Mineral Point

• I copied the following from the Mineral Point Chamber of Commerce website, because it's an interesting slice of state history.  (The teal stripe above came with it and I can't figure out how to delete it, so this post is jazzier than the others.)

• Mineral Point is tucked in the rolling hills of Southwest Wisconsin. This area, known [as] “driftless”[,] was left untouched by glaciers, leaving minerals that were easily accessible at the surface. These minerals provided quick rewards to early prospectors and adventurers who swarmed the hills and made crude temporary housing resembling badger holes – which explains Wisconsin’s nickname, The Badger State.

  In the 1830s, news of these rich deposits of lead reached Cornwall, England. These early immigrants possessed advanced mining skills as well as expertise in stone building construction. Their legacy is reflected in a remarkable inventory of mid-19th century architecture.

  Mineral Point was an important center of early Wisconsin government. In 1829 Mineral Point became the county seat of the newly formed Iowa County. Mineral Point is “where Wisconsin began” when Henry Dodge was inaugurated the first governor of the newly formed Wisconsin Territory on July 4,1836, in downtown Mineral Point.

  In the 1830s Mineral Point was a bustling, growing city that attracted many politically significant and influential people. Historians say that for over a decade the lead-mining country controlled Territorial Wisconsin, and the politics of Mineral Point controlled the mining country. Then in 1849, the California Gold Rush resulted in an exodus from the young city, and Mineral Point fell into a state of depression.

The zinc industry would soon develop, and by 1891 the Mineral Point Zinc Company was the largest zinc oxide works in the United States.  Agriculture became an important part of Mineral Point and by the turn of the century the dairy industry was well established. “Mineral Point” beef earned its own brand at the Chicago Stock market due to the quality of meat produced by cattle grazing on the native blue grasses.

1935 marked the beginning of a preservation movement when Bob Neal and Edgar Hellum began restoring stone houses on Shake Rag Street, now known as Pendarvis. Preservation developed on a larger scale in the 1960s and 70s when artists, craftspeople and preservationists began restoring more and more historic buildings.

The city was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1971, the first Wisconsin city to receive that designation. The pre-Civil War homes of some of Wisconsin’s leading families still stand, and with just a little imagination you can still hear echoes of their lives throughout town.

I only took 2 photos there:

the popular Gray Dog Cafe (good sandwiches)

1892 building across the street

These buildings are on the main street of town, which is built on hills.

I saw several houses that were built into hillsides with not much more than a roof showing from the street.  Like pictures I've seen of sod huts from the Dust Bowl days.  But Mineral Point is much too lush for Dust Bowl-iness.  You wouldn't know it from these photos, but the streets on either side are full of trees and flowers and grass in people's yards.

I was there because each year Mineral Point sponsors a Paint the Point art show.  They invite plein air artists to come spend several days painting scenes in and around town, and the results are put up for sale the final day.  Plein air painting, as I understand it, is painting what the artist actually sees, most commonly outdoors scenes.  This link has a number of photos of artists at work during the event.  www.artsmp.org/paint-the-point

None of the photos shows my friend Jim Faecke (pronounced fake-ee), who I'd gone there to meet, so I'm including a link to his website here.   https://jamesfaecke.com   When you go to this site, click the "Buy Prints" tab, then click the "View Art Work" button, and you can see the incredible range of his work.  I'd like to put up a sample here, but for one thing they're all copyrighted, and for another there's such a range I wouldn't know which kind to use as an example.  When I get a more stable home in a few years, one with actual walls I can put art on, I'll be one of his customers.

Meanwhile, I was surprised to get such a pleasant impression of Mineral Point.  Surprised because it was a hot day, the sun was really pouring down, and all that stone was emphasizing the heat.  My first impression of the town was hot and dry.  But after I'd walked the dogs around different parts of town a couple of times and found the grass and trees and hills, I changed my mind.  Seems a nice little town, and I liked the hills, though they must be a nuisance in the winter.