Lead first drew eager frontiersmen, who often lived in the "badger holes'' they dug in their search for "mineral.'' The territory later became known as the badger state, and the town became Mineral Point, the nucleus around which Wisconsin developed.

Around the region, art-studio tours have been springing up, beckoning art patrons into the countryside just as fall leaves change color.

It's the perfect meeting of minds and pocketbooks — shoppers get to chat with the artists, and artists get to sell right out of their studios.

Not at malls but under the little white tents that pop up wherever there's a festival, on the shores of lakes, in parks and on picturesque town squares. That's where the region's most accomplished potters, glass makers, jewelers, painters, weavers and photographers bring out their wares and make themselves available to whoever cares to stop — customers, passersby, admirers.