Prairie du Chien: Fort Crawford Military Cemetery, Trail of Presidents &c.

Posted on July 9, 2020 by admin

Not all road trips include visits to cemeteries or presidential sites, but I’m glad when they do. Our recent visit to the Driftless Area included both. On Saturday morning, I got up a little early to put gas in the car by myself. Yuriko knows what this means: I visit a local cemetery, too, if I can. She dozed on in the room while I drove a short distance to the Fort Crawford Military Cemetery, also known as the Fort Crawford Cemetery Soldiers’ Lot.

The entrance to the cemetery is a narrow patch of land in the residential section of mainland Prairie du Chien, with the burial ground at some distance behind an iron fence. Or maybe soldiers are buried in patch of ground, but I didn’t see any indication of it.

“Fort Crawford Cemetery is located on the former site of the Fort Crawford Military Reservation in Prairie du Chien, Wisconsin,” says the National Cemetery Administration, which is part of the VA.

“There were two subsequent Fort Crawfords in Prairie du Chien during the 1800s. The original Fort Crawford, built in 1816, was situated adjacent to the Mississippi River. Repeated flooding led to its abandonment in 1826. Rebuilt on higher ground in 1830, the second incarnation of Fort Crawford operated until 1856.

“The first burials here were of the members of the 1st and 5th Infantry regiments stationed at the fort. The soldiers’ lot includes eight above-ground box-tombs that were likely erected by the regiments. The United States received the title for the lot in 1866. There are approximately 64 interments in the 0.59-acre soldiers’ lot…”

It’s sparsely populated.

With some of the inscriptions practically illegible.

Others were legible, but conveyed only anonymity. This looks like a latter-day stone, dedicated to an unknown. There were a sprinkling of these in the cemetery.

As I left, I spotted this near the entrance, attached to a boulder.

Just goes to show you how thorough the Daughters were. A memorial so obscure that no one has called for its removal? Not so.

On St. Feriole Island, I happened across a presidential site of sorts: Trail of Presidents. Trees in honor of presidents, arrayed in two rows to form a path, and originally planted in 2014.
I expected a tree planted for every U.S. president, which would have been the standard approach. But in fact the trees only honor presidents who visited Prairie du Chien either in or out of office, and includes two presidents of other entities besides the United States. I was surprised.

The full and semi-literate text of the sign at Trail of Presidents is here.

The honored U.S. presidents include: Andrew Jackson, William Henry Harrison, Zachary Taylor, Millard Fillmore, James Buchanan, Abraham Lincoln, Ulysses Grant, James Garfield, Grover Cleveland, Benjamin Harrison, William McKinley, Woodrow Wilson, Calvin Coolidge, Herbert Hoover, Harry Truman, Dwight Eisenhower, John Kennedy, Richard Nixon, Jimmy Carter, George H.W. Bush, Bill Clinton and George W. Bush.

For instance, President Fillmore has a white oak.
His plaque explains that he passed through Prairie du Chien when he was vice president in 1849. I haven’t ever seen anything about the travels of Vice President Fillmore — and out to the spanking-new state of Wisconsin that year would have been far afield — but I assume there’s some source for this buried in Fillmore’s papers, or maybe local news accounts.

The non-U.S. presidents? One was him again. He was stationed here, after all.

Also, curiously, Vicente Fox also has a tree, a red oak. “Vicente Fox attended Campion High School in Prairie du Chien in the 1960s,” the plaque says. “He then returned to Mexico.”

The last tree has been reserved for the next president to visit, so it isn’t too late for the most recent living officeholders.

One more Prairie du Chien sight I came across was overlooking the Mississippi, but not on St. Feriole Island. Rather, a statue of Marquette stands atop a tall column near the local chamber of commerce, and also not far from the bridge connecting Prairie du Chien with the town of Marquette, Iowa.

Rev. James Marquette, S.J.
Who discovered the
Mississippi River
at
Prairie du Chien, Wisconsin
June 17, 1673
This monument was erected
with
The solicited contributions
of generous citizens
by
The Business Men’s Association
Of Prairie du Chien, Wisconsin
A.D. 1910
Fred Herber & Son Architects

Unusual to see him called “James,” which doesn’t sound very French. We’ve seen him honored elsewhere around the Great Lakes; Pere Marquette got around, back when muscle power (yours or an animal’s) was the only way to do it.

Prairie du Chien ’20: Effigy Mounds National Monument

Posted on July 6, 2020 by admin

Another holiday weekend, another pop up to Wisconsin for a short spell. Actually, Wisconsin and a small slice of Iowa — that being the main goal of the trip: Effigy Mounds National Monument, which is mostly in Allamakee County, Iowa’s northeastern-most county.
The 50-hour trip took us to Madison on Thursday evening to spend the first night, and from there to Prairie du Chien, Wisconsin and environs, where we stayed from late morning Friday to early afternoon Saturday. We returned home late Saturday afternoon, in time for Vietnamese takeout dinner at home — and to hear a July 4 neighborhood blasting of fireworks like none I’ve heard before.

Why Effigy Mounds and Prairie du Chien? Because I’ve seen those places on maps for years. I’ve read about them as well, of course, but spots on a map can be alluring in a way no mere textual description is. Come here, the spots say; come see what’s here.
Also, the rolling, verdant Driftless Area is a special place. I’ve only come to appreciate it in recent years.

A road trip at this moment in history is necessarily different than before. Gone for now are casual meals at restaurants picked on a whim, visits to intriguing local museums or wandering down busy small-town shopping/tourist streets and spending time in their specialty stores.

Now the trip means takeout — from the only Chinese restaurant in Prairie du Chien, for example — finding places where few people go (such as cemeteries) and generally spending your time outdoors, as we did on the trails of the national monument and a Wisconsin state park.

Or staying in your room. It so happened that on Friday night, some high school-vintage friends (two in this picture) invited me to a social Zoom, and I managed to figure out how I could attend using my phone. We had a good time.

We arrived at Effigy Mounds NM early Friday afternoon. Temps were high, about 90, and we were warned on a sign that the trail from the (closed) visitors center to the first fork involved a rise of about 350 feet.

I can’t say I wasn’t warned. Up we went.

The shade moderated the heat some. I wore a hat — one I’d bought at Joshua Tree NP in February, where it was just as sunny but not as hot. I had water. I made progress through the winding green tunnels, resting often. Yuriko was soon far ahead.

Eventually I could tell I was near the crest of the hill.

I don’t need a sign to tell me that. By that point, I was well tired. Just another thing I should have done 20 (30) years ago. Still, the vista was worth the effort: a view of the Mississippi, looking southeast, from a spot called Fire Point. Prairie du Chien is in the distance.

Due east: party boats gathered on the river for July 3.

Besides a nice vista, Fire Point featured a collection of mounds. Larger —

— and a row of smaller ones.

Something inspired the peoples who lived here to reshape the ground into recognizable forms. Recognizable, but you need to squint a little. Not nearly as recognizable in simple photos, unfortunately.

Not far from Fire Point is Great Bear Mound. Probably best visible from above, though park management helpfully trimmed the grass to make the shape a little easier to see from ground level, and you do see it — but it’s also good to bring a little historical imagination to the task. (As it is even in highly visible places.)I expect these mounds survived farming and other depredations of the 19th century because the land was too steep to farm or even harvest timber. President Truman created the monument, which protects 206 mounds, in 1949.

“The Late Woodland Period (1400-750 B.P.) along the Upper Mississippi River and extending east to Lake Michigan is associated with the culture known today as the Effigy Moundbuilders,” notes the NPS. “The construction of effigy mounds was a regional cultural phenomenon. Mounds of earth in the shapes of birds, bear, deer, bison, lynx, turtle, panther or water spirit are the most common images…

“The Effigy Moundbuilders also built linear or long rectangular mounds that were used for ceremonial purposes that remain a mystery. Some archeologists believe they were built to mark celestial events or seasonal observances. Others speculate they were constructed as territorial markers or as boundaries between groups.”

Why did Moundbuilders build mounts? The answer is dunno even among modern experts. They had their reasons. The mists of time are pretty thick in the hills of the Driftless Area.

Cuba Marsh Forest Preserve

Posted on June 29, 2020 by admin

Late last week I spotted fireflies, which are harbingers of high summer, for the first time this year. This might be a Summer of Nowhere, but at least we have fireflies. Lilly calls them lightning bugs. Who taught her that? I didn’t.

After a short but heavy rainstorm Friday evening, we had a warm and steamy weekend. That made our Sunday afternoon walk at the 781-acre Cuba Marsh Forest Preserve in Lake County a little sticky, but not bad. Always good to visit somewhere new.

We took the path south from the parking lot off Cuba Road, marked on the above map image by a star, through the wooded northern section of the preserve, and eventually along both trail loops, through woods and grassland. I was a little surprised, since going by the name, you’d expect wetland.

Turns out the wetlands are a little beyond the path, especially toward the south end of the preserve. The woods are a mix of deciduous and pine trees.

Cornflowers are beginning to bloom. Another sign of high summer.

Walked about a mile and a half. After we got home, I started to wonder: Cuba Marsh? Anything to do with the Caribbean nation of that name?

Indirectly. Cuba Marsh is in Cuba Township, the southwestern-most township in the county. Wiki, citing a 1912 history of Lake County, says: “Cuba Township was originally named Troy Township, but was renamed to Cuba in support of the López Expedition of 1851, when it was discovered the township name of Troy was already taken.”

López Expedition, eh? That would be a filibustering expedition to liberate Cuba, led by Venezuelan Narciso López (1791-1851). Note that the year of the filibuster and his death year are the same. The expedition did not go well for him.

Walnut Hill Cemetery, Baraboo

Posted on June 23, 2020 by admin

We finished our hiking at Devil’s Lake SP at about 3 in the afternoon and headed into Baraboo for something to eat. Not so long ago, that would have meant parking ourselves at a restaurant for a meal. Though there are no restrictions on indoor dining in Wisconsin now — the whole kit and kaboodle was thrown out — we thought better of it, and ordered takeout.

That left us about 20 minutes to wait for the food. Rather than wait in the car in the restaurant parking lot, I consulted Google maps and found a nearby place to go: the 52-acre Walnut Hill Cemetery, which has about 11,500 permanent residents. Baraboo, the Census Bureau tells me, has a shade over 12,100 living residents.

It’s a pleasant cemetery.

I hadn’t come to see any specific grave, but I had to investigate one of the few mausoleums I saw, there on a small rise.

It turned out to be the resting place of Al. Ringling (1852-1916), the eldest of the circus family, and his wife Lou. Makes sense. Baraboo was a circus town, after all.

Later I read that some of the other circus brothers are buried at Walnut Hill as well, but I didn’t spot them. I did see another intriguing stone.

JOHN DUCKENS
Born a slave in Kentucky
Died in Baraboo, Wi 1894
Aged 75 years

A new-looking stone at that. It’s a replacement for a weather-worn original, put there only in 2011 by the Sauk County Historical Society, which published a sketch of his life — probably all that’s possible — as a Sauk County Notable.

The National Museum of Denmark

Posted on June 21, 2020 by admin

Another example of somewhere I visited but don’t really remember: The National Museum of Denmark (Nationalmuseet). You could say that’s because I was there 37 years ago this month, which is a long time ago, but at roughly the same time, I visited the Carlsburg Brewery and Tivoli — the same day in the case of Tivoli — and I remember those fairly well.

Memory’s a slippery character. Here’s what I wrote at the time.

June 18, 1983

Walked [after breakfast] to the National Museum and spent a lot of time in the early Danish collections, a fine assortment of artifacts from pre-farmers (4000 BC) to the Vikings. They had a lot — tools, weapons, pots, clothes, ornaments, more. I noticed that much of the collection — seemed like nearly all of it — survived because it was buried with people.

Then I spent a long time ogling the coin collection, mostly the Roman ones. The museum had at least one example of every emperor and plenty of usurpers and others. I didn’t take as much time in the rest of the museum, but walked through. It is vast. Rooms and rooms and rooms of exhibits.

I left to eat lunch at a Chinese place, spring rolls with sauce and a heap of rice. After lunch I bought chocolate: Toblerone and Ritter Sport.

Those sound like ordinary chocolate purchases, and maybe they are now, but in those days Toblerone wasn’t available in every shop from here to East Jesus and my traveling companions and I had never heard of Ritter Sport. It was an important discovery for us that summer, somewhere in Germany a few weeks earlier. If you’re walking around all day, chocolate’s a good thing to have. Even better, it’s good to snack on high-quality choco like Ritter Sport. Best of all, it’s chocolate that I’ve enjoyed ever since it became available in the U.S. sometime in the late ’80s.

Dundee Township East Cemetery

Posted on June 15, 2020 by admin

At the intersection of Dundee Ave. and Higgins Road (Illinois 25 and 72) is the 48-acre Dundee Township East Cemetery, owned by the township of that name, but also entirely within the village of West Dundee in Kane County. There’s no fencing or anything else to separate it from those fairly busy roads.

We — that is, Ann and I — visited briefly on Saturday when we were out that way, which is northwest from where we live.

The cemetery dates from the 1890s, no doubt long before those adjacent roads were paved, though it’s possible that part of the future Illinois 72 had planks, since I understand much of its route follows the old Galena-Chicago Stagecoach Trail. These enthusiasts drove the trail’s modern-equivalent roads on a motorcycle. Not for me, but I’d consider using a car.

It’s a pleasant cemetery in the summer.

In an older section, there were a fair number of German names, and some German-language script on the stones. Here’s a fine German name: Schneidewendt, whose stone memorializes burials in the early 20th century.

Not many mausoleums that I noticed, but there were a few. I expect a lot of the population in Dundee Township a century and some years ago were prosperous farmers, but not that prosperous.
Whoever The Family of Theodore Kunke were — that’s the text over the door — they had the scratch for a simple edifice.

Thiruvalluvar in the Suburbs

Posted on June 8, 2020 by admin

It’s been a few years since we visited the Chicago Athenaeum International Scupture Park, though more recently than 10 years ago. We went on Saturday toward the end of daytime, taking the dog along for the walk.

All of the same sculptures are still there, but with one recent addition.
The upper plaque has some Tamil script and then English:

Thiruvalluvar (31 B.C.)
Poet & Philosopher Who Wrote the Immortal Thirukural

I wasn’t previously familiar with Thiruvalluvar, being woefully ignorant of most things Tamil, so I did a little reading. Now I’m slightly less ignorant, having learned that he is held in high esteem by the Tamil. Also, that specific date — same as, far away on the Eurasian landmass, the Battle of Actium — is the first year of the Tamil calendar, as determined by the government of Tamil Nadu and various scholars.

The lower plaque says:

Commemorating 10th World Tamil Research Conference
Keezhadi Nam Thaai Madi
July 4-7, 2019, Schaumburg IL
Jointly organized by
Federation of Tamil Sangams of North America,
International Association of Tamil Research &
Chicago Tamil Sangam
Statue Donated by VGP World Tamil Sangam

A sangam is an assembly of Tamil scholars, which seems to have a specific meaning when it comes to assemblies in ancient times, but clearly a modern usage as well.

Never heard about any of that before. I despair sometimes about how much I don’t know about the world. But I also never know when the world will reach out to teach me something — in this case, a brief lesson in the form of a recent northwest suburban statue.

Billions and Billions

Posted on May 13, 2020 by admin

More fun with the screen saver function. An obsolete estimate by the Census Bureau, no matter how fast I post it.

I was idly curious about the world’s population today. When I was a child, it was generally estimated to be three billion, a number that lingered for some time after the estimate hit that milestone in 1960. As Tom Lehrer sang: “Nearly three billion hunks of well-done steak.” The four billion milestone came in 1974, back in the heyday of overpopulation scare books like The Population Bomb.

Hard to image that many people, 7.6 billion or 329.6 million for that matter. Make that impossible to imagine. Yet they’re out there, more or less that many, beyond the walls of my house.

Battle of the Bands, 1979

Posted on April 26, 2020 by admin

I see that Fiesta San Antonio is now scheduled for November this year. The first time in its century-plus-decades history it hasn’t been in April, but such is our time. Social distancing isn’t the norm for Fiesta.

Yuriko and I went to a few Fiesta events in 2000, parking toddler Lilly with her grandmother for a few hours, but I remember my high school Fiestas better. Each year from 1976 to ’79, I was with the Alamo Heights HS marching band in the Battle of the Bands at Alamo Stadium and then — with one exception — the Battle of the Flowers parade downtown a few days later.

It’s officially called the Battle of Flowers Association Band Festival, but no one I knew called it that. It was the Battle of the Bands. High school bands from all over the metro area came to compete.

The best a band could do was score a 1 in music and 1 in marching. For decades, Alamo Heights had always scored two 1s — until sometime in the early ’70s, before I was in high school.

Since then, including my freshman, sophomore and junior years, the band had gotten a 1 and a 2. Very good, but not top.

So we were keen to score two 1s in the 1979 Battle of the Bands. I don’t remember what music we played or what steps we marched. All I remember was the announcement afterward: two 1s! The band exploded with joy.

I can remember only one other exuberant moment like that for the band: early junior year when, after two years of losses, the AHHS football team actually won a game, narrowly. The Battle of the Bands moment was better, though — we’d won that for ourselves.

That was a day or two before the ’79 Battle of Flowers parade — April 26, 1979 — that didn’t happen because of a wanker with a gun. Fortunately for us, at our staging area the band wasn’t close to the shooting. I didn’t even hear any shots, though at one moment heard the roar of a suddenly panicked crowd at a distance.

Even that day had its lighter moments. The parade cancelled, we in the band got back on our buses to leave. Just before we left, a non-band senior got on as well, someone most of us knew. Our band director asked him to leave, and the boy, who was chemically enhanced, got the opposite of belligerent.

“All right, all right,” he said in an almost sing-song voice, smiling and giggling. “I’m getting off now. Don’t worry, I getting off now!” (I’m re-constructing those words; but that was the gist.) It was a little puzzling then, but looking back on it, I think he’d done more to prepare for the parade than drink a little beer or smoke a joint. At that dour moment, he was having a good trip.

The Former Rex Theatre, Amarillo

Posted on April 19, 2020 by admin

Our back yard view, Friday morning.

Enough already, I cried to the heavens. Not really. It was more of a mutter. Yet I seemed to get an answer, because the snow melted by Saturday and today we enjoyed a fine spring day.

I even heard people out mowing their grass this morning. The flush of spring hasn’t quite inspired me to yard work, however.

Two years ago, when I spent about a day and a half in Amarillo, I took a walk along Sixth Ave. the evening I arrived. It has the distinction of being part of U.S. 66 at one time.

“The U.S. Route 66-Sixth Street Historic District comprises 13 blocks of commercial development in the San Jacinto Heights Addition west of Amarillo’s central business district,” the NPS says. ” Developed as an early 20th-century streetcar suburb, the district was transformed by the establishment of a national transportation artery running through its center.

“The U.S. Route 66-Sixth Street Historic District is Amarillo’s most intact collection of commercial buildings that possess significant associations with the highway. Featuring elements of Spanish Revival, Art Deco, and Art Moderne design, these buildings represent the historic development phases of this early 20th century suburb and the evolving tastes and sensibilities of American culture.”

I’d read about the street, but more importantly at that moment, I was looking for something to eat. I didn’t find anyplace I wanted to eat, but I did see some of the historic buildings on the street. I was inspired to take a picture of only one of them. A detail of one of them.Skulls. They’re on a wall of the 6th Street Massacre Haunted House. Note also the plaque. It says that the building is on the National Registry of Historic Places. This is a wider view.

It was once the Rex Theatre, which opened in 1935 and lasted until 1956 as a movie venue. It’s a little hard to see it as a theater building from Sixth Ave. The view around the corner shows it better.

A movie palace, it probably wasn’t. Just a neighborhood picture show. I think that makes it just as interesting, historically speaking, as one of the palaces, but not as nice to look at.

Been There, Seen That

By Dees Stribling

Category Archives: History