Transportation & Tourism

La Farge / Object Histories / Vernon County / Nature & Environment / Politics, Society & Government / Transportation & Tourism / 1960-1980 / Region 6 - South West / A Dam Tower in the Kickapoo Valley Reserve

OBJECT HISTORY: A Dam Tower in the Kickapoo Valley Reserve

This concrete obelisk stands near the Kickapoo River and is located a mile north of the village of La Farge.  It rises nearly a hundred feet above the river valley floor. The tower was constructed more than forty years ago as part…

Read More

0 Comments

September 9, 2020

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

Art, Sport & Entertainment / Dane County / Madison / Ethnicity & Identity / Related Stories / Curators' Favorites / Global Connections / 1840-1860 / 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.

Read More

0 Comments

March 27, 2020

Related Stories / 1880-1900 / Transportation & Tourism / Sterling Safety Bicycle

The 1890s Bicycle Craze in Wisconsin

Bicycles entered the United States on the East Coast from Europe in 1869. By 1880, bicycling in the U.S. had become so popular that the League of American Wheelmen (LAW) was founded. One of LAW’s objectives was “to promote the general interests…

Read More

0 Comments

November 30, 2018

Related Stories / Manufacturing & Trade / 1880-1900 / Politics, Society & Government / Transportation & Tourism / Sterling Safety Bicycle

Wisconsin Road Conditions

One of the biggest impediments to the progress of the popularity of bicycling in the late 19th century was bad roads. Wisconsin roads in the 1880s were “plagued by mud, poor signage, and crumbling bridges and sidewalks.”[1] This persisted throughout the 1890s…

Read More

0 Comments

November 1, 2018

Superior / Object Histories / Douglas County / Manufacturing & Trade / 1880-1900 / Region 1 - North West / Transportation & Tourism / The SS Meteor

OBJECT HISTORY: The SS Meteor

The SS Meteor was launched as the SS Frank Rockefeller in Superior, Wisconsin by the American Steel Barge Company in 1896. The last remaining of only 44 “whaleback” ships ever built, she was designed by a Scottish immigrant named Alexander McDougall. She is 380 feet long, 45 feet wide and 26 feet deep. You may notice that the SS Meteor looks somewhat different…

Read More

0 Comments

September 10, 2018

Wausau / Related Stories / Marathon County / Manufacturing & Trade / Nature & Environment / Region 2 - North East / 1900-1920 / 1920-1940 / Transportation & Tourism / A Hudson's Bay Company Point Blanket Coat

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 felled trees into lumber.  The waterfall,…

Read More

Comments Off on The Wausau Group: The Businessmen Who Revived Wausau’s Economy

June 15, 2018