Project Wisconsin

THE STORY: Way back in history—before Marquette and Joliet’s expeditions and before the French Fur Trade ever existed in Wisconsin—there was a man named Jean Nicolet. Nicolet was THE first European to explore what would become Wisconsin. Jean Nicolet, who was born in France in 1598, immigrated to Canada in 1618 to live among the […]

THE STORY: As important as agriculture, logging and brewing were to the development of the Wisconsin we know and love, so too was mining. During the early 1800s, the mining boom was the driving force in Wisconsin’s economy. It also brought Wisconsin the nickname “Badgers,” referring to the way miners burrowed shelters into hillsides. In […]

THE STORY: During the War of 1812, the United States began to realize how important Prairie du Chien was in the fur trade and the Mississippi River-Great Lakes transportation route. The settlement had been part of the U.S. for years, but no one was sent that far west to occupy it, so the British had […]

THE STORY: Some may be surprised, but Wisconsin has a pretty hot music scene. There have been numerous big time musicians and bands who were raised on Wisconsin beer and cheese—Steve Miller, Liberace, the BoDeans, Garbage, Al Jarreau, Clyde Stubblefield (James Brown), Robin Zander (Cheap Trick), and more recently Bon Iver and PHOX. Not to […]

THE STORY: In the years preceding the Civil War, many Wisconsin residents denounced slavery as morally wrong, with a few becoming ardent abolitionists. One man defiantly opposed to the Fugitive Slave Act was Sherman Booth, editor of an abolitionist newspaper based in Waukesha. In his newspaper he asked all persons “with a human heart in […]

THE STORY: Nelson Dewey, Wisconsin’s first governor, should have a statue in Southwest Wisconsin—and he does. He had a lot of political and business success throughout his life, and was known all around as a “friend of the poor” and for his generosity. Dewey was born and raised in New England and studied law at […]

THE STORY: George Washington may be the”Father of our Country,” but do you know who the “Father of Wisconsin” is? It’s only fitting that the man recognized as the “Father of Wisconsin,” was born the son of a fur trader and an Ottawa woman. Our state’s “Father,” Charles de Langlade, was born in 1729 at […]

THE STORY: Almost a century ago, a small-town Wisconsin outdoorsman with a crippled foot decided to even the playing field with his hunting comrades. Actually, he turned the tables on them. As a result, Wisconsin winters have forever changed. In 1924, Carl Eliason of Sayner, Wisconsin began creating the “Motor Toboggan”—father of the modern snowmobile. […]

THE STORY: In Wisconsin history, the day the music died refers to not one, but TWO infamous and fatal crashes—Otis Redding and Stevie Ray Vaughan. On December 10, 1967, Otis Redding and his band, the Bar-Kays, were scheduled to play a show in Madison, Wisconsin. They had taken Redding’s personal plane from Cleveland, despite heavy […]

THE STORY: On October 14, 1912, Teddy Roosevelt was in the middle of his campaign trail—giving 15 to 20 speeches per day. That day he started in Chicago, then headed to Racine and finally Milwaukee. What Roosevelt didn’t know was that John Schrank, an unemployed saloonkeeper, had been trailing the campaign since New Orleans, waiting […]

THE STORY: Wisconsin has always been a political hotspot and in 1854 it was no different. In Ripon, WI a small group of citizens met to fight the imminent spread of slavery. This meeting lead to the birth of the Republican Party and put Ripon on the map. During the 1850s, slavery was a growing […]

THE STORY: On October 8, 1871, the worst forest fire in American history wiped out much of Northeastern Wisconsin. The Great Peshtigo Fire destroyed millions of dollars worth of property and killed an estimated 1,500 people, possibly as many as 2,500. Somehow, the fire has been largely forgotten, due in part to it occurring the […]

THE STORY: Before there were craft breweries in every zip code, even before the wild bratwurst was domesticated, Wisconsin was a land of plenty—which is what lured the Chippewa, the Winnebago, and European voyageurs and fur traders. After a few armed misunderstandings with the French and the Indians, Wisconsin ended up as part of the […]

THE STORY: Out west they have Geronimo, Cochise, Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse. Here in the Midwest, we have Black Hawk. One of the most legendary Sauk war chiefs in history, he led the last battles in Wisconsin’s history during the Black Hawk War. In 1829, the government ordered the Sauk and Fox tribes in […]

THE STORY: “Fighting Bob” Robert La Follette is one of the most influential names in Wisconsin political history. As a Republican and then Progressive, “Fighting Bob” served as a member of the U.S. House of Representatives, Governor of Wisconsin, a U.S. Senator, and also ran for President in 1924. Born in the Town of Primrose […]

THE STORY: Camp Randall, which is on the National Register of Historic Places, has had two lives—as home to Union troops during the Civil War, and as home to Bucky and the Wisconsin Badgers Football team since 1917. Originally built in 1865, Camp Randall was a training camp for the Union Army during the Civil […]

THE STORY: The badger may be Wisconsin’s state animal, but no other animal played as an important role in our state’s past as the beaver. For over two hundred years, Wisconsin’s economy revolved around beavers. After the French arrived in Wisconsin in the early 1600s, beaver pelts became equal to gold. Because beaver fur is […]

THE STORY: During the 1950s, the scare of communism in America was a real frightening thing. Thanks to a certain Wisconsin Senator who believed that there were many Communists and Soviet spies and sympathizers inside the United States and its government, that fear was taken to a whole new level. The “poster child” of this […]

THE STORY: If there’s one thing that most Wisconsinites love more than their beer and cheese, it’s “their” Green Bay Packers. As one of the oldest teams and the last of the “small town teams” in the NFL, the Packers have quite a storied history. The Green Bay Packers were founded in 1919 by Earl […]

THE STORY: Wisconsin is the land of beer and cheese…and entrepreneurial opportunities? There’s a long list of legendary Wisconsin companies that started with nothing but an idea and a drive—Allis-Chalmers, Shopko, Miller, Menards, OshKosh B’Gosh, Culver’s, Cousins Subs, Kohl’s, Sargento, Kohler, SC Johnson, Snap-on, Jack Link’s, Trek, Trane—the list goes on and on. Most of […]