Paul & Matilda Wegner Grotto County Park

Posted on September 16, 2020 by admin

Less than 10 miles from Sparta, Wisconsin, along a state highway, is the Paul & Matilda Wegner Grotto County Park, the county being Monroe, whose seat is Sparta. We arrived there early in the afternoon of September 6. Here’s the entrance to the grotto.
It isn’t a grotto in the sense of being a natural or artificial cave, or any other sense that I know of. Call it a sculpture garden? The Wegners didn’t sculpt, except in the sense of creating distinct three-dimensional shapes from raw materials. Anyway, the grounds feature naïve works created by German immigrant farmers, mostly made of concrete and shards of glass and other shiny bits.

Note the texture of one of their works up close. Look but don’t touch, unless you want a wound.
The Kohler Foundation tells the story: “In the summer of 1929 on their farm, [the Wegners] began building fences, and within a year their first sculpture: a twelve-foot concrete facsimile of the celebrated Bremen ocean liner.

“The building continued from 1929 until after 1936, primarily during the summer months; however, many pieces, including the walls of the church, were created in Bangor [Wis.] during the winter and then transported to the farm for installation. The extraordinary sculpture environment slowly grew over these years to include a fanciful American flag, a giant reproduction of the Wegners’ 50th anniversary cake, and a glass-encrusted birdhouse.

“Other constructions were religious in nature. The magnificent Prayer Garden, Glass Church, and Peace Monument once served as places for quiet reflection, wedding ceremonies, public preaching, family picnics, and community gatherings. Still surrounding the yard is an ornate fence with a concrete archway, which spells out the word ‘Home’ in crushed black glass.”

Here’s the Bremen, inspired by a postcard picture.
The Glass Church.
People get married there from time to time, according to the plaque (in front of the structure would be my guess), and Paul Wegner’s funeral was held there as well. The back of the Glass Church:
More structures. First is “Jabob’s Well.”

A sign outside the grotto said that a cemetery with glass-and-stone memorials wasn’t far away. So it was: a spare little rural cemetery.

Glass is part of the Wegners’ memorial.
Along with a few others. Guess they liked the style.
What does the Kohler Foundation have to do with the site where old German farmers deciding to create glass-and-stone shapes? Kohler is plumbing money and based in Wisconsin. At some point in its existence, the foundation decided to find and preserve outsider art installations such as the Wegner Grotto which, in fact, was one of its conservation projects.

“Since the late 1970s, the preservation of folk architecture and art environments has been a major thrust of Kohler Foundation,” the foundation explains, including a list of sites on the page. Many but not all are in Wisconsin.

“After a site has been either acquired by or gifted to us, local and expert partners selected by Kohler Foundation employ museum-quality conservation techniques to preserve the site. The site is then gifted to a museum, municipality, university, or other nonprofit institution for the education and enjoyment of the public. We then work with the recipient and local community to ensure the future success of the project.”

Sparta, Wisconsin

Posted on September 15, 2020 by admin

After leaving La Crosse on September 6, we spent time driving some picturesque Driftless Area roads, but soon we were feeling the pull of lunch. That is, we wanted to find a place to eat. We arrived in Sparta, Wisconsin, and started looking around. Doing it the old fashioned way — not with a search engine or an electronic map, but by keeping our eyes peeled as we drove.

Sometimes you get lucky. Right in the middle of town, on W. Wisconsin St., we found Ruby’s. We stopped right away.

Ruby’s has a most traditional drive-in menu, with one exception.
Between the three of us, we ate a satisfying drive-in lunch: a chili cheese & onion dog, a grilled cheese sandwich, onion rings, cheese curds (this is Wisconsin, after all) and the unusual item: a walnut burger.

As the menu explains, it’s “seasoned walnut & cheese patty with lettuce, tomato, pickle & honey mustard on a whole wheat kaiser bun.” I had a bite. It was tasty. The menu also notes “the Historic Trempealeau Hotel” above the Walnut Burger description, presumably as its provenance. Naturally, I looked it up. The boutique hotel, dating from the late 19th century, is still around, on the Mississippi upriver some distance from La Crosse in a burg called Trempealeau.

Rudy’s also sports a fiberglass statue. A bear on roller skates.
Unlike Gambrinus, I suspect the bear is holding a mug of root beer. Rudy’s has a special section for that on the menu, including a root beer float, but not beer.

While we ate, I noticed another statue, much larger — or at least taller — than the bear. It was across the street catercorner from Ruby’s, in a park.

Of course I had to go see that, after we ate. The Sparta Downtown River Trail runs through the park.
At this point, a footbridge crosses the small La Crosse River, which eventually empties into the Mississippi in the city of that name.
On the other side of the bridge is the statue I saw from across the street.

It has a name: Ben Bikin’. Sparta, pop. just shy of 10,000, is the self-proclaimed Bicycling Capital of America. A nice local distinction. I imagined that Sparta might have been a bicycle manufacturing town at one time, maybe as long ago as the bicycle craze of the ’90s that popularized the modern bike. The 1890s, that is.

But no. “Sparta’s claim as the ‘Bicycling Capital of America’ is based upon the first rail bed in Wisconsin to be converted to bike trails between Sparta and Elroy,” says the city’s web site. That trail was completed in 1967, so fanciful penny-farthing statues aside, the town sobriquet isn’t that old.

In fact, I don’t remember seeing any more bicycles in Sparta, or dedicated bike lanes, than in any other small town. That is to say, not many. There is, however, a bicycle museum in town.

More than that: the Deke Slayton Memorial Space and Bicycle Museum. I knew it was closed, but we drove by before leaving town anyway.
Slayton, the only Mercury astronaut who never flew in a Mercury capsule, grew up on a farm near Sparta. So he’s the town’s other attenuated claim to fame. The thinking must have been, best to combine the two into one (slightly) larger museum. Well, why not?

More La Crosse, Including Gambrinus

Posted on September 14, 2020 by admin

After everyone was awake last Sunday, we packed up to leave La Crosse. But there were a few more places to see on the way out, such as Riverside Park.

As the name says, it’s along the Mississippi.
Looking toward the bridge where U.S. 14 crosses between Wisconsin and Minnesota.
A hyperpartisan had set up his table in the park, complete with flags and literature and, I expect, a willingness to talk about his candidate till the heat death of the universe. I didn’t talk to him any more than I would any other religious fanatic.
Near the park is a pedestrian path into downtown, lined with heron statues.

The birds were originally displayed in 2008, during the vogue for public displays of animal statues. Apparently the statue herons were returned to public display in La Crosse two years ago, a task overseen the Pump House Regional Arts Center, a local nonprofit.

A selection of da birds.
The La Crosse Loggers are a team in the Northwoods League, a summer collegiate league. There was one more place in La Crosse that I knew about that Sunday morning and didn’t want to miss. Namely, the World’s Largest Six Pack, which stands above 3rd Street S.
Roadside America recalls its early years painted to resemble cans of Heileman’s Old Style Lager. These days, the six pack advertises La Crosse Lager, but apparently the effect wasn’t created by paint, but wallpaper.

A sight to see, but a little drab, though the morning light doesn’t bring out whatever color it has. Still, other paint jobs looked brighter. A place like this can’t hide from Google Images comparisons.

Across from the six pack, which are in fact for storing beer, with a capacity of 22,000 barrels (688,200 gallons), are other buildings in the brewery complex. Most notable is an earlier brew house, or at least its facade, which is easily more than a century old.
To the left of the old facade (from my POV).
To the right.
Under that big brick wall, standing with his goblet held high, is Gambrinus.
Good old Gambrinus. I didn’t know about that particular bit of Euro-lore growing up. I first saw him in Chicago, looking somewhat different but crowned and holding a vessel all the same.

La Crosse Walkabouts

Posted on September 13, 2020 by admin

Last Sunday I woke fairly early, because there are only a few good reasons for doing such a thing, such as catching a plane or looking around somewhere new while other members of your family sleep.

I drove to historic downtown La Crosse for a closer look. The first place I stopped was on 3rd Street S., across from The Library.
That was worth a chuckle. As far as I can tell from The Library’s web site, it isn’t a book bar — there are such things, I’ve heard — but an ordinary student bar, though the site is a little vague on that point.

From there I walked around a square block of La Crosse’s handsome historic core, full of late 19th- and early 20th-century buildings that have found 21st-century uses. Besides bars — a fair number of those — there are restaurants, coffee shops, specialty shops, music venues and professional offices.

Such as along the east side streetscape on 3rd, between Main and Pearl.
The Rodolf Building the west side of 3rd., dating from the late 1860s and early ’70s.
The State Bank of La Crosse on Main St., dating from 1885. It’s an impressive pile.
The streetscape along 4th St.
And along Pearl St.
There are a variety of shops in the old buildings, including some unexpected ones. Such as a saddlery on 3rd.
There’s a book store on Pearl that didn’t used to be a book store. According to the mosaic at the entrance, you could buy shoes there once upon a time.

Arenz Shoes had eight locations in the region as recently as the 1970s, but the last one, in Sparta, Wisconsin, is closing even now. The Pearl St. location was a shoe store from 1903 to 1992.

This promise of sustenance made me smile.

That’s just a small sample of the charms of historic downtown La Crosse. Much more about the buildings is here, though unfortunately without any pictures.

Next I drove east on Market St. until I came to St. Rose Convent and Viterbo University, which are adjacent. I stopped on Market and took another walk around a city block, through the university campus as well as near the convent.
The entrance to the convent, looking like an academic building.
On a street called Franciscan Way — Viterbo is run by Franciscans — is San Damiano Chapel, which, as part of the university, I assume takes some inspiration from the church of that name near Assisi. It was closed.

Down the block to the east is Mary of the Angels Chapel, which is part of the convent. The view from the west.
The view from the south.
Above one of the entrances, maybe the main one. It too was closed.
The campus features a number of statues, including “Dancing Francis,” by Paul Granlun.

A work that’s still yet exudes motion. Francis inspires poses in motion. I didn’t realize until I read about this statue that Francis is depicted standing on a crescent moon.

Two Wisconsin Vistas: Granddad Bluff Park & Tower Hill SP

Posted on September 10, 2020 by admin

On Tuesday night late, a storm blew threw, bringing rain and fall-like temps, and leaving Wednesday wet and cool and gray. Today wasn’t quite so cool, but still not summer-like. It will be warm again, but this is our first taste of fall.

Late Saturday afternoon, we made our way to Granddad Bluff Park in La Crosse. Unlike some of the other vistas we’ve taken in recently, you can drive most of the way to the overlook at Granddad Bluff. From the parking lot, it’s a short walk to the edge of the bluff.

Not sure about that L. I suppose it stands for La Crosse. I didn’t see any other letters to spell out the name, Hollywood Sign-style.Nice views. La Crosse spreads out to the west of the bluff. The city, pop. 51,000 or so, mostly hugs the Mississippi just south of where the Black River joins it.

I’d have guessed that roving Frenchmen founded the place, but apparently not. Lt. Zebulon Pike passed this way in 1805 and called the area Prairie La Crosse, but the town wasn’t founded until 1841 when a New Yorker named Nathan Myrick showed up.

“Myrick found a partner [and] in Nov. 1841, borrowed an army keelboat and a stock of trader’s goods, and poled up the Mississippi River to Prairie la Crosse (now La Crosse, Wis.),” explains the Clark County History Buffs. “There they built a cabin, the first in La Crosse, and became successful in the Indian trade…”

I have my own tenuous connection to La Crosse, even though last weekend was the first time I’d more than passed through the town. La Crosse is the first place I ever saw in Wisconsin, back in 1978 as our bus rolled through, probably on I-90 at the northern edge of town. I remember being impressed by the rolling hills after traveling through so much Midwestern flatland.

We buzzed through in 2005 on the way to Yellowstone, and I thought then it would be good to visit La Crosse someday. The day happened to be September 5, 2020, first with a look from Granddad Bluff.

The bluff was a source of quarried rock in the 19th century, but as a lookout and prominent local feature, La Crosse residents have reportedly always been fond of the place. So much so that more than 100 years ago, when they believed a new owner was doing to destroy it for stone, a wealthy local resident arranged for the city to acquire it for a park.

Here she is in the park: Ellen Hixon, depicted in a bronze by Wisconsin artist Mike Martino.“A subscription was organized and Ellen P. Hixon, encouraged by two of her sons, Frank and Joseph, donated $12,000 to start the fund,” a sign near the bronze says. In current money, that’s more than $310,000. She was the widow of a local lumber baron, Gideon Hixon. Their house is now a museum, which is only open in a limited way now.

“About twenty other local benefactors and companies then contributed another $3,000 to purchase adjacent lands and to fund roads and other improvements. By 1912 the Hixon family was able to transfer title for the property to the city for use as a public park, and the bluff was saved.”

Good for her. As legacies go, Granddad Bluff’s a pretty good one.

Earlier in the day, we stopped briefly at Tower Hill State Park near Spring Green, Wisconsin, which is better known for Taliesin.

It too offers a good vista, but you have to climb a hill to see it.
At the top of the bluff is a reconstruction of the Helena Shot Tower. It’s closed for now.
In the early 1830s, a Green Bay businessman named Daniel Whitney had the shot tower built for the manufacture of lead shot. Molten lead dropped from a height forms into globes on the way down, which harden when hitting a pool of water below.

You’d think such an operation would do serious business during the Civil War, but it was closed by then. Later Jenkin Lloyd Jones, who was Frank Lloyd Wright’s uncle, developed a retreat on the site. His widow gave it to the state of Wisconsin, which created the park in the 20th century and had the shot tower rebuilt.

The view from near the shot tower is toward the Wisconsin River.
Worth the climb, which wasn’t nearly as exhausting as Devil’s Lake SP or Starved Rock SP or Wyalusing SP or Effigy Mounds NM. Been quite a summer for climbing hills, now that I think about it.

Shrine of Our Lady of Guadalupe, La Crosse

Posted on September 9, 2020 by admin

Turn off of U.S. 14 as you approach La Crosse, Wisconsin, from the east, and a small road goes a short way to the Shrine of Our Lady of Guadalupe. The shrine is no small affair, but rather a complex of buildings and sites, including a large shrine church, chapels, statues, memorials, devotion areas, the Stations of the Cross, a rosary walk, and a visitors center plus cafe and gift shop, mostly along a winding walking path through hilly, wooded territory.

Roughly 100 acres, I’ve read, and while it looks like a rural setting, according to Google Maps, the boundaries of the city of La Crosse reach down to the south like a dogleg to include the area around the shrine. Maybe the Diocese persuaded the City to annex the land, to facilitate city services.

Why La Crosse? As far as I can tell, because the former Bishop of La Crosse, lately Cardinal Raymond Leo Burke, really wanted a shrine. He asked permission of the Holy See, which agreed, though I like to think that at the bottom of one communique or another, the Vatican also said, you figure out how to pay for it.

Whatever the case, funds were obtained and construction began in 2004, with the shrine dedicated in 2008. So in the long history of Catholicism, the place is spanking new.

We arrived mid-afternoon on Saturday. Almost at once the curving path offers a nice view of the surrounding Driftless Area (and the parking lot).
The first structure on the path is the Mother of Good Counsel Votive Candle Chapel, designed by the locally based River Architects, who have done a number of religious structures.
I didn’t count them, but I’ve read there are 576 votive candles inside the chapel.
Further along the path are devotional areas, including one featuring Saint Kateri Tekakwitha, Lily of the Mohawks, with a bronze by artist Cynthia Hitschler.
Around a bend is the Memorial to the Unborn, also by River Architects.Nearby is a plaza fronting the Shrine Church, a design using stone from Minnesota and Wisconsin by Duncan Stroik, another specialist in sacred spaces. The interior takes inspiration from St. Mary Major in Rome.On the side walls are paintings, mostly of saints, along with reliquaries in glass cases under the paintings. I encountered one of Bl. Miguel Agustin Pro, S.J., with a reliquary containing one of his first-class relics, though the sign didn’t say what.
I’d encountered him before, in wood, but without any relics.

La Crosse ’20

Posted on September 8, 2020 by admin

Last year for the Labor Day weekend, we headed east to the shores of Lake Huron. This year, we headed west to La Crosse, Wisconsin, which has its own water feature, the various channels of the Mississippi River.

The trip was structured like our visit to Prairie du Chien in July: Friday night in Madison, a slowish drive on U.S. 14 to La Crosse the next day, where we spent Saturday night, and then a somewhat faster return on Sunday afternoon, mostly on I-90. La Crosse was the destination, but we also stopped at various places along the way there and back.

We visited a major Catholic shrine, looked down on La Crosse from a tall bluff, looked down on the Wisconsin River from another bluff, ate food obtained from drive-thrus more than once, swam in a hotel pool for the first time in ages, stopped at a large farm stand, slept on an island as a thunderstorm moved through the area, walked along the Mississippi, came very close to the border with Minnesota without entering that state, walked around downtown and a university campus, drove along an astonishingly beautiful Wisconsin Rustic Road northeast of La Crosse, spent time in the Bicycling Capital of America, and saw a couple of rural cemeteries, an installation of outsider art and the back lot of fiberglass statue manufacturer.

A good little trip. That’s what we can do these days.

I can report a number of changes in Wisconsin since July. Masks are now more emphasized, especially by businesses at their entrances, some citing local directives. More people seemed to be wearing them. Also, political yard signs have sprouted. It’s my impression that, simply in terms of signs, Trump has a slight edge in rural Wisconsin. But I also have to say there was no shortage of Biden signs in those rural stretches.

We stopped by whim a few places along U.S. 14. Such as at a historic marker just west of Mazomanie. The marker told us that a town had once prospered on the site.

VILLAGE OF DOVER
Beginning in 1844, nearly 700 settlers were brought into this area by the British Temperance & Emigration Society, organized the previous year in Liverpool, England. By 1850 Dover boasted a hotel, post office, cooper, blacksmith, shoemaker, wagon shop and stores. When the railroad chose Mazomanie for a depot site and made no stop in Dover, Doverites moved their houses into Mazomanie and Dover faded away to become a ghost town.

The site does look fairly undeveloped in our time, except for a small fence.
Behind the fence is something that the living residents of Dover probably never considered moving: a small slip of a cemetery.
In Richland Center, seat of Richland County, we stopped for a few moments to take a look at the A.D. German Warehouse. It is an unusual-looking warehouse. The front:
The back, including a building with a sign that says it is an older A.D. German Warehouse.
Unusual or not, the “new” A.D. German is known for one thing: being designed by Frank Lloyd Wright, and apparently his only warehouse.

“The A.D. German Warehouse is an impressive brick structure topped by a magnificent concrete frieze,” says Wright in Wisconsin. “Generally considered to resemble a Mayan temple, this avant-garde warehouse and attached music room was built for A. D. German’s wholesale grocery business.”

A Mayan temple. The thought amuses me no end. It also makes me re-imagine modern warehouse/distribution buildings, those absolutely utilitarian linchpins of the modern economy. What if some of them had splashes of ornament taken from different times and places? Some friezes from the Parthenon. A touch of a Babylon ziggurat. Or some Mayan elements.

But no. That isn’t the sort of society we live in. You want to spend money on what? Just build the damn thing.

Speaking of which: “Construction was stopped with the building unfinished in 1921, after spending $125,000, which exceeded the original cost estimate of $30,000,” Wright in Wisconsin continues. “It is the only remaining commercial structure designed by Wright that still exists from this time period.”

No wonder he didn’t do any other warehouse commissions. Yet I’m glad to say that an effort is under way to restore the thing. Never mind that it’s a Wright. The world is just a little better place for having a Mayan-flavored warehouse somewhere outside the homeland of the Maya.

On the outskirts of Richland Center, there is a field flying more than 300 flags.
It’s part of the American Legion Veterans Memorial Park, Bayard de Hart Post 13. Must be quite a sight when the wind is up. At the base of each flag is a stone plaque with the name and service details of a local veteran, living or dead.

There’s also a tank.
An M60 A3, a sign said, a kind of tank that last saw use in action (for the U.S.) during the first Gulf War.

Been There, Seen That

By Dees Stribling

Monthly Archives: September 2020