With a roster that included Louis Armstrong, Jelly Roll Morton, and Ethel Waters, Paramount Record became perhaps the most important blues recording company of the 1920s. Their success was dependent on their ability to recruit …
Arts & Leisure
The Record Production Process
Paramount Record’s parent company, the United Phonographic Corporation, decided to begin recording and pressing records to include with their phonograph cabinets in the early 1920s. Paramount initially recorded in studios throughout the United States. They …
Paramount Records
The Wisconsin Chair Company’s (WCC) decision to enter the record label industry was an economic one. With the United Phonographic Corporation (UPC) picking up steam, management at the WCC began pressing records. The UPC’s first …
A Brief History of Dungeons and Dragons
In the late 1960s, Gary Gygax of Lake Geneva, WI fell in love with the board game Wargames. Wargames simulated actual battles from historic wars, but offered players the opportunity to carry out campaigns in …
The Wausau Group: The Businessmen Who Revived Wausau’s Economy
Located on the Wisconsin River, Wausau developed as a logging town in the 1830s. George Stevens chose the site because of the waterfall that spanned the river, which provided power for sawmills used to turn …
The Wausau Winter Frolic: Wausau’s History as a Sports Capital
In 1929 a teacher in Waupaca asked her pupils what Wisconsinites did for winter sports. According to one newspaper, the children “with one accord all exclaimed: ‘They go to Wausau!’” In the 1920s, when Wisconsinites …
Squirrel Tails Wanted? The Improved Mepps Lure
Driving through Antigo, visitors are often puzzled by a sign proclaiming “Squirrel Tails Wanted”. It identifies Sheldons’ Inc., manufacturer of Mepps lures. Squirrel tail hair has unique properties ideal for lures. [1] Its addition to the …
Mepps Lures: The Antigo Connection
A chance encounter of an American G.I. in France after World War II with a local fisherman led to the development of a major industry in Antigo, Wisconsin and put Antigo on the sports fishing …
The Wolf River
Todd Sheldon first discovered the virtues of the Mepps Aglia spinner and later realized improvements afforded by a tuft of squirrel tail while fishing at one of his favorite spots: the Wolf River. Today the Wolf continues …
Building a Tourism Industry in Northern Wisconsin
Equipment manufacturers played a major role in developing fishing as a part of the tourism industry in northern Wisconsin. Each year nearly two million people fish in Wisconsin’s waterways. They catch about 72 million fish …