Region 7 – South Center

A Cherokee weir similar to the one the people of Aztalan built, showing what it looked like 1000 years ago. Image courtesy of Western Carolina University's Digital Heritage Project.

Indigenous Wisconsin / Aztalan / Pre-1787 / Food & Cooking / Object Histories / Ethnicity & Identity / Jefferson County / Nature & Environment / Region 7 - South Center

OBJECT HISTORY: Aztalan Fishing Weir

Fishing can take a lot of patience. A person could sit with their fishing pole for hours before they get a bite! Fishing weirs are time-saving technologies built in the water to trap fish. This fishing weir was created by the people who lived in the Early Mississippian settlement, Aztalan, sometime between the 10th and…

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September 9, 2020

Art & Design / Sports & Games / Wisconsin Made / Art, Sport & Entertainment / Object Histories / Lake Koshkonong / Jefferson County / 1877-1900 / Nature & Environment / A Duck Decoy / Region 7 - South Center

OBJECT HISTORY: A Duck Decoy

With its painted black bill, brown head, and white and black body, it is likely obvious to humans that this object is made out of wood. This object is called a duck decoy, and was intended to fool other ducks into settling…

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September 9, 2020

Agriculture / Industry / Broad History / Education / Whitewater / Related Stories / 1787-1848 / Jefferson County / 1848-1877 / Manufacturing & Trade / 1877-1900 / Region 7 - South Center / Esterly Broadcast Seeder

Industry and Manufacturing in the Whitewater Area

Since the earliest settlers arrived in the Whitewater area in the 1830s, industry and manufacturing have played important roles in the establishment and continued growth of the area.One of the earliest industries in Whitewater was grain milling, performed at the Old Stone…

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June 29, 2020

The Pauline Pottery

Industry / Wisconsin Made / Art & Design / Home Furnishings / Art, Sport & Entertainment / Edgerton / Dane County / Related Stories / Everyday Life / Curators' Favorites / Manufacturing & Trade / 1877-1900 / Region 7 - South Center / Pauline Pottery Covered Jar

The Pauline Pottery

Chicago-born artist and entrepreneur Pauline Jacobus was the central figure of Edgerton, Wisconsin's art pottery movement. In 1888, Jacobus and her husband Oscar relocated the Pauline Pottery from Chicago to Edgerton to take advantage of the area's quality clay.

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April 20, 2020

A gathering of gaff-rigged, stern-steering ice boats and their captains on Lake Mendota, 1896. Source: WHI 2074

Sports & Games / Art, Sport & Entertainment / Dane County / Madison / Related Stories / Curators' Favorites / 1848-1877 / 1877-1900 / 1900-1918 / Transportation & Tourism / Region 7 - South Center / Madison-Style Ice Boat

Ice Boating in Madison: A Bernard Family Tradition

Ice boating for sport began along New York's upper Hudson River around the Civil War and soon spread to other cold weather locations. An 1878 article in Harper's Weekly includes an engraving of ice boating in Madison. The city quickly became a center for ice boating in North America, a distinction held for over a century.

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March 27, 2020

Agriculture / Industry / Wisconsin Made / Beloit / Related Stories / Manufacturing & Trade / Rock County / 1918-1945 / Region 7 - South Center / Clair Mathews' Feed Grinder

The Flakall Corporation

In Beloit, Clair Mathews, Earl Baker, Clarence Shwebke, and Harry Adams formed the Flakall Corporation in 1933. Flakall would go on to patent several machine designs used in the production of snack foods - the most famous being the Korn Kurl.

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September 23, 2019