Jerome Pohlen - Oddball Wisconsin: A Guide to 400 Really Strange Places

Copyright 2001, 2013 by Jerome Pohlen

All rights reserved

Second edition

Published by Chicago Review Press, Incorporated

814 North Franklin Street

Chicago, Illinois 60610

ISBN 978-1-61374-666-0

The author has made every effort to secure permissions for all the material in this book. If any acknowledgment has inadvertently been omitted, please contact the author.

Cover and interior design: Jonathan Hahn

Map design: Chris Erichsen

Cover photograph: North Country Taxidermy, Hazelhurst

All interior images from the authors collection unless otherwise noted.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Pohlen, Jerome.

Oddball Wisconsin : a guide to 400 really strange places / Jerome Pohlen. Second edition.

pages cm

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN 978-1-61374-666-0 (trade paper)

1. WisconsinGuidebooks. 2. WisconsinHistory, LocalMiscellanea. 3. Curiosities and wondersWisconsinGuidebooks. I. Title.

F579.3.P64 2013

977.5dc23

2013002262

Printed in the United States of America

5 4 3 2 1

to my parents,
JOSEPH and BARBARA POHLEN,
for all the family trips in
the big, orange dodge

L ets be honest: Wisconsin is a state of oddballs. Where else do citizens proudly wear foam cheese wedges on their heads? Where have voters elected both the infamous senator Joseph McCarthy and the nations longest-running Socialist big-city mayor? And which states official song was once owned by Michael Jackson? The answer to all these questions is the same: Wisconsin.

And what do these odd folk do with their time? They build elaborate concrete shrines in their front yards or erect enormous fiberglass statues of fish, corkscrews, chickens, and cows, cows, cows. They open museums to honor mustard, angels, honey, paper coffee cups, accordions, and cheese. And they organize festivals to celebrate pot roasts, UFOs, rutabagas, watermelon seed spitting, and cow-chip tossing. These weird folk are willing to break free of Midwestern conformity. They are people I admire.

When the first edition of this book came out in 2001, I thought to myself, Wisconsin couldnt be any weirder. And boy was I wrong. A few months after it was published, I got a kind letter from Mark Mad Man Madson, asking if I would include his Chevy pickupthe one he had suspended 50 feet in the air between two treesin the next edition. I most definitely would! So, too, Chainsaw Gordys Garden of Saws, Big Al Capones of Pipe, Smokey Bears head, and Top Secret, the worlds only upside-down White House. And on and on and on.

As before, where other travel guides might bore you with scenic driving tours, homey bed-and-breakfasts, and where to find the fall colors, this new edition of Oddball Wisconsin offers you road trip information youre not likely to find anywhere else. Where was Liberace born? How do you catch a Hodag? Who invented the hamburger, and what has his hometown done to honor this visionary man? And which rodent is a better weather forecaster, Jimmy the Groundhog or Punxsutawney Phil?

So forget antiquing in Door County, fly-fishing in the North Woods, and bicycling along the Mississippi. Youve eaten far too many waffle cones in Lake Geneva. Its time to live a little, and laugh a lot, on your vacation.

While Ive tried to give clear directions from major streets and landmarks, you could still make a wrong turn. Bigfoot might be out there, so its not a time to panic. Remember these Oddball travel tips:

1. Stop and ask! For a lot of communities, their Oddball attraction might be their only claim to fame. Locals are often thrilled that youd drive out of your way to marvel at their underappreciated shrine. But be careful who you ask. Old cranks at the town cafe are good for information; teenage clerks at the Gas-n-Go are not.
2. Call ahead. Few Oddball sites keep regular hours, but most owners or operators will gladly wait around if they know youre coming. Wisconsin is a seasonal travel state, and sites can be closed for the winter at a moments notice or if the fish are biting. Always call.
3. Dont give up. Think of the person whos sitting in a tiny museum dedicated to an obscure topic, and know that theyre waiting just for you. Actually, theyre waiting for anyone so youll do.
4. Dont trespass! Dont become a Terrible Tourist. Just because somebody built a sculpture garden in their front yard doesnt mean theyre looking for visitors.

Do you have an Oddball site of your own? Have I missed anything? Do you know of an oddball site that should be included in an updated version? Please write and let me know: Jerome Pohlen, c/o Chicago Review Press, 814 North Franklin Street, Chicago, IL 60610.

W hen you think of northern Wisconsin, think bigPaul Bunyan big. Everywhere you turn, there are enormous monuments to everyday objects and wildlife. A giant corkscrew. A colossal penny. A two-story loon. A massive badger. A titanic chicken. A Chrysler-size whitetail deer. Huge black bears, manmade and stuffed. And the worlds largest fiberglass animal: a gargantuan muskie at the National Freshwater Fishing Hall of Fame in Hayward.

To properly display these mammoth structures, theyve been placed at great distances from one another, and are not the kind of things you can visit on a Sunday drive in the country. You need a full tank of gas, a good map, and an alarm clock to hit the road earlyits going to be a full weekend.

And you wont just see fiberglass monstrosities. There are things up in those woods, things youll never see anywhere else: UFO parades, crowds of concrete people, card-playing raccoons, hippie colonies, a Bong Memorial, an enormous ball of twine, and the exact geographic center of the northern half of the western-freakin hemisphere so what are you waiting for?!

Amery

The Haunted Lutheran Church

If youre driving along Route 46 south of Amery and you hear the toll of a church bell, STOP! But only if it is coming from a Lutheran church atop a hill.

Old Norwegian ghosts from East Immanuels adjoining cemetery have refused to go to their final resting place, choosing instead to congregate in the chapel after hours. Oftentimes they ring the bell to call their otherworldly neighbors to their spirit services.

Many parishioners have heard the noisy throng over the years, but the voices would fade as they approached the building. Others have heard murmurs in the basement, and one church trustee had a light fixture reassemble itself when he turned his back for a moment. As of yet, they dead have not harmed anyone though there is no guarantee that they wont.

East Immanuel Lutheran Church, 207 120th St., Amery, WI 54001

Phone: (715) 268-2143

Hours: Always visible

Cost: Free

Website: www.eastimmanuel-lutheran.org

Directions: Five miles south of town on Rte. 46, turn west on 30th Ave. for one mile, turn south on 120th St.

Augusta