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 …
1860s
The Cherry Industry in Door County
While earliest European immigrants in Door County survived by subsistence farming, efforts in later years to grow cash crops proved challenging, due in large part to the area’s rocky landscape. Despite little success with traditional …
Kemp Trial
One ringleader of the 1862 Ozaukee County Riot was Nicholas Kemp, an immigrant from Luxemburg, Germany, and blacksmith by trade, who had emigrated to America in 1846. At the time of the riot he was in the …
Ozaukee County Draft Riot
Following the South’s attack on Fort Sumter in 1861, Wisconsin, and the North as a whole, experienced a surge in patriotism and an eagerness to fight for the North, offering more volunteers than were needed. …
Elizabeth “Lizzie” Black Kander
The first generation of women—mostly white and middle- or upper-class—to graduate from college in large numbers left school full of promise and enthusiasm, but were largely denied employment in medicine, law, or business. Rejected by …
The Lumber Industry in Northern Wisconsin
Prior to the Civil War, most of northern Wisconsin was inhabited by the Menominee and Ojibwe Indians, and transient fur traders of European origin. Demand for wood in Chicago and Milwaukee after the Civil War …