The Shot heard around Wisconsin

Wisconsin became the Badger State because of the many lead miners making a living at least partly underground in the southwest part of the state.

Not far from there, close to the south shore of the Wisconsin River near Spring Green is where a smelter was built to turn that lead into shot.

In 1830, 18 years before this part of the Northwest Territory became a state, a Green Bay businessman spotted the bluff and decided it was the place to work.

At the top of a tall hill, easier now with a paved trail, but still a quarter mile going straight up was the smelting house to reduce the lead to a liquid.

Modern technology of the time used slots to essentially drip different size drops of lead down a shaft.

Just falling the 90 feet straight down would create a lead ball and a pool of water at the bottom arrested the fall and cooled the hot lead.

In the aftermath, workers would fish out the lead shot to be stacked and sorted.  The 180 foot shaft and the 90 foot tunnel at the base of the bluff were dug by hand over several months in 1833 and the production started.

Long gone, but for a short time, the town of Helena sprang up around the industry.  By 1860, it was out of business.  Helena followed its demise.

Years later, the land was sold to the state in 1922, and in the 1970s a re-creation of the smelter house was built in Tower Hill State Park.

If you head to Spring Green, this is a very interesting place to visit with a unique picture into the very early days of Wisconsin industry.

Bring some good walking shoes and some mosquito repellent, as the walk uphill is arduous and the bugs hungry, but the knowledge and the majestic views make it worth a stop.

Just down the road from the park are some other famous places - Frank Lloyd Wright's Taliesen and the American Players Theater - I'll put them on the list for a future trip.