Justin Sprecher
A badger that looks more like a rat.
Craig Johnson points to the large badger sculptures that sit above the entryways to the Capitol’s four main chambers. They honor the state’s early miners, who were called badgers because they dug tunnels and were known to live in abandoned, underground mine shafts.
“If you look at the original blueprints from George B. Post & Sons, you’ll see that the design looks exactly like a badger is supposed to look,” says Johnson, an Isthmus contributor. “But whoever the sculptor was obviously had no idea what a badger looked like. In my opinion, it looks a lot more like a rat.”
Johnson has been a tour guide at Taliesin, the Spring Green estate of Frank Lloyd Wright, since 2003. But his first professional tour guide gig started at the Capitol in 1999. “What the Capitol and Taliesin have in common is they both burned down twice. As all the best buildings tend to,” says Johnson with a laugh.
To mark the 100th anniversary of the Capitol, Johnson dusted off his old notes and showed Isthmus a few of the quirkier, hidden details of the historic edifice. Tours have been a fixture at the Capitol since 1915, two years before construction was even completed. Nearly 100,000 visitors take the tour, typically an hour long, each year. The state has never charged for this service.
Justin Sprecher
A starfish fossil embedded in the marble steps.
Johnson says giving a good tour requires being a good storyteller, knowing the subject matter and being able to read the crowd.
Much of the time, that means being able to relate to 10-year-olds. Elementary school students swarm the building every year on class trips.
“During the school year, most of the tours are with fourth graders because that’s when you learn Wisconsin history,” says Johnson.
Being peppered with questions from fourth graders was one of the more rewarding aspects of the job, he says. On one tour, a precocious youngster asked him whether he worked for Tommy Thompson, the governor at the time.
“I replied, ‘Actually, Tommy Thompson works for me.’ Which, of course, is true. It was a snide, snarky response. It may have been accurate but the tone was wrong. The governor is supposed to work for everyone in the state,” Johnson says.
Justin Sprecher
Mural depicting Panama Canal.
Johnson guides us to the second floor of the north wing. There are dozens of fossils — gastropods, brachiopods and ammonoids — embedded in the marble walls and staircases, and some of the largest are in the Italian marble walls of the North Hearing Room.
Johnson would always show school children this spot, seeing it as an opportunity to add a little science to the history-heavy tour.
“Kids would eat the fossils up,” he says. “Point out the starfish on the second floor stairway in the North Wing, they’ll think you’re a genius.”
Well, most kids.
“I told [one tour] how the fossils were left on the bottom of the Mediterranean Sea millions of years ago. And one-by-one they all started raising their hands.” Johnson says. “I pointed to one kid and he said, ‘But the earth is only 6,000 years old.’ I didn’t disagree. They were either there for millions of years or placed there by Satan to confuse us.”
Take your own Capitol tour:
Monday through Friday: 9 a.m. - 4 p.m. (except at noon).
Saturdays, 9 a.m. - 3 p.m. (except at noon).
Sundays: 1 p.m. - 3 p.m.
Tours start on the hour at the information desk.
Sixth floor museum and observation deck are open during the summer months.
Reservations for groups of 10 or more can be made at tours.wisconsin.gov or by calling 608-266-0382.
