Mineral Point combines history, art and…pasties

This small city 50 miles southwest of Madison will capture your attention and your soul

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Community

There are nearly 1,700 municipalities in Wisconsin with a population under 5,000, not counting unincorporated burgs. Few may seem extraordinary to the average road tripper.

One exception is Mineral Point, population 2,500, just 50 miles southwest of Madison, amid a little roller coaster of Iowa County hills and surrounded by farmland. The ruggedly handsome terrain is part of our state’s Driftless Area, which escaped Ice Age glacial movement.

Maybe you’ve made day trips to Mineral Point, but what about an overnight? The residents are friendly, and relatively chatty. Internet/cell access might be spotty, a fine nudge to unplug. Expect myriad options for activities during daylight and a lot fewer after dusk (especially on a Sunday).

City Ald. Mike Christensen says some locals describe Mineral Point as a Brigadoon — a remote and magical place, where anything is possible and diversity is welcome. One of his longtime mentors, Sandy Scott, calls it a vortex that first captures your attention, then your soul.

Thriving on history

Mineral Point’s uniqueness rises well beyond the steep climb of High Street, the main drag where galleries, workshops, cafes and boutiques fill limestone buildings that are part of a National Register historic district of 500-some structures. Some buildings are almost as old as the community, which turns 200 in 2027; self-guided tours reveal more.

What’s inside the nicely preserved architecture matters too.

Mayday Press stocks a widespread array of fancy, sometimes-imported writing implements and paper. Republic of Letters Books nurtures lovers of intellectual literature — edgy, classic, sassy — through store inventory, author visits and a virtual community for writers and readers.

The 1914 Mineral Point Public Library doubles as a subtle art museum. Throughout three levels are dozens of works — carvings, paintings, masks, sketches, fiber hangings, sculptures, pottery — by beloved local artists. Pick up a checklist to see what is where.

The library is attached to City Hall (as is the Mineral Point Opera House), and in the basement are shelves of used books that sell for $1 apiece. At street level is an engaging playroom for children. Upstairs is a vast, tidy archive: Think Civil War diaries, Cornish history, Woodrow Wilson letters, Allen Ludden’s personal effects (the native son was actress Betty White’s husband and is buried in Graceland Cemetery).

Profiting from pasties

Mineral Point was settled as a Cornish mining town in the 1830s and grew steadily because of plentiful work, and gorgeous landscapes. But the community could have easily vanished as lead and zinc mining plummeted and the Great Depression arrived.

The state historical site Pendarvis tells the story through living-history tours and hiking trails. A couple in both life and business, Bob Neal and Edgar Hellum, get credit for preventing the demise of the site’s Cornish cottages: The men opened little Pendarvis House restaurant in 1935 and ran it until their 1970 retirement. Profits paid for their restoration of the stone and log cabins — and the cooking inadvertently drew national attention.

A simple menu of longtime family recipes turned food critic Duncan Hines into a Pendarvis fan during the 1930s and 1940s. His raves, especially about the Cornish pasties (meat and veggie turnovers), made the cut in Hines’ Adventures in Eating travel guidebook. In 1947, the Saturday Evening Post chose Pendarvis as one of the nation’s top seven restaurants.

A traditional beef pasty is always on the menu at third-generation Red Rooster Café. At the 1836 Walker House, a former stagecoach stop, 13 kinds of pasties are sold frozen or served at reservations-only lunches (accompanied by a saffron bun, cole slaw or salad, and figgyhobbin, a raisin-filled pastry).

Walker House introduces its 14th pasty version this year: The Leo, honoring Pope Leo XIV, will combine Peruvian and American foods/spices.

Adding the arts

A second couple, Sandy Scott and the late Judy Sutcliffe, get credit for propelling Mineral Point’s evolution as a supportive, inspiring place to create art. They launched their annual Woodlanders Gathering in 2002, for rustic furniture builders and others who work with the materials of nature. The summer-camp tradition continues, running July 16-18 this year.

Then came a successful pitch to turn nine neglected buildings — including the city’s oldest, an 1830s log cabin — into a nonprofit arts campus. Shake Rag Alley Center for the Arts opened in 2004 on 2.5 acres, and this year at least 300 half-day to five-day workshops are scheduled.

Plan ahead to attend — don’t expect to merely show up, pay and begin a class. Among other offerings, coming Sept. 21-25 is the new Hot Week, glass blowing and welding classes, geared toward beginners.

Grounds are open to the public from dawn to dusk, a peaceful and pleasant stroll. The center’s outdoor Alley Stage, for music and plays, in part showcases works in progress.

If you’re more of a shopper than a student, look for works by Shake Rag instructors at Longbranch Gallery, which represents 60-plus artists. Nearby is The Globe Clay Center, the late Bruce Howdle’s pottery studio, now operated by twin sisters Katie and Joelle White, who were among his last students.

“We’re seeing a handoff from an older generation of artists to a younger generation,” says Christensen, who is also the Shake Rag center’s president, and The Globe is one example.

Art vs. maker space

Elsewhere, the term “art” embraces wider definitions. Joy Gieseke, retired chamber of commerce director, operates The Station, a yarns-and-more shop in a long-ago gas station.

“Mineral Point has changed but yet it hasn’t,” she says. “It’s still a creative community, but the definition has expanded.”

The Book Kitchen arranges small-group cooking classes — “cake science” was a recent afternoon offering for eight students. Founder Nicole Bujewski also operates The Violet Fig, a mix of flowers, teas and gifts.

At DeeConstruct, Dee Hooks is a found-object artist who sells a hodgepodge of trash-or-treasure items — one bin is labeled “stuff” and another “more stuff.” “I love the thrill of the hunt,” she says, of her inventory and work. “And I can be who I am here.”

Quilters gravitate to the many fabrics, sewing machines and accessories at Against the Grain, where artisan Joey Mahieu works at a longarm quilter, surrounded by her late husband’s woodworking art.

The Crafty, open since winter in a 1907 bank building, schedules quick classes on candle making, rug hooking, paper-flower and clay-magnet making. The occasional two-day Queenie Camp involves multiple crafts.

“As technology becomes more and more a part of our lives, the ability to create with our hands becomes more important to the soul,” Gieseke says.

Upscale retail

Although downtown Mineral Point contains a Bargain Nook (mostly Lands End overstocks/returns) and one of the nation’s increasingly rare Ben Franklin variety stores, shops are more apt to sell unusual, stylish merchandise.

That includes AB Vintage Jewelry Co., where proprietor Arlene Byrne has relinquished a sizable personal collection of costume and other jewelry. That includes high-end Miriam Haskell collectibles. “I love seeing other people make new memories” with whatever they buy, she says, shortly before a trio of teens in evening gowns arrive to show off accessorized outfits before prom.

Café 43 offers a tantalizing mix of bakery, beverages and vintage shopping. Add brunch on Sundays, perhaps with old timey music by a violin-guitar duo and a classic Western movie on TV.

The chocolatier at NightShift Chocolate, a bean-to-bar endeavor, is Melissa Langholff, formerly with Sjolinds in Mount Horeb. Newer on High is Staple and Fancy, a gourmet/boutique grocer that feels like a small Whole Foods.

What else?

High Street hosts a weekly Saturday morning farmers’ market, whose vendors include rug makers, specialty farmers, Saving Grace cat rescuers selling feline-themed earrings and T-shirts, and a mother-daughter team who sell fat squares of bars and cobblers from 9x13 baking pans.

Nearby on Commerce Street is Hook’s Cheese, known for a world champ Colby and Little Boy Blue (blue cheese made with sheep’s milk). Visitors who buy from the factory cooler will simultaneously get a peek at cheese production.

Order a Blond Betty (named after Betty White) at Commerce Street Brewery Hotel, then toddle upstairs to a comfortably appointed bedroom. Or sip a flight of four American Wine Project products outdoors and add nibbles of tinned fish and white bean hummus.

Any getaway is what you make of it — and this one’s eye-openers might go beyond the lightly battered Muenster cheese curds (creamy, not stringy) at Eliza’s Lounge.

“We came to Mineral Point for breakfast and bought a building before the day ended,” says Sandy Scott, who is 84.

Christensen was 14 and from small-town Iowa when he attended his first Woodlanders Gathering. At age 23, he moved to Mineral Point, where he met husband Quinn. Now in his mid-30s, he knows he’s found home.

“Even when I was in high school,” he says, “Mineral Point was accepting of anything you wanted to be.”

For more about the area: mineralpoint.com, 608-987-3201.

Haiku for you?

Mineral Point hosts the Cradle of American Haiku Festival, Aug. 14-16, for haiku readings, book sales, workshops, field trips, music.

Why here? Publishers of the long-defunct American Haiku magazine moved to Mineral Point from Platteville upon retirement. Biennial haiku festivals began in 2009, and haiku poets from throughout the country attend.

Other major Mineral Point events include Independence Day festivities, July 4; Paint the Point, plein air painting, Aug. 5-8; and Midwest Cornish Festival, Sept. 26-28.

Along roads less traveled

A quick drive southwest on U.S. 151 is the fastest way to get to Mineral Point, but roam country roads for rural surprises as well as pretty scenery. The 47-mile Cheese Country Trail links Mineral Point with Monroe. Intersecting the route is the 40-mile, Madison-to-Dodgeville Military Ridge Trail.

Crazy Frank’s, on the city’s outskirts, is a flea-market maze of 300-some vendor booths, peddling a dizzying array of crafts, antiques, collectibles, Amish candies and jams.

Three other quick examples (admission free, donation boxes onsite):

Nick Engelbert’s Grandview, on Wisconsin 39 near Hollandale — A self-taught Austrian immigrant’s excessive outdoor artwork from the 1930s to 1950s still stands. Expect dozens of impish, painted, concrete yard sculptures and a farmhouse embellished with castoff materials. Most summer workshops at the art environment — to make bug hotels, pin cushions, garden stones, more — last two hours and cost $10, or less.

The Happy Barn, four miles southeast of Grandview — The big attraction is a little-publicized hilltop art installation, near an event-space barn. Look under a massive, tattered U.S. flag and you’re there. The life-sized replication, in weathered steel, of a Western stagecoach shootout is both awesome in artistic execution and a painful reminder of stereotypes. No explanation except for a stone dedication to police, firefighters, EMTs and other first responders.

Hauge Log Church, near Wisconsin 78 and Blue Mounds — The little Norwegian Lutheran church, built in 1852, is one of three such churches on its original site nationwide. Consider picnicking.

Longtime freelance writer Mary Bergin of Madison is the author of Small-Town Wisconsin: Fun, Surprising and Exceptional Road Trips.