I like Wisconsin. I was born in Iowa, after all, and how different can Wisconsin be? The areas of Wisconsin I most enjoy, though, are along Lake Michigan and the many beautiful lakes created by glacial activity.
Todd and I traveled to Milwaukee last weekend for the City & Regional Magazine Association Publishers Roundtable. If you’ve not driven U.S. 41 toward Chicago in the past five years, you’ve likely not seen the remarkable site of the Fowler Ridge Wind Farm in Benton County, Ind. Spread over 50,000 acres with 355 turbines, it is one of the largest onshore wind farms in the world. That seems to be all that has changed along U.S. 41 in years.
Milwaukee has long been known as the “Cream City” — not for the state’s dairy industry, but for the cream-colored bricks that form many of the city’s buildings. The beauty of Milwaukee’s architecture and its location on Lake Michigan make it a very pretty city.
We stayed at the conference hotel, the Pfister, built in 1893. The swanky lounge on the 23rd floor offered great views of the city and the lake, including a dramatic view of Milwaukee’s Federal Building and U.S. Courthouse. Built from 1892 to 1899, its Richardsonian Romanesque architecture is the same style of and strikingly similar to Evansville’s Old Post Office built from 1869 to 1875.
Just a few blocks from the hotel, on the lake, is the Milwaukee Art Museum, where the city hosted a private party for our group at its Quadracci Pavilion.
The Museum’s signature wings form a moveable sunscreen that open and close daily. Beginning Friday through Jan. 5 at MMA is a Thomas Sully exhibit. Unfamiliar with Sully? Peel a $20 from your wallet — Sully’s portrait of Andrew Jackson has been used to denote $20 since 1928.
Submitted by Kristen Tucker on 10/08/2013
