Exploring America State by State

Category Archives: Memorials

The Highground

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I have visited a lot of veterans’ memorials on my travels, but the Highground in central Wisconsin is one of the most impressive ones I have visited outside of Washington D.C. Privately funded through donations and grants, the Highground Veterans Memorial Park has 155 acres and a variety of memorials dedicated to the service men and women in several wars.

The park began in 1984 when Vietnam War veteran Tom Miller and his fellow veterans purchased land to honor their fallen brothers. The park started out as the Wisconsin Vietnam Veterans’ Memorial Park, and a bike ride raised money for the flagpole and the statue titled “Fragments” to honor the Vietnam veterans. Over time, other memorials were added along with a museum and gift shop. The grounds are open 24 hours a day seven days a week all year long. They hold events throughout the year and help veterans throughout the state. It is an impressive place to visit and honor the heroes that defend our nation’s freedom.

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The Worlds Tallest Flagpole

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If you are anywhere near the town of Sheboygan, Wisconsin it is hard to miss the giant American Flag waving over the Dairy State. It is located near US-43 at the Acuity Insurance building. It is said to be the worlds tallest flagpole at 400 feet tall. The flag is 70 x 140 feet and weighs 250 pounds. It is an impressive sight and you have to see it in person to understand how tall and large it is. Acuity welcomes visitors to stop by and see it. On the day I was there the wind was blowing hard off Lake Michigan and the giant flag was waving and snapping in the wind. It was like old glory was cheering on the country that it symbolizes.

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The Agriculture Crash of the 80s

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A few miles south of Norway, Illinois along Route 71 is the shocking sight of a banged up aircraft with its nose stuck in the ground. It is not a memorial for a plane crash, but is marked on the sign in front for the “survivors of the Agricultural Crash of the 1980s”.

Farming has always been a difficult way to make a living, and in the 1980s it was especially challenging with a period of high inflation, deflated farm land prices, and the grain embargo to the Soviet Union driving down crop prices. Many farms in the 80s were foreclosed on and equipment auctioned off. In support of the struggling American farmers, musicians Willie Nelson, John Mellencamp and Neil Young organized the Farm Aid benefit concert to raise money for and help family farmers in the United States. The first concert was held in Memorial Stadium in Champaign, Illinois on September 22, 1985 in front of a crowd of 80,000 people.

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The Christmas Party that Changed America

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I wish this was a story about a wonderful Christmas miracle, but instead, it’s about a celebration that ended in tragedy.
The town of Calumet in the Keweenaw Peninsula was one of the wealthiest towns in the United States in the late 1800s because of its copper deposits and mining industry. On Christmas Eve in 1913, after being on strike for five months, copper miners and their families gathered for a yuletide party on the second floor of the Italian Hall in Calumet. During the party for the striking miners, someone yelled, “Fire!” Although there was no fire, seventy-three people died while attempting to escape down a stairwell.

Over half of those who died were children between the ages of six and ten.  The belief is that the door at the bottom of the stairway opened inward, and other sources say it opened outward toward the streets, but the narrow stairway became congested and after the first person fell, it became a “domino effect” with people being trampled  trying to escape what they thought was a fire. The tragic event was part of the reason building codes were enacted for building capacity and fire escapes. The perpetrator who yelled “FIRE” creating the tragedy was never identified.  Some historians believe that “fire” was called out by an anti-union ally of mine management to disrupt the party. The event was memorialized by Woody Guthrie in the song “1913 Massacre”, which claims the doors were held shut on the outside by “the copper boss’s thug men.”

The Italian Hall was built in 1908 as headquarters for Calumet’s Benevolent Society. The Society, organized along ethnic lines, encouraged and financially aided immigrants and provided relief to victims of hardship. Following the 1913 Christmas Eve tragedy, the hall continued to be used for nearly five decades. The two-story red brick building was razed in 1984, but the doorway with its stone arch was left standing as a memorial to the people who lost their lives in the 1913 disaster.

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