Wednesday Nite at the Lab

press release: WN@TL goes hybrid both with Zoom and with in-person (Room 1111) presentations. The zoom registration link is still go.wisc.edu/240r59. You can also watch a live web stream at on YouTube.

Amy Rosebrough from the Wisconsin Historical Society will be giving a historical presentation on “Fire, Shipwreck, and Cheese - Wisconsin’s Lost Coastal Communities.”

In the mid to late 19th centuries, dozens of small communities sprang up along the eastern shores of Wisconsin, each with its own lake pier and general store. The owners of the piers shipped forest and farm products to Chicago, and supplied incoming settlers with the income and goods they needed to survive. A new Wisconsin Historical Society initiative to reveal the forgotten histories of Wisconsin’s lost ports is unearthing stories of catastrophic fires, dangerous shoals, runaway horses, gossip columnists, eavesdropping clerks, unwise ship captains, and lots and lots of cheese. Most importantly, the story of Wisconsin’s lost coastal communities is the story of how Wisconsin’s Lake Michigan’s shoreline was transformed from timberland to today’s farms and cities.