The first Thanksgiving in Madison took place in 1838 at the log cabin of Eben and Rosaline Peck. They had located their home overlooking Lake Monona in the spring of 1837 and used it as a boarding house for construction

Considered ugly by some and revered by others, sturgeon boast a rich history in Wisconsin. After having survived whatever killed the dinosaurs, they evolved into a robust fish that can enjoy a lifespan of more than a century. In 1932,

The New York Times reported this week on a Stoddard, Wis., couple who build homes not from dead lumber but from living trees. Apparently their methods have many advantages, including not only beauty but also unexpected structural strength and minimized

Today's visit by President Obama to Wright Middle School in Madison swamped our Library with calls about previous visits by incumbent chief executives. The first of those occurred on Sept. 10, 1878, when Rutherford B. Hayes spent the day in

That's right -- Wisconsin is home to the largest penny in the world, a monument commemorating Dr. Kate Pelham Newcomb (1886-1956). "Dr. Kate" was responsible for the health of residents in nearly 300 square miles of northern Wisconsin. She was

Pope Benedict XVI canonized five new saints Sunday, including Jozef De Veuster (1840-1889), a 19th century priest more commonly known as Father Damien. St. Damien worked with ostracized leprosy patients on Molokai, an isolated Hawaiian island, until he contracted the

The origins of many Wisconsin place names are recorded in our online Dictionary of Wisconsin History. The note there on the Columbia County town of Wyocena -- that the name came to the town's founder, Elbert Dickason, in a dream

The soap opera Guiding Light, which went off the air a week ago after 72 years, remains alive in the Archives of the Wisconsin Historical Society. According to the New York Times, it was "the longest-running scripted program in broadcasting

In Encore! The Renaissance of Wisconsin Opera Houses author Brian Leahy Doyle tells the chilling story of a devoted opera house employee who refuses to vacate the premises... despite having been dead for more than 40 years. The brain-child of

Nathaniel Tallmadge (1795-1864), Wisconsin's third chief executive, just missed being the tenth president of the United States. Born in Chatham, N.Y., he was admitted to the bar in 1818 and served in the New York legislature before going on to

Today the Milton House in Milton, Wisconsin, is well-known for its history as a stop along the Underground Railroad. What most people don't know is that six early Milton residents were laid to rest beneath the floor of its underground

When one considers Wisconsin's important contributions to big industries, products like cheese, beer, and even ginseng come to mind. Unfortunately, for fashionistas across the state, Wisconsin designers have usually been marginalized while metropolitan centers like New York and Paris typically

August 21st marks an important Wisconsin anniversary. Our last execution took place on this date more than 150 years ago, when John McCaffary was hung in Kenosha for drowning his wife. The restraints that bound his arms and legs that

Yes, I am fond of history," comments the hero's sister in Jane Austen's 1803 novel, Northanger Abbey. "I wish I were too," replies heroine Catherine Morland. "I read it a little as a duty, but it tells me nothing that

In the fall of 1935, Wisconsin State Journal cartoonist David Seltz produced a panel every day showing strange episodes from our state's past. He called them "Badger Curiosities" appropriately enough, though today we might call them urban legends (or not-so-urban,

Last week two newly arrived residents of Madison requested a tour of Aztalan, our state's best known and largest archaeological site. This opened the door to an explanation on the strange origin of the name "Aztalan." The first white settler

In the spring of 1838, Martin Rowney, a discharged soldier who had been trading with the Indians on Puckaway Lake in Green Lake County, returned to Portage for a drunken spree that lasted for two weeks or more. At the

Required ingredients for a July weekend, aren't they? And both have a proud heritage in Wisconsin. Corn was grown in fields like this for hundreds of years and stored by Indians in ceramic pots such as this one. Indians put

Pshaw, talk about the time that tried men's soul, just as if a woman had none --- " That's the way Roseline Peck remembered the first Independence Day celebration in Madison. Only a few weeks after she'd arrived on the

The religion of white settlers often seemed peculiar to American Indian elders. In 1828, for example, Ho-Chunk Chief Dandy was at Galena with some companions and "while strolling about the town one day, they came upon a Methodist church where