF THE MOUNDS—Adults $12; children 5-12 $3. Open daily March through Nov. 15, weekends Nov. 15 through March 15. . Cave of the Mounds Road exit from State Highway 18-151. (608) 437-3038 or caveofthemounds.com.

MT. HOREB MUSTARD MUSEUM—Open daily. 100 E. Main St. (608) 438-6878 or www.mustardmuseum.com.

MT. HOREB AREA MUSEUM—A first-rate presentation of ethnic evolution. Highlights include a restored grocery store. Gift shop. Fridays and Saturdays, 10 a.m.-5p.m., Sundays 12:30-5 p.m. Free. 100 S. Second St., Mt. Horeb. (608) 437-6486 or www.mounthoreb.org/museum.htm.

MILITARY RIDGE STATE TRAIL—This 40-mile biking and hiking converted rail bed connecting Fitchburg to Dodgeville runs right through Mt. Horeb. Buy bike trail passes in town or stop here for a bite. Camping near trail in Blue Mound State Park. (608) 437-7393.

TYROL BASIN SKI AREA—Mountain bike trails through woods and hayfields. Summer Snow-Fest draws snowboarders and freestyle skiers from around the country. June 1-2 (weather permitting). 3487 Bohn Road, Mt. Horeb. (608) 437-4135 or www.tyrolbasin.com.

Minoqua: Born to be beautiful

Minocqua, Woodruff and Arbor Vitae have been delighting vacationers longer than you might think
By Vesna Vuynovich Kovach
in Minocqua-Woodruff-Arbor Vitae Area Visitor Guide
2002

Into a lake once called Kawaguesaga, a fist of land reached southward, knuckles nearly brushing the opposite shore. Norway pines and white pines—80 to 100 feet tall, three to five feet across their trunks—towered over the land for miles around. The wigwams of a Chippewa village gathered near the west shore of this odd-shaped peninsula, so much like an island, connected to the mainland by a narrow, swampy wrist.

Through the waters of the lake rowed a little fishing boat. It had come from a logging region some thirty miles to the east, and it held Minocqua’s first summer tourists. The year was 1886.

Lore has it that Minocqua and Woodruff, both founded in the 1880s, began life as logging towns. When the timber ran out some thirty years later, so the story goes, locals turned to tourism to keep the towns alive. But the story isn’t true. Minocqua and Woodruff were never industrial centers. From the earliest days of settlement, this corner of the Northwoods was a destination for recreation and commerce—just as it is today.

Minocqua and Woodruff each had a sawmill, but not on the scale of the great logging centers nearby. Still, the logging industry was key to their growth. Loggers visited these towns for trade and for fun. Summer was the off season for logging, and a good time to enjoy the natural beauty of the Northwoods. When logging opened up the forest floor to the sun, the acidic soil grew wild with all sorts of berries—strawberries, gooseberries, raspberries—which Native Americans would pick and bring into town, for sale to merchants who would sell them as far afield as Chicago. And for decades, Minocqua was home to the only bank and the only hospital for miles around.

In the latter half of the 19th century, railroads and lumber companies worked together to speed the harvest of northern Wisconsin’s virgin forests. A railroad company would build a railway to an agreed-upon spot. Once the track arrived, the lumber company could set to work putting in a sawmill and workers’ housing.

As early as the summer of 1886, guides brought fishers from logging towns like these to the area that later became Minocqua. An early tourist, John Mann, returned in the fall of that year to build Minocqua’s first permanent building: a fishing resort on the mainland overlooking the “island” (then as now, this is how the peninsula is usually described). Here loggers and others from nearby communities could while away peaceful summer days fishing for muskellunge and pike (walleye) in the quiet of the Northwoods. This building, the earliest in Minocqua, survived until sometime in the early 1940s; no one is sure when, why or how it was finally destroyed. In 1887 the railway came to Minocqua. It passed just a few yards from Mann’s year-old resort. The following year, Mann sold out his interest in the resort and moved farther north. It’s said he left because he felt Minocqua was becoming too crowded.

It wasn’t easy bringing the railroad across the moist earth of the Lakeland region, as workers on the Chicago, Milwaukee & St. Paul Railway discovered. The extension from Merrill to a point some miles north of Minocqua was expected to be finished by late summer. But sinkholes, swamps and marshes defied the efforts of construction crews. Laborers quit, plagued by flies and mosquitoes. Worst of all was a half-mile stretch of swamp and marsh near the present day Kawaga Road, not far from Minocqua. Winter was approaching as the men built one trestle after another across the marsh, only to watch them sink into the dark 90-foot depths. They tried stretching a log road across the marsh. The marsh swallowed the road, along with twelve oxen, six horses and 13 railroad sand cars. It wasn’t until January that the first locomotive chugged across Lake Minocqua onto the island. Today, the tracks leading into Minocqua are gone, and the hard-won rail bed has been converted to a bicycle trail, the 18-mile Bearskin State Park Trail.

By the spring of 1888, the island had been logged off and the town platted. Hopes were high for the spot’s recreation potential. “It will be a fine summer resort,” predicted the Lincoln County Advocate. “The town will be beautifully situated and right in the center of the best hunting and fishing districts in Northern Wisconsin,” remarked the Northern Wisconsin News. The town grew steadily: by 1891, Minocqua, population 200, boasted six hotels and ten saloons. Whole families rode the train from Merrill, Wausau, and points south for fishing parties. Resorts and summer cottages sprang up along the shores of the region’s lakes. A headline in the Rhinelander Vindicator proclaimed Minocqua “The Queen of Summer Resorts.”

For seven years, Minocqua was at the terminus of its rail line. The St. Paul Railway promoted the town as a tourist destination. For the area’s many logging camps, it was an important supply point.

Meanwhile, a competing railroad company, the Lake Shore Railway, planned to connect Rhinelander to Hurley, several miles to the northwest. Where the railway passed just north of Minocqua, the town of Woodruff was born.

Woodruff’s 1888 origin is something of a mystery. Lakeland towns are typically situated right along a body of water or a waterway, but Woodruff is not. For a village located in the heart of the world’s most dense concentration of lakes, this is a puzzle in its own right. Another unusual feature: Woodruff’s main street was sited several blocks away from the railroad junction that would be the central feature in a waterless town. And, Woodruff was founded years before the junction even came to be. No one may ever solve the riddle of Woodruff: no written records from its settlers survive, and the 1888-1889 issues of the newspapers most likely to have recorded its early days are all missing.

In fact, the town foundered in its early years. But in 1893, the economy got the boost it needed. Overnight, Woodruff became a popular destination for the hard-working loggers in a new lumber town just to its northeast: Arbor Vitae, a company town where the sale of liquor was not allowed.

For over 100 years, Woodruff and Minocqua have successfully built their economies on recreation and commerce. Compared to the booming logging towns, Minocqua and Woodruff grew relatively slowly. But when the trees were gone, Minocqua and Woodruff didn’t experience the economic crashes that many other Northwoods towns suffered.

In contrast to Minocqua and Woodruff, Arbor Vitae was a company town, built around the Brooks & Ross Lumber Company’s massive sawmill. In 1914, when the virgin wood was gone, the lumber company pulled out—and took the town with it. The company dismantled the mill and the homes, packed up what they could on the train, and rode out, leaving behind a Northwoods ghost town. Today, a single building remains of old Arbor Vitae. An out-of-the-way, abandoned little white structure with a glass storefront and a faded sign, “Mykleby’s Store,” is all that remains of the building that once housed a company store. Here Jacob Mykleby and his son, Albert, opened their own general store the year the lumber company left town. Nearby, at Big Arbor Vitae Lake, where a sawmill roared and lumberjacks toiled, cheerful summer housekeeping cottage rentals, condominiums and homes are woven along the shore among shady trees.

The giant virgin pines of the Northwoods are, sadly, gone, but new forests have grown in their stead, cared for by today’s stewards of the area’s natural resources. Today, more than a century after their birth, Minocqua, Woodruff and Arbor Vitae carry on a tradition of hospitality that continues to nurture and refresh those who come to enjoy the serenity of the woods, the amusements of the lakes, and the beauty that is Wisconsin.


Minocqua Historical Museum
416 E. Chicago Avenue
(715) 356-7666

Step inside the Minocqua Historical Museum and travel back to the community’s early days. Each year, the museum showcases artifacts from a different pioneering Minocqua family. “We keep it in sequence as to when they came into the area,” says Mary LeFrenier of the Minocqua Historical Society. The Karl Witt family, featured in 2002, arrived in 1892. The Witts farmed a plot of land southwest of the island in Riversmeet, named for the confluence of the Tomahawk and Squirrel rivers. The Witt descendants have since dispersed around the country, but, says Mrs. LeFrenier, the family still owns the original homestead, and members “come up for reunions every year.”

While at the museum, be sure to obtain a copy of “Strolling Back in Time,” a guide to the 1.25 mile historical walking tour of Minocqua. With this 24-page booklet in hand, you can trace the town’s development. Find the oldest surviving building in town, which was the home of Bolger Brothers’ General Store from 1896 until the early 1920s. The current establishment, T. Murtaugh’s Pub and Eatery, is named after one of the Bolgers, who lived upstairs with his family. Formerly on Front Street, Minocqua’s first commercial strip, the Bolger building was moved to the corner of Oneida Street and Milwaukee Street in 1904. The move saved the building from Minocqua’s fire of 1912, which destroyed half the town’s commercial district.

Dr. Kate: A true pioneer

Charismatic caregiver left an enduring legacy
by Vesna Vuynovich Kovach
In Minocqua-Woodruff-Arbor Vitae Area Visitor Guide
2002

Why is a country doctor who passed away nearly half a century ago the hero of Woodruff? You’ll understand when you see the video at the Dr. Kate Museum.

Kate Pelham Newcomb, M.D. (1885-1956), affectionately known as Dr. Kate., was the daughter of Thomas Pelham, president of Gilette Razor Company. Against his wishes, she attended the University of Buffalo Medical School, earning her degree in 1917. She practiced medicine in Detroit until she and her husband, William Newcomb, moved to the clean air of Wisconsin’s Northwoods for his health in 1922.

She believed her brief medical career was over. She was wrong. In 1931, Minocqua’s beloved, aging, Dr. Thomas Torpy (Torpy Park is named after him), the area’s only practicing doctor, convinced her to head out on snowshoes to answer an emergency call. From then on, Dr. Kate was in active practice, driving 100 miles a day to logging camps, remote farms and far-flung towns. She earned the title “Angel on Snowshoes” for her heroic treks to snowbound homesteads. In 25 years of practice, she delivered about 4,000 babies.

For years, Dr. Kate worked to build a hospital in the region. But by 1952, the partially completed Lakeland Memorial Hospital was a stalled dream. There simply wasn’t enough money. Then a group of Woodruff-Arbor Vitae High School students rallied with a penny drive that garnered international attention in newspapers and magazines and raised the needed money for the building. A 15-foot penny, on public display near the Dr. Kate Museum, memorializes the Million Penny Parade.

The story might have ended here, but for an episode of the wildly popular TV show named “This Is Your Life.” Thinking she was in Los Angeles for a medical convention in 1954, Dr. Kate found herself in the live audience of a show she knew nothing about—there weren’t many TV sets in the Lakeland. When host Ralph Edwards proclaimed, “Dr. Kate Newcomb, this is your life!” the 68-year-old physician was stunned.

The audience may have been familiar with the show’s format, but Dr. Kate was not. Girlhood friends materialized. Grateful homesteaders told how Dr. Kate had rescued their loved ones in trying circumstances. An elderly man, Sam Williams, appeared; he’d saved the doctor’s life once when she was dazed and lost in the snow. These moving tales, told in the broad, honest accents of the Wisconsin Northwoods, struck the heart of the nation.

But most striking of all was Dr. Kate herself, an obscure figure from a remote wilderness, suddenly cast into the spotlight. As it turned out, she was enthralling. Her pure surprise was deeply touching. Her courage was impressive. And her quick, lingering smile—it was like the sun bursting apart a snowstorm. Her grandmotherly warmth was like an early spring compelling mayapples and wood violets to life. Viewers fell in love with her.

No one, not even the show’s producers, could have known what the episode would trigger: Money for the hospital would flood into the town from all over the world, and Dr. Kate would become famous, an international celebrity whose biography made the New York Times bestseller list. Twenty years later, Lakeland Memorial Hospital would receive $20 million from an art dealer, S. Howard Young, that would transform the tiny facility into the multi-faceted, ever-growing Howard Young Health Center.

In 1988, the Dr. Kate Museum was founded. There, the star exhibit is a video of the captivating 48-year-old TV show, which delights visitors of all ages, and continues to bring alive Dr. Kate’s powerfully engaging personality to new generations.


Dr. Kate Museum
923 2nd Avenue
Woodruff, Wis.
(715) 356-6896 or (715) 356-9421
Hours: Monday through Friday, 11 a.m. – 4 p.m.
Second Monday in June through Labor Day
Other times available by appointment

Kringles

Danish pastry, Racine-style
By Vesna Vuynovich Kovach
in Racine County Visitor Guide
2001

What original Racine creation is tender, feather-light flaky, and totally scrumptious? It’s kringle, Racine’s signature ethnic dish--a local treasure par excellence.

The kringle style of Danish pastry--an oval ring, generously filled and iced--was developed by Danish-American bakers in Racine. Like croissant, its culinary cousin, traditional Danish pastry is made by repeatedly rolling out a piece of dough, coating it with butter, folding it, and then letting it rest in a cool place.

During the cooling periods, a rich flavor develops, the dough rises, and the butter firms up so that dough layers will stay separate. The whole process takes three days.
Though it’s little known elsewhere, Wisconsonians are fondly familiar with this regional treat. But what’s not so well-known, even here in Wisconsin, is that up until some fifty years ago, kringle was neither oval, nor ever fruit-filled, nor even iced.

“Kringle” means pretzel in Danish, and that was the pastry’s original shape. But in the prosperous post-WWII years, sweet-toothed customers clamored for change: less dough, more filling. With a simplified inner tube-like design, bakers found they could stuff in lots more than the slender ribbon of almond paste used in the old country. The new shape also allowed for juicy fruit fillings, which would have popped the pretzel walls. Luxurious icing suited this sumptuous affair better than the sprinkling of granulated sugar used before.

Today, you can buy dozens of flavors of kringles at Racine’s several authentic Danish bakeries. It’s a genuinely American experience: Old World techniques skillfully applied to our zeal for variety and abundance--fresh-baked daily with pride.

Hidden Racine County

By Vesna Vuynovich Kovach
in Racine County Visitor Guide
2001

Some of Racine County’s most intriguing treasures are somewhat tricky to discover. We’ve compiled a short list of must-see wonders of this diverse region--and the inside scoop on how to take advantage of them.

Be sure to call ahead for each of these attractions. Hours are limited, reservations are required, or both. Signage is slight, so get directions.

You’ll be amazed at how much hidden Racine County has to offer!


Norway Historical Museum
(262) 895-2085
Heg Park Road and Old Loomis Road (off Rt. 36), Norway

Snug in the rural hills of the northwest corner of Racine County, a profound bit of history is kept vibrantly alive by the residents of Norway, an unincorporated town so small it’s not even on most maps. This is the original mother colony of Norwegian-U.S. immigration.

A historical marker in the shade of a nut tree on the sloping grounds of Old Norway Lutheran Church tells of the 1839 start of this community, where both the nation’s first Norwegian Lutheran congregation and the first Norwegian-American newspaper began.

Across the street is Colonel Heg Park, named after a celebrated Civil War figure with the same last name as one of the town’s founders. In this park, the Norway Historical Museum shares the past with descendants of the original settlers, the developing community’s more recent arrivals, and visitors from all over.

Over one hundred fifty years ago, the nine members of the Norwegian Bendicson family lived in a one-room log cabin. Now, that home is restored, refurnished, and on display. “The grandaughter of the Bendicsons came by a few weeks ago,” says Betty Fries (pronounced like “freeze”) of the Historical Society. “She said she was happy to see it open. A lot of the adults don’t remember that time, but they remember their parents or grandparents telling about it.”

Children on school trips like to show their new young neighbors the artifacts donated from their families, Fries says. The new kids later bring in their own parents, and thus the community is strengthened through sharing its heritage.

A farm exhibit includes “a historical chicken coop with feeders” and the restored clapboard farmhouse of a remarkable Lutheran pastor. “Pastor Eilisen walked to New York in 1843,” says Fries, “to translate the Norwegian catechism into English for the first time.”

Also on display are 19th century Wisconsin artifacts and Norwegian heirlooms: silver filigree jewelry, spinning wheels, a weaving loom, and much more. There’s even a full-scale reproduction of a traditional Norwegian fishing boat.

The museum is open Saturdays and Sundays from 12-4, Memorial Day through Labor Day weekend. Any size party (from one person to a large tour group) is welcome to call ahead and arrange a visit at other times.

During the town’s Heritage Days, the old church is open for tours.

Colonel Heg Park is a favorite spot for family reuinions and company picnics. To schedule use of the park’s picnic shelters, call (262) 886-8440.


Fred Hermes’ Basement Bijou
North side of Racine, off Route 32
(262) 639-1322

Grecian statues, chandeliers, ornately carved walls: it’s old-time movie palace splendor. The lights dim. A gold curtain whizzes silently open, and, like Poseidon rising from the sea, up comes the star attraction: an elaborate theater organ console--five keyboards, countless pedals and switches. This 2,500 pipe Wurlitzer from 1926 is the largest model the organ company ever made. It’s almost certainly the only one of its kind intact--and in use.

As the organ emerges from deep below stage level, a man seated with his back to us plays a majestic overture. This is Fred Hermes, who salvaged the once-neglected instrument from Detroit’s 4,000 seat Michigan Theatre in 1956. Today, he invites groups to visit his “Mighty Wurlitzer,” which, he says, “cost $75,000 new. Now, you couldn’t get one like this made for $3 million.”

The organ can mimic the sounds of all the instruments in the orchestra, and then some. Some of the pipes are straight, some flared, some looped in the center. Some are metal, and some are wood. Besides pipes, there’s a full complement of actual percussion instruments: cymbals, a marimba, a harp, a glockenspiel--all controlled from the keyboards. Thirty-five hundred wires connect the organ console to its thousands of voices. A room-sized fifteen horsepower motor powers the organ’s blower. A separate two horsepower motor powers the keyboards’ current to the pipes and other instruments.

Hermes has spent the last 46 years restoring this unique artifact of musical, cinematic, and technological history. His achievements have been recognized by the American Theatre Organ Society and other groups.

The two-hour presentation includes a concert, demos, a talk with a question-and-answer period, a sing-along, and more. “School groups love it. I’ve had all kinds of groups come,” he says.

The extravaganza takes place in a 400-seat house set with authentic architectural elements from fifty (sadly destroyed) movie palaces throughout the midwest. Incredibly, it’s all installed in the two-story basement of the residential neighborhood dwelling where Hermes and his wife, Veryl, raised their family. “I built the house for the organ,” he says.
Shows are presented to groups, and are by reservation only.


Spinning Top Exploratory Museum
(262) 763-3946
533 Milwaukee Avenue (Highway 36), Burlington

“My pet peeve with museums is, you walk through these rooms full of displays and there’s things that make you go, ‘Wow!’--but you can’t find out anything about them,” says Judith Schulz. “There’s nobody you can ask. No one who can tell you the story.”

At the Spinning Top Exploratory Museum--which features this former high school teacher’s collection of 6,000 modern and antique tops from all over the world--Schulz makes sure you’ll never have that problem.

“This is not an ordinary museum--it’s a whole program,” she explains. Visiting groups get two hours of spinning demos, hands-on practice with 35 different tops and top games, a video demonstration with tips for top play, and a guided, interactive tour through the museum’s exhibits.

The place teems with tops: yo-yos, diabolos, gyroscopes. Tulip tops, pump tops, top games, dreidles. The collection’s crown jewel, an intricately decorated green and gold metal top, is well over a century old: the faded letters on the string-pulled toy announce our nation’s Centennial.

Then there’s top tales: In Malaysia, top spinning is a traditional competition sport played by adults. The first tops were likely acorns and seashells. A yo-yo is really a kind of top; Yo-Yo was the brand name of Duncan’s popular “return top.”

Other Spinning Top programs include yo-yo day camps (there are programs for children and for adults) and the Hall of Puzzles (solve a logic puzzle and ring a bell!).
The world’s only top museum is a non-profit organization that began as a temporary display by a local educational group, Teacher Place and Parent Resources, in conjunction with Burlington’s first annual ChocolateFest in 1987. Visits are by reservation and for groups only, but the museum gift shop is open for walk-ins.

More about Burlington
Burlington’s idiosyncratic charm well fits the home of the renowned Burlington Liars’ Club. Walk the Tall Tale Trail, following the bronze plaques commemorating especially good fibs from the club’s 70-year history. You’ll find maps to this and other walking tours at the Chamber of Commerce on 112 Chestnut Street. Or, just stroll about mapless. Either way, you’ll enjoy seeing the lovely old commercial buildings and residences of this pedestrian-friendly town.

The restored Pioneer Log Cabin downtown is surrounded by lush plantings of native wildflowers and a vintage kitchen garden. The cabin is open Sundays and holidays from 1-4 or by appointment. Call (262) 767-2884.

On most summer Saturday nights, the Brown’s Lake Aquaducks put on a free waterski show, featuring a four-tiered human pyramid and other stunts. Call (262) 763-2603 for details.

It’s a marvel how much Burlington, a town of 9000, offers the day tripper: lots of historic attractions, beautiful buildings, fun places to eat, custard shops, boutiques, scenic parks, bicycle trails. They won’t all fit in this space, so call the Chamber of Commerce at (262) 763-6044 to find out about the rest!


Golden Rondelle Theater and SC Johnson Administration building
(262) 260-2154
1525 Howe Street, Racine

Long before IMAX, there was the futuristic Golden Rondelle Theater, presenting giant-format, multi-screen movies to awed crowds. The theater building, too, is remarkable: a huge, golden, flying saucer-shaped disk that seems to hover miraculously several feet off the ground.

The Golden Rondelle was originally the Johnson Wax pavilion at the 1964 World’s Fair in New York. After the fair, it was brought to Racine, where SC Johnson is headquartered. Visitors have delighted at the unique structure and the spectacular movies shown inside ever since. The year 2000 saw the premiere of an original eye-popping documentary--a brand-new Golden Rondelle exclusive.

A few hundred feet away stands the revolutionary SC Johnson Administration building, designed by controversial 20th century architect Frank Lloyd Wright. With its rounded corners and open inner spaces, this architecturally significant 1930s structure continues to stand apart from buildings of its own or any era.

The Golden Rondelle Theater and the SC Johnson Administration building are open to visitors on Thursdays and Fridays. Reservations are required.

Also see Wingspread

Wingspread, a sweeping, four-winged building by the shores of Lake Michigan, is another important Frank Lloyd Wright creation. Designed as a family residence for H.F. Johnson, founder of Johnson Wax, the dramatic building is now a popular conference center. It’s open to the public when no conference is in session. Call (262) 681-3353 to confirm availability. Wingspread is at 33 Four Mile Road on the north side of Racine.