MidwestWeekends.com — Your Travel Guide to the Upper Midwest
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Wisconsin Dells

Making waves

Now that they’ve inspired a deluge of imitators, Wisconsin Dells’ popular indoor water parks are paddling hard to stay on top.

First, we loved the water slides, geysers and whimsical fiberglass figures at the Polynesian’s Water Factory.

Then, we loved the bigger slides, chutes, lily-pad walk and tubing river at Great Wolf’s Spirit Mountain. When the Wilderness opened Klondike Kavern, its second park, we loved its indoor-outdoor hot tub and the long tube slides there and at Treasure Island.

An arms race was only beginning, as Wisconsin Dells hotels expanded on a good idea — fill rooms year-round by offering indoor water parks.

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The quiet side of the Dells

Sidestep the Strip, and you'll see an area little changed since a photographer made the world come running.

See the FUDGE sign in blinking white lights. See the plane tail protruding from the faux-ruin façade of Ripley’s Believe It or Not. See the Wax World of the Stars, the Dungeon of Horrors, the Trojan Horse . . .

Yes, it’s Wisconsin Dells. But it’s not the only Wisconsin Dells.

Tourists always have been part of the scenery in this picturesque part of Wisconsin. The first settler was a printer and publisher, and one of the first residents was a young carpenter who crippled his right hand in the Civil War and became a photographer.

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H.H. Bennett's Dells

In studio museum, photographs display scenes that made Wisconsin landmark famous.

H.H. Bennett wanted tourists to come to the Wisconsin Dells, and thanks to him, they came.

Boy, did they come.

In Bennett’s day, they stayed for weeks, playing croquet and checkers and going on picnics, boat excursions on the Wisconsin River and perhaps to a magic-lantern show of stereoscope slides from Bennett’s studio.

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Spring in the Baraboo Hills

Central Wisconsin is a springboard for naturalists, past and present.

In its marshes and woods, John Muir first discovered the joys of wilderness. On its sandy plains, Aldo Leopold became a pioneer of land stewardship. On its meadows, two young ornithologists created a haven for cranes.

The natural world found some of its greatest allies on a swath of rolling, glaciated land in south-central Wisconsin. Muir went on to found the Sierra Club and is known as a father of America’s national parks. Leopold inspired legions with such books as “A Sand County Almanac.’’ George Archibald and Ron Sauey founded the International Crane Foundation.

Wisconsin often is called the cradle of conservation. It was the first state to ban the use of DDT, before it was banned nationally in 1972,  largely thanks to Lorrie Otto of suburban Milwaukee, who put native plants in her front yard in the 1950s and became known as the godmother of natural landscaping. Earth Day was founded in 1970 by yet another Wisconsinite, former Sen. Gaylord Nelson.

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Baraboo's gilt complex

In Ringlingville, the golden age of the circus never ended.

In the circus, nothing succeeds like excess. And no one succeeded at that more than the Ringling brothers.

In the last half of the 19th century, Americans clamored to be amazed. Tent shows traversed the countryside; Wisconsin alone had more than 100.

On the Mississippi, showboats brought entertainment to river towns. In 1869, two circuses — one was Dan Rice’s Own Circus, whose proprietor’s clown character was the inspiration for Uncle Sam — put on performances in the Iowa river town of McGregor. They enthralled the 17-year-old son of a poor German harness maker. 

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