State Historical Society Takes Wisconsin’s Past On The Road

A Wisconsin Historical Society traveling exhibit is making its way through the state, immersing itself in a new city each month to teach people about topics ranging from genealogy to shipwrecks and to rural life.

Susan Caya-Slusser is the site manager at the Villa Louis in Prairie du Chien, the first site ever acquired by the Wisconsin Historical Society. She recently visited a roomful of people in La Crosse, where the Wisconsin History Tour has stopped for the month, to teach them about the historic mansion.

The Villa Louis was the home of the Dousmans, the lone socialites of Prairie du Chien in the late 1800s who lived off of the enormous fur trade and real estate wealth made by their father. When people would travel from St. Paul and Milwaukee to the mansion, the Dousmans made the trip worth it for their guests, serving lavish Victorian meals.

Caya-Slusser brought the food of the late 1800s to La Crosse for visitors to the tour to sample. She served guests a green tomato relish known as piccalilli, a side the Dousman family would have used to spruce up beef or pork in the winter.

Ruth Amundson put some piccalilli on a cracker and took a bite.

“It’s pungent. It’s good,” she said. “Like you’d take a jar of good relish, put a little sauerkraut, put some sugar — it’s sweet.”

Amundson is a self-described history buff and a Wisconsin Historical Society member. She’s attended many of the week’s presentations.

“It’s history alive. And so often, in school, it’s just a bunch of dead people and dates. Well, it’s not. An old phrase is, you don’t know where you’re going unless you know where you’ve come from, right?” she said.

Wisconsin History Tour coordinator Mary Jane Connor agrees. In bringing the exhibit to different communities, she said that it helps people contemplate their place in history and learn from past mistakes.

“It helps us live better lives to know our history and see what’s done well and see what’s done poorly,” she said. “Without it, we would never know what we were doing. Everything would be a guess.”

Every Wisconsin History Tour stop has exhibits on Native Americans, inventions and the state’s 750 shipwrecks. But organizers also work with the local historical societies to create displays unique to the community. In La Crosse, there’s a focus on the region’s historic women, featuring members of the Ho-Chunk Nation and Ellen Hixon, who helped save the renowned Grandad Bluff in La Crosse in the early 1900s.

Caya-Slusser, the Villa Louis site manager, said that with the Wisconsin Historical Society’s offices and museums in Madison and historic sites scattered across the state, the tour brings history to the people. She said that it’s a reminder of what the society has to offer.

“The genealogy collection, the photography collection, the other sites in our system — there are wonderful sites,” she said. “Reed School is north of us. There’s Madeline Island. It just offers an opportunity for people to get to know our agency better.”

The Wisconsin History Tour will be in La Crosse through November. From there, it moves on to Milwaukee, Green Bay, Appleton, and Eau Claire.

Photos in slideshow by Maureen McCollum/WPR News.