Road Trip: Wisconsin

The World's Largest Penny

Woodruff, Wisconsin

The World's Largest Penny commemorates a 1953 fundraising stunt. Dr. Kate Pelham Newcomb (known locally as "The Angel On Snowshoes") implored local school children to save their pennies so that Woodruff could build a hospital. TV picked up on the story and pennies were soon pouring in from all over the country -- 1.7 million in all. Woodruff got its hospital, and the the schoolchildren of 1953 are just about ready to enter the new assisted living facility behind the penny.

(World's Largest Penny: At the corner of 3rd Ave. and Hemlock St. One block west of US 51 and two blocks south of Hwy 47.)

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"Home of the Hamburger"

Seymour, Wisconsin

Several other towns in America -- New Haven, CT; Athens, TX; Hamburg, NY -- claim to be the birthplace of the hamburger. But Seymour rises to the top of our list with this spiffy new 12-foot-tall statue of "Hamburger Charlie" Nagreen, who claimed to have invented the sandwich (and coined its name) in Seymour in 1885. Across the street stands the 5000 pound grill that cooked The World's Largest Hamburger in 1989 (it fed 13,000 people). Atop it is a giant "hamburger" that is in fact a cheeseburger -- which is a little greedy of Seymour since, as we all know, the cheesburger was invented in either Pasadena, CA, or Louisville, KY.

(Hamburger Tributes: On the north side of downtown. On Depot St., which is on the east side of Hwy 55 [Main St].)

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Andy Gump Statue

Lake Geneva, Wisconsin

Andy Gump was the lead character in a Chicago Tribune comic strip that was wildly popular long before you were born. Its creator, Sidney Smith, lived in this upscale town, and the Tribune was so pleased with the success of his strip (and the circulation dollars that it brought in) that they had a statue made of Gump and placed it on Smith's property. When Smith died in 1935, the town, for some reason, moved it into a downtown park. The statue was reportedly "smashed to smithereens" in a drunken riot in 1967, which normally would have been the end of a statue to a comic strip character that had been out of print for over thirty years. But the town then built a NEW Andy Gump statue, which is now on display. We're still piecing together the strange story on this one.

(Andy Gump Statue: Downtown. Just south of Hwy 50. Turn south on either Wrigley Drive or Center St. one block to Flatiron Park. The statue is in the park, looking out over the lake.)