Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
Muscoda
The story goes that the Fox and Sauk who lived in encampments on this site lent the
descriptive moniker
mash-ko-deng,
or “meadow of prairie” to their home; or Henry
Wadsworth Longfellow's “Hiawatha,” which includes the line, “Muscoday, the meadow.”
Longfellow at least got the pronunciation to fit the spelling; most massacre it into “mus-
KOH-duh.” It's “MUS-cuh-day.”
SleepylittleMuscodagetsitskicksasthe“MorelMushroomCapitaloftheWorld.”The
tasty mushroom, tough to find but worth the woods-scouring, is feted annually with a fest-
ival in May. You might also stop by relic-quality
Tanner Drug Store
(N. Wisconsin Ave.,
608/739-3218),aworkingdrugstorewithoriginaloakandpinecountersandsomeantiques.
Right on the river at
Victoria Park
outside of town sits the Muscoda Prairie, a lovingly re-
stored stretch of prairie. (Here in June? The Sand Barrens section has cactus.) Northwest of
town is a
bison ranch
(33502 Sand Ln., 608/739-3360) operated by the Ho Chunk Nation
and seasonally available for tours. Effigy mounds are on the property.
Boscobel
Back on the south side of the river, charming little Boscobel's location was pegged as
bos-
quet belle,
or “beautiful woods,” by Marquette and Joliet, who passed through in 1673.
There's great turkey hunting and canoeing, but another claim to perpetuity is the Christi-
an Commercial Travelers Association. That'd be the Gideons to you and me, founded in
downtown's stone Hotel Boscobel in 1899. The story goes that two devout Christian sales-
men were forced to double up in the hotel and got to discussing how tough it was to be
a God-fearing traveling man, especially in hellish river towns, and hatched the idea of an
interdenominational fraternity for travelers. By 1914, almost a quarter-million Bibles had
been placed from sea to shining sea. The old stone hotel still stands today. Bought in the
early 1990s and de-mothballed, it has had reincarnations as restaurants.
Inoneoftheoldestbuildingsintown,theaptlynamed
M
Unique Cafe
(1100Wisconsin
Ave., 608/375-4465, 5am-8pm Wed.-Sun., $3-6) features killer pies, from-scratch café
food, and an amazing assortment of “memorabilia” gathered by the proprietor. It's a genu-
inely interesting place to sit and eat and gander about.
Fennimore,
10 miles south of Boscobel, was once a major player in the lead trade.
People generally stop by to see the
Fennimore Doll and Toy Museum
(1135 6th St., 608/
822-4100, 10am-4pm daily May-Oct., $3). The displays of tractors, trucks, cars and more
from various museums is ever-increasing.
