The Yellowstone Trail (and all kinds of other things) in Wisconsin and Minnesota

We set off to find as much as we could about the Yellowstone Trail - a good road from Plymouth Rock to Puget Sound.  We had heard that Wisconsin has lead the way in preserving its history.  Our efforts were rewarded.

Our first find was this sign and rock denoting the YT in Cadott, WI.  Bill and Pete are happy to have their picture taken by this memorial.  We celebrated by having a horseshoe donut at the Cadott Bakery.  The horseshoe donut was really just a specially shaped maple bar but still very good.

We were really excited to find another sign for the YT in Stanley, WI.

The Yellowstone Garage in Stanley was there is 1915 and still stands today with YT namesake signs.

There was another nice YT display in Thorpe.  We had lunch in the park where we found this sign.

At the next turn from the park, we found this brightly painted and stenciled rock which was one way the YT association originally directed travel on the YT.

The yellow "R" indicates you need to turn right.  It is located in Owen on the side of the Do Drop In which is still open for business.  The owners keep the "R" painted brightly so it doesn't go unnoticed.

Just in case you couldn't tell, Pete pointed to the direction you should travel.

In Curtiss, we found this big welcome sign with information about the YT.

It's fun to take a picture of the Post Office in the cities where we are exploring.

Since you could travel both ways on the YT - east or west - sometimes the signs had arrows pointing in both directions.

The Old Curtiss Hotel built in 1912 is now called Our Place Bar and Hotel and still has a YT sign on it.  Got a picture of Pete taking a picture.

Here's a sign we found while traveling to Hewitt. 

On the other end of Yellowstone Drive, we found a park that the local residents have created and kept the local history alive.  We read that several citizens of Hewitt remember the role the Trail played in transportation progress for small towns.  We felt like we had found the mother lode of the YT history.

The next day we headed to Hudson to see more.  We found this sign and even followed a gravel road for a while feeling like we were actually traveling along the original trail.

We wondered if the people living in a new, beautiful home at this address knew about the history of their street name.

We were happy to see more signs through the town of Hudson.

This was the archway to what was once the Hudson Toll Bridge built in 1913 to cross the St. Croix River.  The bridge was used by YT travelers.

You can walk to the end of this causeway to see the pilings across the river - the only remnants of the original bridge.

By doing a little zooming in with our cameras, we got a picture of the pilings on the other side of the St. Croix River.

Not related to the YT.  The yard of this house was uniquely decorated.  The picket fence included crutches.

The flower bed was trimmed with wire and hammers.  How funny is that?

We crossed into MN to continue our exploring that day.

At one time in the planning for the YT, the route was to run from the Twin Cities (Minneapolis-St. Paul) to Yellowstone Nat'l Park and the association chose St. Anthony Falls on the Mississippi River near Minneapolis (in the background) for the starting point.  The falls have been modified and barely resemble the falls of the YT era.

In a park near the falls, we saw this bell mold.  It was fascinating to think of how huge this bell would be.  We could walk under it.

Pillsbury Flour had these neat old signs on their building in Minneapolis.

This is one of the many skyscrapers we saw in Minneapolis.

So - you can't go to the Twin Cities and not see the Mall of America. The mall opened in 1992 and received 40 million visitors in 2006. It didn't seem that busy when we were there.

Here is a view from the third floor. We got a nice walk just looking around.

The Nickelodeon Universe was an amusement park in one of the middle areas of the mall.

Lego had a fun place, too.

Our next move to South Dakota took us through MN to the west of the Twin Cities.  When we entered Olivia, MN, the sign announced it was the Corn Capital.  We have seen corn field after corn field so this announcement didn't surprise us.

The corn in this field looked about 6 inches high.  When we first saw corn fields in IL and IA, it was only about 2 inches high so the conditions must have been very good for corn growing.

There were lots of grain elevators along the way, too.

In Olivia, we found this law office with a tie to the YT.  The building was originally Michael Dowling's bank.  His grandson was a lawyer and started a law office here which still exists today.  Olivia celebrates Michael Dowling Day each year.  After losing both feet, one hand and fingers off his other hand, Dowling went on to become a teacher, editor and Speaker of the MN Legislature.  Among his accomplishments, he was also the 4th president of the YT Association.

Another old building in Olivia.  Looked like the early 1900's era.

Besides the corn fields, we have seen cattle grazing.

We visited a very good museum in Ortonville, MN.  This building housed a huge collection of mounted birds as well as a few game animals.  All of the mounts were very nicely done by the same taxidermist. 

This octagon building was a school house.

This log house was originally one floor.  Another floor was added when the children needed more room.

All of the buildings on the museum grounds were moved here for preservation and display.  Here is a church.

This area of MN has huge deposits of granite.  Maybe you have counter tops made from slabs similar to this one.  We saw huge pieces of granite along the railroad tracks ready to be shipped.

We also went through a museum in Montevideo, MN.  It was done similarly to the other.  They had many kinds of buildings with related displays in each building.  It is great that communities have gathered and labeled so many artifacts for the public to enjoy. 

They had a small post office building and Bill is standing next to a sorting case similar to the ones he used when he started working for the Post Office in 1967.

We thought the boardwalks added authenticity to the village of historic buildings.

We always think of our retired dentist friend, Steve Cossalman, when we see the early dentist equipment.  Did you ever have to work with this kind of equipment, Steve? 

This hearse was housed in one of the buildings.  Just a coincidence that this picture is after the picture of the dentist equipment.

On our way home from a day of exploring, we made a stop at the Lac qui Parle Mission.  The missionaries came in 1835 to teach the Dakota Indians about the European-American culture.  There were displays about the Dakota language and the translation of the Bible into the Dakota language.

Here's a view of Lac qui Parle Lake near the mission.

This ship was actually a cruise ship on one of MN 10,000 lakes.  It was well equipped for comfort but did have an unfortunate accident with fatalities during a severe storm on the lake.

I have been catching up on posting to our blog.  You can always look at older posts to see if you have missed anything.