choose another county

hours:
Fall Market Hours:  (daily)  10am – 6pm

The Norske Nook (with 3 locations in Osseo, Hayward and Rice Lake) is known for their award winning, made-from-scratch pies (28 varieties, including a lemon meringue so tall "you could hide a hat in it" or so they say) and their waitresses dressed in Scandinavian attire.  The Rice Lake restaurant has added a humorous twist to their men's restroom urinals (as opposed to the urinals in the women's restroom?)

In the early days of Wisconsin, the official papers of Barron County were stored in a chair that had been carved out of a hollow log.  In 1874, the county clerk hiked 13 miles from Rice Lake to Barron with the chair strapped to his back in order to keep the county seat located there.  The wooden "seat" is still located in the Barron County Courthouse to this day.

When Robert Prosser died in 2003, he left behind his collection of antiquated telephones which once numbered over one million.  Now they are being sold off by the heirs who are overburdened by this massive inventory, which was once featured in "Ripley's Believe It or Not!".

Barron County was formed in 1869 from a section of Polk County and all of Dallas County, which was established a mere 10 years prior.

"Otto Rindlisbacher (1895-1975), the original proprietor of the Buckhorn Tavern in Rice Lake and an accomplished taxidermist, festooned his walls with actual stuffed animals, as well as taxidermic hoaxes like the shovel-tailed snowsnake and the fur herring.  The former, fitted with red glass eyes and painted a lurid green, was obviously carved from wood, but the herring, an actual fish with a pelt jacket, was more convincing.  A mock scientific paper vouched for its authenticity."
- section from the book "Wisconsin Folklore"

"Mr. Rindlisbacher tells of the numerous curios, relics and mounted wildlife specimens that adorn the interior of the Buckhorn, among them the 103-point buck shot near here a few years ago, the miniature mechanical replica of the famed "One Shot Gang", and those rare "freaks" of nature, the Shovel-Tailed Snake, the Wisconsin Dingbat and the Fur-herring, as well as innumerable other oddments."
- section from the book "Badger Bars & Tavern Tales"

"This park preserves 12 Indian Burial Mounds, all that remain of some 67 mounds constructed in the Rice Lake area. Archeological excavation revealed burial bundles, some ornaments and implements. The mounds are believed to have been constructed by a branch of the Dakota Sioux."
- section from the official site

Creature of Cumberland

"Bigfoot Tracks Found in Western Wisconsin"  (1997)

Alleged Close Encounter with Aliens  (1919)

Three UFO Reports  (1981)

"The calls came in an eight-minute time span, and the callers gave their locations from three different points across the county, all reporting an object with red, green and in one case blue flashing lights."
- section from UFO Wisconsin report

Five Streaks of Light  (2002)

"flashes covered approximately 10 degrees of sky (one fist width = 10 degrees)the flashes approximately 10 degrees. The first four bursts of light were in a straight line. When I saw the second one I thought that something was "bouncing" in and out of the atmosphere. I dismissed this idea when I realized that their intensity was constant."
- section from UFO Wisconsin report

Betty's Cafe

Cameron Poltergeist
PRIVATE PROPERTY

Rice Lake UFO Sightings

"...at first it appeared out of no where and was a very bright white light it started moving amazingly fast & far away and as it did it turned Bright GREEN!, this freaked us all out, and one of us assumed that it was a firework. someone else a asteroid/shooting star, but i beleive (sic) it was a UFO."
- section from UFO Wisconsin 05-28-04 report

The Weird Wisconsin website ponders the multitude of Devil-related place names in Wisconsin

Pioneers Rest Cemetery
aka Bantley Graveyard
PRIVATE PROPERTY

  Take County Road M from Canton north for 2 miles.  Turn right onto 17¼ Avenue¼ Avenue¼ Avenue¼ Avenue¼ Avenue.  Cross the Pokegame Creek.  Cemetery is on the right.

Object over Hayfield  (1967)

"He pulled over, killing the lights and we watched, spellbound as the object darted back and forth over the 20-acre plot. It was too maneuverable for an airplane, too quiet for a helicopter and too remote for some secret Air Force Project."
- section from UFO Wisconsin report

UFO Hovers over Family Car (2008)

A teardrop-shaped craft was witnessed at close range by several people near the Rice Lake Airport. 

"Ghosts of America" Haunted Location Reports
(take with a grain of salt)

The reports on this site are presumably fiction, using random Wisconsin place names in the stories listed there.  Even so, you might get a kick out of reading them.

"You will find the Pioneer Village a delight to the eye and a true educational experience as you tour through over forty buildings consisting of five large display buildings, including a one-of-a-kind exhibition hall with forty glass-front display cases filled with items from the distant pass. You will also inspect five historic log buildings that bring to mind the pioneer days. Along your way down Pioneer Street you will come across an early railroad depot, country school, dentist office, doctor's office, jail, blacksmith shop, newspaper office, library, meeting house, general store, post office, historic Ebenezer Lutheran Church, entertainment pavilion."
- section from the Official Site

  1870 13 1/2 Ave.
Cameron, WI  54822
(715) 458-2841

hours:
June thru Labor Day Weekend
(Thurs - Sun)  1pm – 5pm or by appointment

"Visitors to this museum will find a large collection of antiques and historical items from the Chetek area. "
- section from the Explore Wisconsin website

  321 Moore Street
Chetek, WI  54728
(715) 924-3195

hours:
June thru Labor Day  (Wed - Fri)  1pm – 5pm

"This old Indian trading route is remembered by a historical marker on the shore of Rice Lake overlooking the old rice beds. Pipestone and wild rice from Rice Lake were traded to other settlements. Northwest of the marker are pits which were likely used to store the wild rice harvest."
- section from the Explore Wisconsin website

"Modeled after camps in the Adirondacks, Stout's Lodge is a rustic yet somehow elegant hideaway on an island in the middle of Red Cedar Lake. F.D. Stout, one of the country's wealthiest men at the time, built this incredible place...Still standing, too, are a schoolhouse, picnic cabin, and a recreation house that could seat 200 for gatherings and was equipped with the state's first bowling alley, which doubled as a pistol range."
- section from Trails Media Group website

  (1 mile north of Mikana on Highway 48 at County Road V)
2799 27th St.
Birchwood, WI  54817
(715) 354-3646

hours:
May thru October