Effigy Mounds National Monument

Posted on July 6, 2020 by admin

Another holiday weekend, another pop up to Wisconsin for a short spell. Actually, Wisconsin and a small slice of Iowa — that being the main goal of the trip: Effigy Mounds National Monument, which is mostly in Allamakee County, Iowa’s northeastern-most county.
The 50-hour trip took us to Madison on Thursday evening to spend the first night, and from there to Prairie du Chien, Wisconsin and environs, where we stayed from late morning Friday to early afternoon Saturday. We returned home late Saturday afternoon, in time for Vietnamese takeout dinner at home — and to hear a July 4 neighborhood blasting of fireworks like none I’ve heard before.

Why Effigy Mounds and Prairie du Chien? Because I’ve seen those places on maps for years. I’ve read about them as well, of course, but spots on a map can be alluring in a way no mere textual description is. Come here, the spots say; come see what’s here.
Also, the rolling, verdant Driftless Area is a special place. I’ve only come to appreciate it in recent years.

A road trip at this moment in history is necessarily different than before. Gone for now are casual meals at restaurants picked on a whim, visits to intriguing local museums or wandering down busy small-town shopping/tourist streets and spending time in their specialty stores.

Now the trip means takeout — from the only Chinese restaurant in Prairie du Chien, for example — finding places where few people go (such as cemeteries) and generally spending your time outdoors, as we did on the trails of the national monument and a Wisconsin state park.

Or staying in your room. It so happened that on Friday night, some high school-vintage friends (two in this picture) invited me to a social Zoom, and I managed to figure out how I could attend using my phone. We had a good time.

We arrived at Effigy Mounds NM early Friday afternoon. Temps were high, about 90, and we were warned on a sign that the trail from the (closed) visitors center to the first fork involved a rise of about 350 feet.

I can’t say I wasn’t warned. Up we went.

The shade moderated the heat some. I wore a hat — one I’d bought at Joshua Tree NP in February, where it was just as sunny but not as hot. I had water. I made progress through the winding green tunnels, resting often. Yuriko was soon far ahead.

Eventually I could tell I was near the crest of the hill.

I don’t need a sign to tell me that. By that point, I was well tired. Just another thing I should have done 20 (30) years ago. Still, the vista was worth the effort: a view of the Mississippi, looking southeast, from a spot called Fire Point. Prairie du Chien is in the distance.

Due east: party boats gathered on the river for July 3.

Besides a nice vista, Fire Point featured a collection of mounds. Larger —

— and a row of smaller ones.

Something inspired the peoples who lived here to reshape the ground into recognizable forms. Recognizable, but you need to squint a little. Not nearly as recognizable in simple photos, unfortunately.

Not far from Fire Point is Great Bear Mound. Probably best visible from above, though park management helpfully trimmed the grass to make the shape a little easier to see from ground level, and you do see it — but it’s also good to bring a little historical imagination to the task. (As it is even in highly visible places.)I expect these mounds survived farming and other depredations of the 19th century because the land was too steep to farm or even harvest timber. President Truman created the monument, which protects 206 mounds, in 1949.

“The Late Woodland Period (1400-750 B.P.) along the Upper Mississippi River and extending east to Lake Michigan is associated with the culture known today as the Effigy Moundbuilders,” notes the NPS. “The construction of effigy mounds was a regional cultural phenomenon. Mounds of earth in the shapes of birds, bear, deer, bison, lynx, turtle, panther or water spirit are the most common images…

“The Effigy Moundbuilders also built linear or long rectangular mounds that were used for ceremonial purposes that remain a mystery. Some archeologists believe they were built to mark celestial events or seasonal observances. Others speculate they were constructed as territorial markers or as boundaries between groups.”

Why did Moundbuilders build mounts? The answer is dunno even among modern experts. They had their reasons. The mists of time are pretty thick in the hills of the Driftless Area.

Thursday Clouds &c

Posted on June 25, 2020 by admin

Warm day with plenty of cumulus clouds.

Wet spring has transitioned to a dryish summer so far, though we’ve had a few rainy moments lately. The day we were at Devil’s Lake SP, scattered thunderstorms were predicted, and maybe somebody got some, but we only experienced a little rain driving home that afternoon.

Made an unusual find at Devil’s Lake last week: a visitor guide that’s actually worth a damn. Though no writer names are given, Capital Newspapers in Baraboo published it for the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources, so it might have been a staff effort. That is, people who have some skill in writing.

So it has practical information — such as how to rent a boat or picnic shelter, activity schedules (clearly published before the pandemic), safety tips, and some well-done maps — but also readable information about the park, such as about the effigy mounds in the park (we didn’t see those), the threat of the dread emerald ash borer, a history of rock quarries in the area, and plans for a new interpretive center.

Also, a short item about the name of the lake. The Winnebago (Ho-Chunk) name is rendered as Ta-wa-cun-chuk-dah or Da-wa-kah-char-gra, which “was translated in its most sensational form (for that era) as Devil’s Lake,” the article notes. It could have been Spirit Lake, Sacred Lake or Holy Lake.

That era being the 19th century, when “reporters produced superlative accounts of Devil’s Lake and reproduced legends (sometimes manufactured) to match… By 1872… the Green County Republican newspaper reported, ‘Had the lake been christened by any other name, it would not have attracted so many people.’ ”

Just another example of Victorian marketing, in other words.

Nothing if not variety: the movies we’ve watched lately have included a selection of musicals, all so different in form and content that I wonder at the elasticity of the term musical. They include Chicago, The Rocky Horror Picture Show, Rocketman, and High School Musical 2.

As a sort of fictionalized musical biopic, the colorfully entertaining Rocketman at least made me appreciate just how ubiquitous Elton John was on the radio of my youth. I already knew that, of course, but hadn’t given it any thought in a long time. Also, it inspired me to look up a few clips of the musician himself, illustrating his piano virtuosity.

As for High School Musical 2, the girls are fond of that 2007 movie as part of their relatively recent childhood. I agreed to watch it all the way through, which I never had. The Mouse clearly put time and money into the thing, and the tunes and choreography were accomplished enough, so I didn’t mind watching. But without a sentimental attachment, its resemblance to a fully realized musical is that of a taxidermied animal to a living one.

Walnut Hill Cemetery, Baraboo

Posted on June 23, 2020 by admin

We finished our hiking at Devil’s Lake SP at about 3 in the afternoon and headed into Baraboo for something to eat. Not so long ago, that would have meant parking ourselves at a restaurant for a meal. Though there are no restrictions on indoor dining in Wisconsin now — the whole kit and kaboodle was thrown out — we thought better of it, and ordered takeout.

That left us about 20 minutes to wait for the food. Rather than wait in the car in the restaurant parking lot, I consulted Google maps and found a nearby place to go: the 52-acre Walnut Hill Cemetery, which has about 11,500 permanent residents. Baraboo, the Census Bureau tells me, has a shade over 12,100 living residents.

It’s a pleasant cemetery.

I hadn’t come to see any specific grave, but I had to investigate one of the few mausoleums I saw, there on a small rise.

It turned out to be the resting place of Al. Ringling (1852-1916), the eldest of the circus family, and his wife Lou. Makes sense. Baraboo was a circus town, after all.

Later I read that some of the other circus brothers are buried at Walnut Hill as well, but I didn’t spot them. I did see another intriguing stone.

JOHN DUCKENS
Born a slave in Kentucky
Died in Baraboo, Wi 1894
Aged 75 years

A new-looking stone at that. It’s a replacement for a weather-worn original, put there only in 2011 by the Sauk County Historical Society, which published a sketch of his life — probably all that’s possible — as a Sauk County Notable.

Devil’s Lake State Park

Posted on June 22, 2020 by admin

Over the weekend we visited Devil’s Lake State Park in Sauk County, Wisconsin. We drove up one evening, spent the night at a motel in Madison, and then the next morning continued on to the park, which is about 45 minutes to the northwest of the capital. After spending most of the day in the park, we drove home from there.

The closest town is Baraboo, which we last saw in 2007 — home of the delightful Circus World Museum. This time we drove by the museum. Even if we’d wanted to go again, which we didn’t, that wouldn’t have been possible. At least it’s still there. I hope Circus World manages to reopen sometime.

Devil’s Lake is a pleasant-looking, 360-acre lake with a couple of beaches and other lakeshore amenities, but those aren’t the main draw. What makes it the most popular Wisconsin state park are the Quartzite bluffs on two sides of the lake, east and west, relics of the most recent ice age. Rising to as high as 500 feet, they offer quite a view.

First, of course, you have to follow a trail that takes you up to those views. We picked the one on the east side of the lake, the fittingly named East Bluff Trail.
Up it goes.
I wondered what the people ahead of us were carrying on their backs — note the black and green rectangular packs. They turned out to be crash pads. For the sport, or activity, of bouldering. That is, climbing boulders. I knew people climb rock faces, but that was a variation I’d never heard of. Guess the people ahead of us were out for a day of bouldering. Takes all kinds.

I’ll bet Devil’s Lake SP is a good place for that. There are many, many boulders.

Like some other recent uphill hikes, it took me longer than the rest of the family. Rests were necessary. But I made it to various vistas.

There are a couple of named rock formations near the East Bluff Trail. One is the impressive Devil’s Doorway.

Looks solid, but surely the formation doesn’t have long to exist in geologic terms. Fleeting as a firefly on that scale. So is the whole bluff, come to think of it.

To provide a sense of scale.

Near Devil’s Door, the East Bluff Trail meets the East Bluff Woods Trail, which has a much gentler slope. We returned via that trail.

In June, the trail passes through a lush forest in the first flush of a septentrional summer. Past occasional fern fields.

Do ferns consider flowering plants a pack of johnny-come-latelies? That’s the kind of deep-time thing I wonder about when wandering through a forest, dog-tired from climbing a Holocene-vintage bluff.

Postcards To Ed

Posted on June 7, 2020 by admin

It’s been almost four years since my old friend Ed passed. His bequest to me was many postcards, including some of those that I’d sent to him over the years. I spent some time looking at them the other day. Odd to see something you dashed off, never expecting to see it again.

A selection.

June 16, 2008

Dear Ed,
Welcome back from Mongolia, etc. I’m expecting a letter. You will soon receive cards from Tennessee or NC or maybe even SC.

Dees

***

June 25, 2009

Dear Ed,
From the last batch of cards I bought. I didn’t expect a planetarium at LBL [Land Between the Lakes]. The show wasn’t all that interesting, however.

Dees

***

Sept. 22, 2010

Dear Ed,
Now this was worth driving to Milwaukee to see: a piece of the 1893 world’s fair. If only I had that time machine —

Dees

***

April 26, 2011

Dear Ed,
Bet it’s been a while since you’ve rec’d a stretch postcard — the gift shop at this museum was practically giving them away, so I got several. I have to like a museum that’s still proud of its dioramas. Until holodecks come along, they will have to do.

Dees

***

April 6, 2012

Dear Ed,
I’ve been remiss is sending cards lately, so here’s one from Yerkes. In case you don’t have enough pictures of Einstein. Nice pics of Africa, by the way [that he sent me].

Dees

The Midsummer Carnival Shaft

Posted on October 9, 2019 by admin

Time for an autumn break. Back to posting around October 20, if all goes according to plan.

Last week in Milwaukee, I happened across an oddity that wasn’t part of the Doors Open event, but rather something in the median of Wisconsin Ave. near Calvary Presbyterian.

A tall, freestanding Corinthian column with a sphere on top. Other statues in the median, not pictured here, include ones honoring Union soldiers, Spanish-American veterans and George Washington. So this column must honor something along those lines, right?

Hard to tell just looking at it. A plaque on the plinth is enigmatic: Presented to the City of Milwaukee by the Carnival Association, June 26, 1900.

Who? Why? Later, I found an article about the Court of Honor, as the median is called. “The Court of Honor is a series of statues, most honoring military figures, that line the median strip in West Wisconsin Avenue between 9th and 10th Streets,” Bobby Tanzilo wrote in On Milwaukee.

“The collection of sculpture became known as the Court of Honor because it was the site of the annual crowning of the Rex (or king) of the Milwaukee Midsummer Carnival Festival, which began in 1898 to celebrate the 50th anniversary of Wisconsin’s birth as a state.

“The carnival only endured for four years, but it must have been a fun event, because it drew visitors from across the state… Each year, for the carnival, the association that organized the week-long event would build temporary classical wood and plaster colonnades. Two years in, it commissioned architect Alfred Clas to design a Corinthian column – the Midsummer Carnival Shaft – that would be constructed of Bedford limestone to serve as a permanent centerpiece for the event.”

The Midsummer Carnival Shaft thus stands to this day, silently honoring an event that probably 99.44% of Milwaukeeans could not identify. Just another example of something that can make the urban texture of a city interesting — a forgotten oddity in plain sight.

Two Milwaukee Courthouses of Imposing Size and Grandeur

Posted on October 3, 2019 by admin

Last year during Doors Open Milwaukee, we passed by the Milwaukee County Courthouse. I don’t think it was participating, but anyway we didn’t go in. Naturally, this year it’s still an imposing neo-classical edifice by McKim, Mead, and White, finished in 1931.

The building was open and we went in. But not at the owl entrance, whose single word Justice, if you’re in a cynical mood, might fall under the category of promises, promises.
Some of the courthouse’s arched hallways were well lit.
Others, not so much.
One well-appointed courtroom, that of Judge Someone-or-Other, was open for inspection.
Mostly the halls and courtroom exuded a sense of serious business, which is appropriate. Don’t want any goofballs on the bench. But there was at least one oddity in the otherwise staid atmosphere of the courthouse halls: a weight and horoscope machine. What?
Further to the east on Wisconsin Ave. — there’s that street again — is the Federal Building & U.S. Courthouse for the Eastern District of Wisconsin. They say it’s a grand old edifice, completed in the 1890s to house not only federal courts, but also the main post office and the customs service. I’m sure it must be, but the exterior is a little hard to see in 2019 during restoration.
Some of the granite facade is visible.
A design overseen by Willoughby J. Edbrooke, whose Wiki page tell us: “[He] remained faithful to a Richardsonian Romanesque style into the era of Beaux-Arts architecture in the United States.” A man who knew what he liked and stuck with it.

The vaulting atrium impresses mightily, but it’s hard to capture its image with a simple camera. Looking up, the view is through a steel structure which I assume is for support in some way.
These are views from the fourth floor. Originally the atrium roof was open, in the way pre-air conditioning buildings often were.
We saw two courtrooms, including the Ceremonial Courtroom and its exceptional woodwork.
Called “ceremonial” because besides being a workaday federal courtroom, it’s also where new judges and new U.S. citizens tend to be sworn in.

An Eastern Church With Pews, A Western Church Without

Posted on October 2, 2019 by admin

Buildings, including churches, defy expectations at times. Often enough that expectations really shouldn’t be expected, but we do that anyway.

Take St. George Melkite Greek Catholic Church, which we visited on Saturday as part of Doors Open Milwaukee. It was built in 1917.
Though the Melkites are in communion with Rome, I was expecting an Eastern-style church inside. Mostly, it is, with icons and an iconostasis and Christ on the ceiling. But it also includes pews.
One of the congregation was on hand to tell us about the church, and his idea was that the pews were a bit of syncretism on the part of the Lebanese and Syrian founding families of the church, or maybe the architect, one Erhard Brielmaier. Also, the church didn’t have icons in its early days, those being added in more recent decades, which might explain why their language is English.
Christ on the ceiling is a particular admirable work.
I was astonished to learn that it isn’t a painting, which it very much looks like, but a printed image made using a highly sophisticated machine and fixed in place.

Back on Wisconsin Ave. (for St. George is a few blocks to the north), we visited one more church on Saturday: Calvary Presbyterian, a soaring Victorian Gothic structure dating from the early 1870s, designed by architects Koch & Hess.

That was a long time before the highway, unfortunately next to the church, was built.
Nickname: the Big Red Church.
Inside, I was surprised again.
“Not what you expected, is it?” said one of the congregation. He explained that with pews, the church would be used once a week for a few hours — unsustainable for a small membership. Twenty years ago, they decided to remove the pews. When the congregation meets now, it’s on temporary chairs under a multi-petal canopy. Other groups also meet for other purposes in the now-open space, making the place an active one.

The Tripoli Shrine Temple

Posted on October 1, 2019 by admin

Last night at around 11, or just an hour before September ended, I sat on my deck outside in short sleeves, in comfort. Warm winds blew. The day had been summer-like, in the mid-80s at least, and October 1 has been roughly the same. Rain is coming tonight, though, and so are cooler temps.

I don’t have any interest in becoming a Shriner, but I have to like a fraternal organization whose members wear fezzes and meet in gilded, onion-domed buildings inspired by the 19th-century popular vogue for Orientalism. I’ve seen Shriners in their little cars buzzing along parade routes, and once upon a time I went to a Shrine Circus in a temple that the Shriners later sold, and which has been sold again.

In Milwaukee, on Wisconsin Ave., the Shriners built themselves an exceptional edifice, the Tripoli Shrine Temple, taking inspiration from the Taj Mahal.
No example of Moorish Revival is complete without stone camels, I think. Especially considering that the Shriners originally called themselves the Ancient Arabic Order of the Nobles of the Mystic Shrine. Two camels are perched beside the front entrance steps.

The statue to the right of Shriner and child is a nod to the Shriners Hospitals for Children, of which there are 22 in North America (though none in Milwaukee).
The temple, designed by Clas & Shepard of Milwaukee and completed in 1928, is every bit as ornate inside as out.
Second floor.
Looking up.
There was no shortage of Shriners around, helping show off the place.
This one gave a short talk about the building. He had interesting things to say, especially about the countless thousands of tiles on the floors and wall. Literally countless, since no one kept count or has made a count. He said that during the interior construction of the temple in the late ’20s, a family of four skilled in tilework lived in the temple, staying until they were done a few years later.

Three Wisconsin Avenue Lutheran Churches & One Beer Palace

Posted on September 30, 2019 by admin

We kicked off our time on Wisconsin Ave. in Milwaukee on Saturday at St. Paul’s Lutheran Church, which has been on this site since 1917, though the congregation has been around since 1841, before there was a Milwaukee or even a state of Wisconsin.
George Bowman Ferry designed the structure. It must have been one of his last, since he died in 1918. In partnership with another Milwaukee architect, Alfred C. Clas, he’s better known for doing the Pabst Mansion, which isn’t far to the east of St. Paul’s. Just a few blocks from St. Paul’s — 2812 W. Wisconsin vs. 3022 W. Wisconsin — is another Lutheran congregation, which meets at Our Savior’s Lutheran Church. I gazed at the structure for a while before I noticed the solar panels. It probably took so long because that’s still an unexpected feature in ecclesiastical architecture. Our Saviors Lutheran Church, Milwaukee

Why so close to another Lutheran church? I don’t have a definite answer. They both seem to be part of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, but that’s a fairly recent combination, so perhaps they were different kinds of Lutherans in the early days. Also possible: Our Savior’s was founded by Norwegians, who maybe didn’t want to share a church with Germans or others in the 19th century.

The church is tall and the interior walls are spare.A reflection of its midcentury design, I believe, since the building was completed only in 1954 for a much older congregation. A detail I find interesting from the church web site, after mentioning the 1951 groundbreaking and 1952 cornerstone laying: “Work slowed in 1951-1953 due to the steel shortage caused by the Korean conflict.”

Also: “The original architect, H.C. Haeuser, passed away in 1951 before work on the church could begin. The firm of Grassold and Johnson was hired to replace him and that firm finalized the design.”

The walls may be mostly plain, but the stained glass isn’t.
“The stained glass windows were designed by Karl Friedlemeier, a native of Munich, Germany and manufactured by Gavin Glass and Mirror Company of Milwaukee from imported antique glass,” the church says. “Upper windows on the west wall depict Old Testament stories; New Testament stories are shown on the upper east walls.”

To east of these two Lutheran churches, again not far (1905 W. Wisconsin Ave.), is another church of that denomination, Reedemer Lutheran Church. It too is ELCA.
A fine brick Gothic structure completed in 1915, designed by William Schuchardt, who worked at Ferry & Clas early in this career.
While on the way to Reedemer, we passed by the Pabst Mansion.
Looks as palatial as it did in 2010. No reason it shouldn’t. It wasn’t part of Doors Open and so not open at no charge for the weekend. We walked by.

Across the street, an event called Beer Baron’s Bash was going on in the mansion’s parking lot, featuring food trucks and booths serving beer. Interesting, but not what we had come for either, so we walked by that too.

Been There, Seen That

By Dees Stribling

Category Archives: US: Wisconsin

Effigy Mounds National Monument

Thursday Clouds &c

Walnut Hill Cemetery, Baraboo

Devil’s Lake State Park

Postcards To Ed

The Midsummer Carnival Shaft

Two Milwaukee Courthouses of Imposing Size and Grandeur

An Eastern Church With Pews, A Western Church Without

The Tripoli Shrine Temple

Three Wisconsin Avenue Lutheran Churches & One Beer Palace