Igor's gone, and cheese lovers mourn

Bill Wundram

THIS is not to say that Igor the Mouse was looking ratty (bad choice of words), but he has disappeared from the route that most Quad-Citizens take to the Northland.

Igor, along U.S. 61 in Fennimore, Wis., was the town's landmark, about a hundred miles north of the Q-C. He has stood there for 35 years, grinning and about to sink his teeth into a big slab of Swiss.

The disappearance of Igor, a lovable critter almost the height of a house, is making lots of people unhappy. Igor stood for cheese. He greeted motorists, the first thing they saw in this town of 2,387 cheese heads. To see Igor was to know that you were in the northland.

When Fennimore Cheese Co. was sold to Carr Valley Cheese — which has other outlets around the state — the new ownership apparently thought Igor no longer fit the company image.

"That's too bad," says Karla Rand, Fennimore's deputy city clerk. "Igor put us on the map. I could be in Colorado and tell someone that I was from Fennimore, and they would say, ‘Oh, that's the town with the big mouse.' "

Steve Bahl, owner of the cheese company/store who sold to new owners, is saddened by the loss of Igor. "I can't say what happened to him, but I'd guess he's been towed out to the back 40," he says.

That would make Igor, the city mouse, into Igor, the country mouse. Bahl found that big Fiberglas  mouse, abandoned in a ditch, by another cheese company that had closed. "I spruced him up and everyone loved him. I found him on the day that Igor Stravinsky, the great musician, died. That's why I named him Igor."

Igor was so popular that postcards of him are available. He has been more than an attraction; once, he was a suspect. When President George W. Bush campaigned in Wisconsin, his caravan passed through Fennimore. Before Bush's arrival, Secret Service personnel were all over Igor to make sure no one was hiding inside.

As to Igor's future, Sid Cook, the new owner of the cheese company and store where Igor stood, could not be reached for comment. "But I don't see that Igor will ever come back," says Bahl.

Among those missing Igor are Dr. Dave and Ginny Samuelson, Davenport. "On our last Wisconsin trip, we stopped at the cheese factory to buy some squeaky cheese curds and noticed that Igor was gone," the dentist says.

"The clerk suggested that people who miss Igor should write the mayor of Fennimore for help in bringing him back."

Says Mayor Richard Rogers: "That mouse was a happy representative for Fennimore. We miss him." If anyone cares to write hizzoner, the address is Box 17, Fennimore, Wis., 53809.

Mice? Two for one

Shudder, for a second. While on the aforementioned, Bea Marten, who lives near Scott County Park in  Long Grove, reports the unlikely:

"I just caught two mice in the same trap in our garage. Both of them must have been really greedy for that peanut butter bait."

Bill Wundram can be contacted at (563) 383-2249 or bwundram@qctimes.net.