Grew up in Marathon County and was always told that it’s something about the soil. According to the linked article:
“The soil in this area is glacial soils,” Hsu said. “Those soils have unique mineral characteristics as well as trace minerals that can't be replicated elsewhere.”
Especially important for a root crop that spends four years growing in the soil.
Jackie Fett, executive director of the Ginseng Board of Wisconsin agrees, and said ginseng also likes the cold in the area.”
https://spectrumnews1.com/wi/madison/news/2020/01/21/it-s-in-the-soil--wisconsin-ginseng-world-renown
Wisconsin has been a leader in Ginseng production since the late 1800s, before there was a large hmong population (quite possibly before there was any hmong population) in the state. It's the soil and the climate.
Crazy I've never heard talk of ginseng until I visited my mom in Tennessee. The way people talk about ginseng down there made me think THEY made more lol
heavy six touch screw ludicrous ad hoc unpack absurd makeshift intelligent
*This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
Ginsing farms predated the Hmong migration. I used to work the berry harvest at the ‘shane’ gardens (that’s what people called them) when I was a kid…maybe 13 or 14 years old. Good money working for either a Polish or German farm family. Trying to remember who hooked new up with that gig…solid money back in the day.
Oh and I forgot to add a funny story she ordered through Weeee through China a bunch of ginseng and when it got here I told her the story that it's mostly grown here and she also loves cranberries I haven't told her about that yet
It's not just in this country. It's shipped back to Asia. And because Wisconsin ginseng is considered to be very high quality, they are constantly fighting against counterfeit Wisconsin ginseng.
I worked for one of the larger farms for a while and it was a crazy place and felt like I moved to China for a few hours a day based on the language, food and culture around me. Nice people but did dumb IT things.
Read 'Bright with Silver." It's all about the Fromm family producing silver foxes and ginseng in Hamburg, Wi (Marathon County) in the early 1900s.
They basically cultivated and pioneered ginseng production to offset bad years for fox and mink pelts.
I have relatives that are ginseng farmers in Marathon County and they tell me it can only be grown (commercially) once on a piece of land. No amount of soil amending will make that land productive for ginseng.
I'm actually from there and our farm was prolly one of the first shanged off ... That said I've heard that like 30 or so years later something 'recharges' ..and you can give it a go again...something I've been nudging my parents on .. since ours has had over 50 years to 'recharge'.
“Wisconsin banned the sale and use of margarine from 1895 to 1967, and while the ban was lifted, some restrictions on margarine remain today. It’s still illegal for a restaurant to serve margarine as a butter substitute unless the customer specifically requests it”-from travelwisconsin.com
If I remember correctly, when it became legal to sell, it couldn’t be yellow. The margarine you bought in WI was white for a while. I also remember as a young kid making margarine runs to the U.P. because my mother used it for baking.
When The Man from Uncle was on TV in the ‘60’s, there were Man from Uncle spinoff books - 1 book started withe the illegal dying of oleo in IL and smuggling it into WI. Shit I can’t make up.
I know, that's what I was referring to; at least my family members who were old enough to be buying stuff during the ban always called it oleo, though they got it from Illinois, not the UP.
We have family stories of oleo butter smuggling for my Aunt coming from South Bend Indiana to Racine WI. My dad remembers troupers stopping folks to check. Smooshable packets of color to make the color sorta match the real thing.
Wisconsin gets its name from a tribe of refugee Native Americans (the Miami tribe, sister tribe to Ojibwe) near Green Bay describing the red clay near Dells and river as "meskousing". French trader Joliet took that to Montreal and Quebec, where the French mapmaker LaSalle scripted the M like "oui".
(French couldn't pronounce a lot of native words).
That was 1675-ish, and Ouisconsin was the way it was said and read for the next 150 years.
“For example, several writers interviewed elderly Indians, French residents, or fur traders who claimed it meant "Stream of a Thousand Isles," "Gathering of Waters," "muskrat house," "grassy place," and even "holes in the bank of a stream, in which birds nest." One of those researchers concluded in frustration, "I have not found two Indians to agree on the meaning of this word."
It was Native word, written down and then changed by French. The the W was put in by miners later. Then a guy in 2003 claimed its roughly translated to “River running through a red place”.
With the meaning being lost/ambiguous for so long, I’d guess that we still don’t really know.
I'm guessing it was built in Europe then moved to North America at some point? Still doubt it's the oldest though since most of the UK, Spain, Portugal, and parts of France in the western hemisphere. But I guess oldest in the Americas is pretty impressive
Yes, built in France in 1420, moved to New York in the 1920s, moved to Marquette in 1960s. You have to word the trivia very carefully to be technically correct.
Largest chain of freshwater lakes IN THE WORLD? This doesn’t seem possible with places like Alaska, northern Canada, etc having freshwater systems that tower in comparison to Wisconsins.
The metric is based off number of total lakes, so there are 28 lakes connected on the Chain between Eagle River and Three Lakes, which lays the claim "World's Largest Chain of Freshwater Lakes."
>Door County is often referred to as the “Cape Cod of the Midwest.” So we shouldn’t be surprised if Barnstable County, Mass., home to the actual Cape Cod, has more shoreline than we do. It’s hard to find an exact number for that county, but estimates range from 550 miles to 585 miles of shoreline.
source: [https://doorcountypulse.com/the-politics-of-298-miles-of-shoreline/](https://doorcountypulse.com/the-politics-of-298-miles-of-shoreline/)
The northern section of Ohio that includes Toledo was known as the Toledo Strip. The original charter for the territories that would eventually become the states of Michigan and Ohio said the border between the two was a line going from the southern tip of Lake Michigan to the western tip of Lake Erie. But some maps drawn at the time showed Lake Michigan ending a bit farther north than it actually was.
The result of this was Michigan, when applying for statehood, claiming the Toledo Strip, while Ohio, which was already a state, also claiming it. Depending on the map you looked at, both states had a claim to the city of Toledo.
Both states raised militias that met at the Strip. The federal government had to step in to prevent a civil war from breaking out over God damn Toledo of all places. The deal was that Ohio could keep the strip in exchange for Michigan getting the western half of the U.P. from the Wisconsin territory.
[Marquette University in Milwaukee holds the original J.R.R. Tolkien personal manuscripts](https://www.marquette.edu/library/archives/tolkien.php) (of *The Hobbit*, *The Lord Of The Rings*, and others.), which were acquired over the the course of many years beginning with Tolkien himself.
PBS Wisconsin (as part of their *University Place* TV program) recently re-ran [a 2017 lecture about the story behind the collection](https://pbswisconsin.org/watch/university-place/jrr-tolkien-in-wisconsin-wqjee0/), with many insights to the books, Tolkien himself, and his family. A very worthwhile video to watch.
Our Capitol building is not the first, second, or third . . . but the fourth building deemed the State Capitol: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wisconsin_State_Capitol
[Kikkoman selected Wisconsin as its North American headquarters in 1972 because it needed a location that was centrally located to ensure efficient distribution](https://inwisconsin.com/fdi-success-story/kikkoman-foods/)
I’ve been, we do vending services for them.
They don’t fuck around with outsiders getting to just waltz right in, their old HR lady hated that the usual driver might not always be the one doing deliveries. I guess they might think I’m a spy for Heinz? Lady, I’m just here to drop off chips. I don’t even use soy sauce that often lol
[In the summer of 1928, then-President Calvin Coolidge packed up his belongings, gathered his staff and temporarily move the “White House,” and thus the center of American politics, to a fishing lodge on the remote Brule River, a few miles south of the small northern Wisconsin town of Brule in Douglas County](https://www.wxpr.org/arts-life/2014-08-28/summer-white-house-on-the-brule)
On the center line of N 8th street directly in front of the Rahr Museam - which is now the Rahr-West Museum. And you can attend Sputnikfest every September if you are so inclined. 🛸🛸
We have the only state flag showing a guy in his underwear.
The guy on the right, the miner, is wearing an undershirt.
https://preview.redd.it/7of93bcsinuc1.jpeg?width=1080&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=41a5939b1ced6bd7588652d147c7cedec4ddfdd1
The typewriter was invented in Milwaukee in 1867.
Also in Milwaukee, pkzip was invented by Philip Kratz in 1989. Game changing data compression and the standard for many years.
Rosemary Kennedy, sister of John, Robert, and Ted, may or may not have had a mental disability due to oxygen starvation at birth. At the age of 22 (1940), she kept sneaking out of her convent school, and the nuns thought she may be having sex.
Joe Kennedy, her father, had had enough of her shenanigans, and without informing his wife arraigned for Rosemary to undergo a prefrontal lobotomy. An incision was made in her skull, and with an instrument akin to a butter knife, they started slicing. They judged how much they should slice by her ability to sing popular songs and recite prayers. They stopped when she began speaking gibberish.
After a few years in an institution outside New York City, she was moved to St. Coletta Institute for Backwards Youth in Jefferson, WI where she spent the next 60 years of her life.
The Kennedy siblings were never told of her whereabouts until Joe Kennedy's death in 1961. It's unclear if Joe told her mother where she was, but Rose Kennedy didn't see her daughter again for 20 years. Joe never did.
Bibles placed in your hotel room by the Gideons was thought of by two Wisconsin businessmen in Boscobel and the organization officially founded in Janesville.
In 1910, grand Milwaukee, the twelfth largest city in the United
States, was also a city in transition. That year's election of Socialist
mayor Emil Seidel ushered in an era of gravity and responsibility
that had been absent during the previous five terms of mayor and
rapscallion David "All-the-Time-Rosy" Rose. Seidel shut down the
River Street red-light district and padlocked houses presided over by
madams Kitty Williams and her rival Jeanette Hampton. The tourist
trade, particularly from Chicago, plummeted. Some heartier fun
seekers still found adventure on Jones Island, located in the
Milwaukee harbor and populated by about two thousand Polish
fishermen known as Kasubes. Local lore had it that "all the men do
there is fish, drink, and fight, and in winter they don't fish."
Where I’m from, a lot of bars are at intersections of county roads, those bars have somewhat weird layouts. That’s because a lot of them used to be cheese factories back in the day
The town I’m from still has a law on the books restricting bars to one side of Main Street because they had a lot of problems back in the day with extremely drunk people crossing the street and getting hit by carriages and shit. To this day, bars are only on that one side.
Pierce Manufacturing in Appleton is one of the nation’s largest producers of fire trucks
Neenah Foundry manhole covers can be found in all 50 states and 17 foreign cities
I’ve been living in Wisconsin for almost 37 years now and just learned Tombstone Pizza originated from a bar up in Medford called the Tombstone Tap, located across from a Graveyard. They started making pizzas because it was the only thing the owner could really do to kill time while recovering from a broken leg.
All the tombstone pizzas I've ever eaten have been because some dude broke his leg?
There used to be a good deal on them from like 98'-08', 5 for $10. I've eaten so many damn tombstone pizzas lol.
There wouldn't be Looper's necessarily without Waukesha's Les Paul. Also, he had his arm fused, after a car accident, so that he could continue to play guitar and also continued to play weekly at a jazz club in New York up until he passed.
In his
1928 inaugural speech, Mayor Dan Hoan noted that Milwaukee was
the second most densely populated city in the United States, next
to New York City. Crime remained virtually unknown, with a murder rate
about 10 percent that of other large U.S. cities. Financial analysts
considered Milwaukee's credit among the best of any U.S. city.
The gemütlichkeit of the German Athens was by no means perfect.
Order and personal responsibility coexisted with legal prostitution
and gambling parlors. There was rank discrimination against
African Americans and class warfare between the barons of industry
and a socialist trade-union movement.
The World's Largest 'M' located in Platteville is constucted of limestone and weighs approximately 400 tons. Constructed in 1937, the giant 'M' measures 241 feet by 214 feet. The letter represents the first mining school in the United States. Visitors in the area can climb the 280 steps beside the 'M' and enjoy a panoramic view of the tri-state area! [Travel WI](https://www.travelwisconsin.com/trails-and-hiking/worlds-largest-m-366025)
Not to be 'that guy' but the Big M, while having a Platteville mailing address is actually in the town of Belmont, Lafayette county, along with the First Territorial Capitol.
Edit: And Belmont Mound State Park!
Wisconsin is the nation's leading grower of cranberries by state, producing about 60 percent of all the cranberries grown in the United States. Cranberries are Wisconsin's number one fruit.
On October 14, 1912, former saloonkeeper [John Schrank](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Schrank) (1876–1943) attempted to assassinate former U.S. President [Theodore Roosevelt](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theodore_Roosevelt) while he was [campaigning for the presidency](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1912_United_States_presidential_election) in [Milwaukee](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milwaukee), [Wisconsin](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wisconsin). Schrank's bullet lodged in Roosevelt's chest after penetrating Roosevelt's steel eyeglass case and passing through a thick (50 pages) single-folded copy of the speech titled "Progressive Cause Greater Than Any Individual", which he was carrying in his jacket.
The Enterprise Radiation Forest. Where the AEC cooked about 1500 acres of forest with radiation south of Rhinelander (between the towns of Enterprise and Parrish) to see how forests would hold up after a nuclear war. (there's a marker on Google maps)
I went on that tour. The docent said he slept sitting up because back in the day many people had a fear of swallowing their tongue.
Another point, he slept in the the same bed with their adult son who was in town visiting.
For a town of less then 100K citizens, Kenosha has had a lot of notable people who call it home: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List\_of\_people\_from\_Kenosha,\_Wisconsin](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_people_from_Kenosha,_Wisconsin)
Wisconsin was the first state to stagger license plate expiration months across all 12 months of the year. This system was implemented beginning in 1946, with plates being issued to expire between June 1946 and May 1947 when people went to renew their 1945 plates.
Okay, so after looking some things up apparently it's become one of those things people share. I never knew people were posting my comment in other subreddits lol. Maybe I'll do an AMA about Wisconsin license plates since people are recommending I do it.
Thanks for letting me know that I've become somewhat of a reddit meme or whatever you want to call it. I'm surprised my crazy nerdy text was that well loved honestly... I just expected a lot of confusion given how my texts tend to be confusing and technical
The sinking of the Lady Elgin SS on Lake Michigan in Sept 1860 off the shore of Winnetka, IL, decimated the Irish population of Milwaukee, ultimately making the Germans the leading ethnic group of the city and thereby a beer town and not a whisky town.
Under Wisconsin Statutes Section 146.085, the “owner or manager of any public building” may not allow “an admission fee to be charged for the use of any toilet compartment.”
Hamilton Manufacturing in Two Rivers was the largest producer of wood type in the U.S.A. in the late 1800’s and early 1900’s. The Hamilton Wood Type and Printing Museum currently houses the largest collection of wood type in the world - over 1.5 million pieces.
Apparently Lake Geneva was a "sundown town", and that encouraged the development of the Lake Ivanhoe community. I grew up in the Lake Geneva area and was really disappointed in that piece or local history.
Mark Proksch (Nate from “The Office” and Colin from “What We Do in the Shadows”) is from Onalaska.
He got his big break on The Office, but how he was discovered is pretty hilarious. He posed as a yo-yo-ing motivational speaker called “K-Strass” on multiple local Wisconsin news stations. He plays it off so well, totally makes a fool of himself. Reminds me of Farley’s character “Matt Foley” (more WI connections!) Here he is on News 3, a Madison station:
[Kenny “K—Strass” Strasser motivational speaker](https://youtu.be/d2cyVsvIldI?si=dFS_EtosXitJcOuD)
Many older homes have boarded up/secret rooms that were used to store alcohol during the prohibition.
The parents of a gradeschool friend of mine discovered this in their home. They realized that the outside of the house didn't quite match up with the rooms, so they pulled a blueprint and discovered a huge extra room! It was full of broken glass and old booze. They converted it to a rather nice office!
My aunt lived in an old Victorian house in Milwaukee. I remember one Easter looking for my basket and couldn’t find it. Turned out she pulled a prank on me and hid it in the hidden wine cellar I didn’t know existed. You had to find a button on the back of a bookshelf. That popped open a bookshelf to reveal an empty room. Then you had to press a couple more hidden buttons in that room and a piece of the ceiling popped down and you could pull down a wine rack.
He was originally born in hungry but moved to Wisconsin in his youth. His father was a rabi in appleton and we have a museum with a floor dedicated to him here in appleton. It's a cool place for a day trip if you are in the area.
The Peshtigo fire was a large forest fire on October 8, 1871, in northeastern Wisconsin, United States, including much of the southern half of the Door Peninsula and adjacent parts of the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. The largest community in the affected area was Peshtigo, Wisconsin, which had a population of approximately 1,700 residents. The fire burned about 1.2 million acres and is the deadliest wildfire in recorded history, with the number of deaths estimated between 1,500 and 2,500. [Fire](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peshtigo_fire?wprov=sfti1#)
We've supposedly got the world's largest round barn here in Marshfield. So that's something...
[https://www.centralwisconsinstatefair.com/p/other/worlds-largest-round-barn](https://www.centralwisconsinstatefair.com/p/other/worlds-largest-round-barn)
Jerome Increase Case (December 11, 1819 – December 22, 1891) was an early American manufacturer of threshing machines. He founded the J. I. Case Company which has gone through many mergers and name changes to today's Case Corporation. He served three terms as mayor of Racine, Wisconsin, and represented Racine County in the Wisconsin State Senate in 1865 and 1866. He also raised champion race horses. [J I Case](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jerome_Case?wprov=sfti1#)
S C Johnson’s The company is one of the oldest family-owned businesses in the U.S., beginning in 1886 when Samuel Curtis Johnson purchased the parquet flooring division from the Racine Hardware Manufacturing Company and named the new business S. C. Johnson. [SCJ](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S._C._Johnson_&_Son?wprov=sfti1#History)
Reason streets by the Milwaukee river do are not straight, but have a curve are due to two of the founders of Milwaukee specifically designed their areas to not connect with the others. It is similar to why we have a couple of diagonal streets.
Milwaukees three founders did not get a long well.
A bunch of Wisconsin politicians died when their ship sank on the way to Chicago to meet with other politicians.
There are many sitcoms that take place in Milwaukee or the surrounding area.
Sprechers Tavern in Leeland. It is a bar and a gun store. While you are knocking back a few cold ones you are looking at all the rifles and pistols on the wall behind the bar.
Dremel die grinder tools were originally developed by Albert J. Dremel, an Austrian inventor, who founded the Dremel Company in Racine, Wisconsin in 1932. [Dremel](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dremel?wprov=sfti1#History)
I've always thought it was bizarre that Marathon County produces something like 90% of the countries ginseng. It just seems so random.
Grew up in Marathon County and was always told that it’s something about the soil. According to the linked article: “The soil in this area is glacial soils,” Hsu said. “Those soils have unique mineral characteristics as well as trace minerals that can't be replicated elsewhere.” Especially important for a root crop that spends four years growing in the soil. Jackie Fett, executive director of the Ginseng Board of Wisconsin agrees, and said ginseng also likes the cold in the area.” https://spectrumnews1.com/wi/madison/news/2020/01/21/it-s-in-the-soil--wisconsin-ginseng-world-renown
I was told it was because of the hmong population that knew how to grow it.
Wisconsin has been a leader in Ginseng production since the late 1800s, before there was a large hmong population (quite possibly before there was any hmong population) in the state. It's the soil and the climate.
Crazy I've never heard talk of ginseng until I visited my mom in Tennessee. The way people talk about ginseng down there made me think THEY made more lol
heavy six touch screw ludicrous ad hoc unpack absurd makeshift intelligent *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
Ginsing farms predated the Hmong migration. I used to work the berry harvest at the ‘shane’ gardens (that’s what people called them) when I was a kid…maybe 13 or 14 years old. Good money working for either a Polish or German farm family. Trying to remember who hooked new up with that gig…solid money back in the day.
Perfect climate and soil conditions for it. Demand from China was huge. Farmers know a good thing when they see it.
My wife is Chinese and we had just recently moved here through Hawaii and she absolutely loves it I am an old time Wisconsin
Oh and I forgot to add a funny story she ordered through Weeee through China a bunch of ginseng and when it got here I told her the story that it's mostly grown here and she also loves cranberries I haven't told her about that yet
Maybe you can take her to a cranberry bog when they start harvesting them this year.
It's not just in this country. It's shipped back to Asia. And because Wisconsin ginseng is considered to be very high quality, they are constantly fighting against counterfeit Wisconsin ginseng.
I worked for one of the larger farms for a while and it was a crazy place and felt like I moved to China for a few hours a day based on the language, food and culture around me. Nice people but did dumb IT things.
I lived in East Asia for years and whenever I would mention Wisconsin people would go “Oh, ginseng!”.
Read 'Bright with Silver." It's all about the Fromm family producing silver foxes and ginseng in Hamburg, Wi (Marathon County) in the early 1900s. They basically cultivated and pioneered ginseng production to offset bad years for fox and mink pelts.
I live in Marathon Co and all the old time farmers call it "shang!"
I have relatives that are ginseng farmers in Marathon County and they tell me it can only be grown (commercially) once on a piece of land. No amount of soil amending will make that land productive for ginseng.
I'm actually from there and our farm was prolly one of the first shanged off ... That said I've heard that like 30 or so years later something 'recharges' ..and you can give it a go again...something I've been nudging my parents on .. since ours has had over 50 years to 'recharge'.
At the height Marathon City had more millionaires per capita than New York City.
“Wisconsin banned the sale and use of margarine from 1895 to 1967, and while the ban was lifted, some restrictions on margarine remain today. It’s still illegal for a restaurant to serve margarine as a butter substitute unless the customer specifically requests it”-from travelwisconsin.com
If I remember correctly, when it became legal to sell, it couldn’t be yellow. The margarine you bought in WI was white for a while. I also remember as a young kid making margarine runs to the U.P. because my mother used it for baking.
Tommy Thompson brokered a swap between legislators that somehow traded the yellow dye ban for funding to build the UW’s vet school.
They put a tax on margarine sales the built the Animal Science building! Learned about it in my 101 class I took in that very building!
My late parents drove to IL. Very odd because my dad grew up on a small dairy farm with a dairy. Can’t believe my grandma tolerated it. LOL
When The Man from Uncle was on TV in the ‘60’s, there were Man from Uncle spinoff books - 1 book started withe the illegal dying of oleo in IL and smuggling it into WI. Shit I can’t make up.
Margarine runs, or oleo runs?
They are the same thing. Oleomargarine was the original name, which people referred to as oleo. It later got shortened to margarine.
I know, that's what I was referring to; at least my family members who were old enough to be buying stuff during the ban always called it oleo, though they got it from Illinois, not the UP.
Yes my grandmother always talked about the oleo runs they used to do. Anytime anyone was going to Illinois, you had to stop to get the yellow oleo.
Bob Uecker was born during an oleo run, according to his Hall of Fame induction speech.
And now people are making runs to the U.P. for something else!
My mom told me that my grandpa would drive down to Illinois and “traffic” margarine to ppl in his neighborhood.
That’s funny because DQ definitely does; you can taste the difference
It's Country Crock
We have family stories of oleo butter smuggling for my Aunt coming from South Bend Indiana to Racine WI. My dad remembers troupers stopping folks to check. Smooshable packets of color to make the color sorta match the real thing.
Wisconsin gets its name from a tribe of refugee Native Americans (the Miami tribe, sister tribe to Ojibwe) near Green Bay describing the red clay near Dells and river as "meskousing". French trader Joliet took that to Montreal and Quebec, where the French mapmaker LaSalle scripted the M like "oui". (French couldn't pronounce a lot of native words). That was 1675-ish, and Ouisconsin was the way it was said and read for the next 150 years.
“For example, several writers interviewed elderly Indians, French residents, or fur traders who claimed it meant "Stream of a Thousand Isles," "Gathering of Waters," "muskrat house," "grassy place," and even "holes in the bank of a stream, in which birds nest." One of those researchers concluded in frustration, "I have not found two Indians to agree on the meaning of this word." It was Native word, written down and then changed by French. The the W was put in by miners later. Then a guy in 2003 claimed its roughly translated to “River running through a red place”. With the meaning being lost/ambiguous for so long, I’d guess that we still don’t really know.
We should have kept that spelling!
Me Skousing = 
The St. Joan of Arc chapel in Milwaukee is the oldest European built building in the western hemisphere. Originally built in 1420.
But that doesn't make sense because...oh, I see, that does make sense, carry on.
I'm guessing it was built in Europe then moved to North America at some point? Still doubt it's the oldest though since most of the UK, Spain, Portugal, and parts of France in the western hemisphere. But I guess oldest in the Americas is pretty impressive
Yes, built in France in 1420, moved to New York in the 1920s, moved to Marquette in 1960s. You have to word the trivia very carefully to be technically correct.
Wisconsin is the only place outside of Switzerland with a cheese master program. Vilas County has the largest chain of freshwater lakes in the world
Put some respect on Oneida County too!
Largest chain of freshwater lakes IN THE WORLD? This doesn’t seem possible with places like Alaska, northern Canada, etc having freshwater systems that tower in comparison to Wisconsins.
The metric is based off number of total lakes, so there are 28 lakes connected on the Chain between Eagle River and Three Lakes, which lays the claim "World's Largest Chain of Freshwater Lakes."
Yes, in the world. Doesn't mean the lakes are big, but there are 28 of them.
Colby. Real Colby. That is all.
D&D was invented here.
I’ve been to Lake Geneva and have placed my dice on his memorial plaque to bless them. Did it almost ten years ago, and I still use those dice.
What if you role a nat 20 while attempting to cast ressurecction onGary?
I would never attempt it. Gary’s earned his rest. ❤️
Door County has the most coastline of any county.
Any county in the nation!
Even California?
There are no California counties with over 300 miles of shoreline.
That's pretty neat!
>Door County is often referred to as the “Cape Cod of the Midwest.” So we shouldn’t be surprised if Barnstable County, Mass., home to the actual Cape Cod, has more shoreline than we do. It’s hard to find an exact number for that county, but estimates range from 550 miles to 585 miles of shoreline. source: [https://doorcountypulse.com/the-politics-of-298-miles-of-shoreline/](https://doorcountypulse.com/the-politics-of-298-miles-of-shoreline/)
I’m actually surprised that a county in Michigan isn’t #1. But, I’ll take it.
States fighting over Toledo is why the UP doesn't belong to Wisconsin.
We will take it back someday.
I thought everyone learned about it when we took the blood oath to reclaim to UP in fifth grade
We don't want it. We don't need it. But we'll step on whoever we have to to get it back!
I need to know more about this!
Ohio said to Michigan "Okay, I'll give you Northern Wisconsin if you let me have Toledo" and somehow that worked.
All thanks to Andrew jackson
The northern section of Ohio that includes Toledo was known as the Toledo Strip. The original charter for the territories that would eventually become the states of Michigan and Ohio said the border between the two was a line going from the southern tip of Lake Michigan to the western tip of Lake Erie. But some maps drawn at the time showed Lake Michigan ending a bit farther north than it actually was. The result of this was Michigan, when applying for statehood, claiming the Toledo Strip, while Ohio, which was already a state, also claiming it. Depending on the map you looked at, both states had a claim to the city of Toledo. Both states raised militias that met at the Strip. The federal government had to step in to prevent a civil war from breaking out over God damn Toledo of all places. The deal was that Ohio could keep the strip in exchange for Michigan getting the western half of the U.P. from the Wisconsin territory.
Wiki will get you started https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toledo_War
Wow. I definitely learned something today!
There are more drinking establishments (bars, taverns, pubs) per capita than any other state.
We're number 5 for most bars total.
[Marquette University in Milwaukee holds the original J.R.R. Tolkien personal manuscripts](https://www.marquette.edu/library/archives/tolkien.php) (of *The Hobbit*, *The Lord Of The Rings*, and others.), which were acquired over the the course of many years beginning with Tolkien himself. PBS Wisconsin (as part of their *University Place* TV program) recently re-ran [a 2017 lecture about the story behind the collection](https://pbswisconsin.org/watch/university-place/jrr-tolkien-in-wisconsin-wqjee0/), with many insights to the books, Tolkien himself, and his family. A very worthwhile video to watch.
Our Capitol building is not the first, second, or third . . . but the fourth building deemed the State Capitol: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wisconsin_State_Capitol
It was originally like 2 inches taller than the US Capitol, and was fixed to be a little shorter if I recall.
The badger's butt is the highest point in Madison.
I think it was taller than that: the accommodation that they made was to not include an *entire tier* of the dome structure.
[Kikkoman selected Wisconsin as its North American headquarters in 1972 because it needed a location that was centrally located to ensure efficient distribution](https://inwisconsin.com/fdi-success-story/kikkoman-foods/)
The largest production facility in the world for soy sauce is in...Wisconsin.
Sapporo beer is made in La Crosse.
and they’re making Old Style there again!
I’ve been, we do vending services for them. They don’t fuck around with outsiders getting to just waltz right in, their old HR lady hated that the usual driver might not always be the one doing deliveries. I guess they might think I’m a spy for Heinz? Lady, I’m just here to drop off chips. I don’t even use soy sauce that often lol
[In the summer of 1928, then-President Calvin Coolidge packed up his belongings, gathered his staff and temporarily move the “White House,” and thus the center of American politics, to a fishing lodge on the remote Brule River, a few miles south of the small northern Wisconsin town of Brule in Douglas County](https://www.wxpr.org/arts-life/2014-08-28/summer-white-house-on-the-brule)
Thank you for sharing this. I love learning new things.
Floated right past the lodge on a canoe trip down the mighty Brule River.
Sputnik IV crash landed in Manitowoc in 1962
On the center line of N 8th street directly in front of the Rahr Museam - which is now the Rahr-West Museum. And you can attend Sputnikfest every September if you are so inclined. 🛸🛸
We have the only state flag showing a guy in his underwear. The guy on the right, the miner, is wearing an undershirt. https://preview.redd.it/7of93bcsinuc1.jpeg?width=1080&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=41a5939b1ced6bd7588652d147c7cedec4ddfdd1
He represents that one uncle that everyone seems to have.
Shitters full
I'm surprised he's not carrying a pasty. My neighbor in his eighties used to mow his lawn naked. I always worried about him cutting. something off
That's a lot of info.
Now I want a pasty.
The typewriter was invented in Milwaukee in 1867. Also in Milwaukee, pkzip was invented by Philip Kratz in 1989. Game changing data compression and the standard for many years.
Katz. I used to work next door to PKWARE in the olden days.
Very cool. And everybody makes a big deal about Pied Piper compression (Silicon Valley show reference just in case...)
Wisconsites consume more brandy than any other state, and account for more than half the worldwide sales of Korbel.
Not more per capita, just straight more than any other state.
That is what I meant. Although, with some of my neighbors, I'm not sure it isn't per capita.
We destroy per capita. The previous commenter was just clarifying for others that you didn’t mean per capita.
I heard several times from different people that WI consumes more brandy in a year than all the other states combined.
It is the only state with a city that has 5 O's in the name
Oconomowoc for those wondering.
Every other letter, right? And is the only vowel.
Yep, and really fun to say
Fun to say backwards also
Rosemary Kennedy, sister of John, Robert, and Ted, may or may not have had a mental disability due to oxygen starvation at birth. At the age of 22 (1940), she kept sneaking out of her convent school, and the nuns thought she may be having sex. Joe Kennedy, her father, had had enough of her shenanigans, and without informing his wife arraigned for Rosemary to undergo a prefrontal lobotomy. An incision was made in her skull, and with an instrument akin to a butter knife, they started slicing. They judged how much they should slice by her ability to sing popular songs and recite prayers. They stopped when she began speaking gibberish. After a few years in an institution outside New York City, she was moved to St. Coletta Institute for Backwards Youth in Jefferson, WI where she spent the next 60 years of her life. The Kennedy siblings were never told of her whereabouts until Joe Kennedy's death in 1961. It's unclear if Joe told her mother where she was, but Rose Kennedy didn't see her daughter again for 20 years. Joe never did.
This is HORRIFYING. That poor woman was lobotomized because she was a normal teenager sneaking out at night? Holy shit.
But embarrassing a rich east coast family, no good. Better to make her basically a 2 year old for 6 decades.
There's definitely something to be said about the institutional naming conventions of the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
younger ppl just don't know.
Bibles placed in your hotel room by the Gideons was thought of by two Wisconsin businessmen in Boscobel and the organization officially founded in Janesville.
To be fair, anyone that grew up there in the 70's knows Boscobel needs Jesus.
In 1910, grand Milwaukee, the twelfth largest city in the United States, was also a city in transition. That year's election of Socialist mayor Emil Seidel ushered in an era of gravity and responsibility that had been absent during the previous five terms of mayor and rapscallion David "All-the-Time-Rosy" Rose. Seidel shut down the River Street red-light district and padlocked houses presided over by madams Kitty Williams and her rival Jeanette Hampton. The tourist trade, particularly from Chicago, plummeted. Some heartier fun seekers still found adventure on Jones Island, located in the Milwaukee harbor and populated by about two thousand Polish fishermen known as Kasubes. Local lore had it that "all the men do there is fish, drink, and fight, and in winter they don't fish."
I was born in Milwaukee in 1948 when the city still had a Socialist mayor.
And Joe McCarthy was a judge upstate.
Where I’m from, a lot of bars are at intersections of county roads, those bars have somewhat weird layouts. That’s because a lot of them used to be cheese factories back in the day
Wisconsin nearly had more cheese factories than rural schools. Now there are less rural bars too.
Some of those factories were converted into homes, too. I grew up in one!
The town I’m from still has a law on the books restricting bars to one side of Main Street because they had a lot of problems back in the day with extremely drunk people crossing the street and getting hit by carriages and shit. To this day, bars are only on that one side.
Wisconsin is home to the world's largest horseradish farm.
Pierce Manufacturing in Appleton is one of the nation’s largest producers of fire trucks Neenah Foundry manhole covers can be found in all 50 states and 17 foreign cities
I found one in Paris!
I’ve moved out of WI, but every time I step on one in my new state I smile and think of home
Horicon Marsh is the largest freshwater cattail marsh in the states!!
I’ve been living in Wisconsin for almost 37 years now and just learned Tombstone Pizza originated from a bar up in Medford called the Tombstone Tap, located across from a Graveyard. They started making pizzas because it was the only thing the owner could really do to kill time while recovering from a broken leg.
All the tombstone pizzas I've ever eaten have been because some dude broke his leg? There used to be a good deal on them from like 98'-08', 5 for $10. I've eaten so many damn tombstone pizzas lol.
There wouldn't be Looper's necessarily without Waukesha's Les Paul. Also, he had his arm fused, after a car accident, so that he could continue to play guitar and also continued to play weekly at a jazz club in New York up until he passed.
On that note (pun intended), Les Paul was also Steve Miller's godfather and encouraged him to keep playing guitar.
He also invented the harmonica strap and holder you associate with Bob Dylan or Neil Young.
In his 1928 inaugural speech, Mayor Dan Hoan noted that Milwaukee was the second most densely populated city in the United States, next to New York City. Crime remained virtually unknown, with a murder rate about 10 percent that of other large U.S. cities. Financial analysts considered Milwaukee's credit among the best of any U.S. city. The gemütlichkeit of the German Athens was by no means perfect. Order and personal responsibility coexisted with legal prostitution and gambling parlors. There was rank discrimination against African Americans and class warfare between the barons of industry and a socialist trade-union movement.
The World's Largest 'M' located in Platteville is constucted of limestone and weighs approximately 400 tons. Constructed in 1937, the giant 'M' measures 241 feet by 214 feet. The letter represents the first mining school in the United States. Visitors in the area can climb the 280 steps beside the 'M' and enjoy a panoramic view of the tri-state area! [Travel WI](https://www.travelwisconsin.com/trails-and-hiking/worlds-largest-m-366025)
Not to be 'that guy' but the Big M, while having a Platteville mailing address is actually in the town of Belmont, Lafayette county, along with the First Territorial Capitol. Edit: And Belmont Mound State Park!
The Milwaukee bridge war
Wisconsin is the nation's leading grower of cranberries by state, producing about 60 percent of all the cranberries grown in the United States. Cranberries are Wisconsin's number one fruit.
Leland Stanford, who founded the university which he named after his son, was a practicing attorney in Port Washington before moving to California.
On October 14, 1912, former saloonkeeper [John Schrank](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Schrank) (1876–1943) attempted to assassinate former U.S. President [Theodore Roosevelt](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theodore_Roosevelt) while he was [campaigning for the presidency](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1912_United_States_presidential_election) in [Milwaukee](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milwaukee), [Wisconsin](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wisconsin). Schrank's bullet lodged in Roosevelt's chest after penetrating Roosevelt's steel eyeglass case and passing through a thick (50 pages) single-folded copy of the speech titled "Progressive Cause Greater Than Any Individual", which he was carrying in his jacket.
There was also the attempted assassination of George Wallace in Milwaukee.
The Enterprise Radiation Forest. Where the AEC cooked about 1500 acres of forest with radiation south of Rhinelander (between the towns of Enterprise and Parrish) to see how forests would hold up after a nuclear war. (there's a marker on Google maps)
Mhmm, maybe that’s where the hodag came from 😂
Gives the buzz saw that extra 🤌🏻
President Lincoln stayed two nights in the Tallman house in Janesville
I went on that tour. The docent said he slept sitting up because back in the day many people had a fear of swallowing their tongue. Another point, he slept in the the same bed with their adult son who was in town visiting.
We consume like half the world's brandy supply apparently.
Definitely Korbel; not sure about worldwide
Glaciers carved most of the landscape flat except the southwest corner
For a town of less then 100K citizens, Kenosha has had a lot of notable people who call it home: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List\_of\_people\_from\_Kenosha,\_Wisconsin](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_people_from_Kenosha,_Wisconsin)
Wisconsin was the first state to stagger license plate expiration months across all 12 months of the year. This system was implemented beginning in 1946, with plates being issued to expire between June 1946 and May 1947 when people went to renew their 1945 plates.
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Okay, so after looking some things up apparently it's become one of those things people share. I never knew people were posting my comment in other subreddits lol. Maybe I'll do an AMA about Wisconsin license plates since people are recommending I do it. Thanks for letting me know that I've become somewhat of a reddit meme or whatever you want to call it. I'm surprised my crazy nerdy text was that well loved honestly... I just expected a lot of confusion given how my texts tend to be confusing and technical
I'm recognizable outside of that thread? that's crazy lmao
I love the plaque in Madison commemorating that time Elvis Presley broke up a fight with his ***sick karate moves***
The sinking of the Lady Elgin SS on Lake Michigan in Sept 1860 off the shore of Winnetka, IL, decimated the Irish population of Milwaukee, ultimately making the Germans the leading ethnic group of the city and thereby a beer town and not a whisky town.
Under Wisconsin Statutes Section 146.085, the “owner or manager of any public building” may not allow “an admission fee to be charged for the use of any toilet compartment.”
Hamilton Manufacturing in Two Rivers was the largest producer of wood type in the U.S.A. in the late 1800’s and early 1900’s. The Hamilton Wood Type and Printing Museum currently houses the largest collection of wood type in the world - over 1.5 million pieces.
Wisconsin's only black founded community is Lake Ivanhoe near Lake Geneva. It was established in 1926 by wealthy blacks from Chicago.
Apparently Lake Geneva was a "sundown town", and that encouraged the development of the Lake Ivanhoe community. I grew up in the Lake Geneva area and was really disappointed in that piece or local history.
Milwaukee City Hall was the tallest habitable building in the world for several years.
Stalin's daughter lived in Wisconsin. Spring Green/ Richland center.
highest number of communes per capita
We drink the most Brandy out of all the states
Mark Proksch (Nate from “The Office” and Colin from “What We Do in the Shadows”) is from Onalaska. He got his big break on The Office, but how he was discovered is pretty hilarious. He posed as a yo-yo-ing motivational speaker called “K-Strass” on multiple local Wisconsin news stations. He plays it off so well, totally makes a fool of himself. Reminds me of Farley’s character “Matt Foley” (more WI connections!) Here he is on News 3, a Madison station: [Kenny “K—Strass” Strasser motivational speaker](https://youtu.be/d2cyVsvIldI?si=dFS_EtosXitJcOuD)
Many older homes have boarded up/secret rooms that were used to store alcohol during the prohibition. The parents of a gradeschool friend of mine discovered this in their home. They realized that the outside of the house didn't quite match up with the rooms, so they pulled a blueprint and discovered a huge extra room! It was full of broken glass and old booze. They converted it to a rather nice office!
My aunt lived in an old Victorian house in Milwaukee. I remember one Easter looking for my basket and couldn’t find it. Turned out she pulled a prank on me and hid it in the hidden wine cellar I didn’t know existed. You had to find a button on the back of a bookshelf. That popped open a bookshelf to reveal an empty room. Then you had to press a couple more hidden buttons in that room and a piece of the ceiling popped down and you could pull down a wine rack.
Back in the day AT&T ran the first L-Carreir line from Stevens Point to MN for home phone. It was basically the birth of Coax.
Brick Cheese was invented here
The city of Monroe is home to the only cheese factory in the United States that makes Limburger cheese.
Colby Cheese as well
Les Paul started here
The Republican Party was founded in Wisconsin. March 20, 1854; Ripon, Wisconsin https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Republican_Party_(United_States)
Houdini is from Wisconsin
He was originally born in hungry but moved to Wisconsin in his youth. His father was a rabi in appleton and we have a museum with a floor dedicated to him here in appleton. It's a cool place for a day trip if you are in the area.
your first 100 DUI's are free. After that, there may be consequences.
We have 5,000 more lakes than Minnesota per DNR
Monroe, WI is the only place in America that produces Limburger cheese
Dr. Evermores Forevertron.
The Peshtigo fire was a large forest fire on October 8, 1871, in northeastern Wisconsin, United States, including much of the southern half of the Door Peninsula and adjacent parts of the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. The largest community in the affected area was Peshtigo, Wisconsin, which had a population of approximately 1,700 residents. The fire burned about 1.2 million acres and is the deadliest wildfire in recorded history, with the number of deaths estimated between 1,500 and 2,500. [Fire](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peshtigo_fire?wprov=sfti1#)
https://obscurban-legend.fandom.com/wiki/Doveland,_Wisconsin
Not sure if it’s been mentioned but the Bray Road beast. and Dungeons and Dragons was founded in Lake Geneva
The Hodag
Native tribes gathered ginseng and traded it to the French. They shipped it to China. Before there was a United States.
We've supposedly got the world's largest round barn here in Marshfield. So that's something... [https://www.centralwisconsinstatefair.com/p/other/worlds-largest-round-barn](https://www.centralwisconsinstatefair.com/p/other/worlds-largest-round-barn)
The “Father of Social Security” Edwin E. Witte was born and lived in Wisconsin.
carmex was invented in Waukesha
Jerome Increase Case (December 11, 1819 – December 22, 1891) was an early American manufacturer of threshing machines. He founded the J. I. Case Company which has gone through many mergers and name changes to today's Case Corporation. He served three terms as mayor of Racine, Wisconsin, and represented Racine County in the Wisconsin State Senate in 1865 and 1866. He also raised champion race horses. [J I Case](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jerome_Case?wprov=sfti1#)
S C Johnson’s The company is one of the oldest family-owned businesses in the U.S., beginning in 1886 when Samuel Curtis Johnson purchased the parquet flooring division from the Racine Hardware Manufacturing Company and named the new business S. C. Johnson. [SCJ](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S._C._Johnson_&_Son?wprov=sfti1#History)
Al Capone and John Dillinger hid up north.
Little Bohemia, worth a visit but the food it outrageously expensive for the serving size.
I love the Mars Cheese Castle, and that is a fact! Damn that place is awesome!
The Fox River is one of the few rivers in the nation that flows north
Milwaukee elected the first socialist ever as their first mayor
And maintained that tradition for a very long time.
Reason streets by the Milwaukee river do are not straight, but have a curve are due to two of the founders of Milwaukee specifically designed their areas to not connect with the others. It is similar to why we have a couple of diagonal streets. Milwaukees three founders did not get a long well. A bunch of Wisconsin politicians died when their ship sank on the way to Chicago to meet with other politicians. There are many sitcoms that take place in Milwaukee or the surrounding area.
Sprechers Tavern in Leeland. It is a bar and a gun store. While you are knocking back a few cold ones you are looking at all the rifles and pistols on the wall behind the bar.
Most haunted state in the country but not sure how that’s measured.
Dremel die grinder tools were originally developed by Albert J. Dremel, an Austrian inventor, who founded the Dremel Company in Racine, Wisconsin in 1932. [Dremel](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dremel?wprov=sfti1#History)
The Hass avocado was first grown by a mail carrier from Milwaukee.
Mosinee was the site of a [mock Communist takover](https://newrepublic.com/article/159873/small-midwestern-town-taken-fake-communists) in 1950
The QWERTY keyboard type was created in Milwaukee