Wisconsin Trivia & Tidbits - Page 2

Looking for Wisconsin trivia? Try our list Wisconsin little know facts, tidbits and trivia.

—Since 1972, Don Gorske, 54, of Fond du Lac (pop. 42,203), has eaten 23,000 Big Macs from McDonald’s, and he has the burger receipts to prove it. In 36 years, Gorske has missed his daily Big Mac only eight times.

first appeared: 1/11/2009

—On a per-capita basis, Menominee County (pop. 4,562) provided more soldiers to the U.S. Army from 2004 to 2007—with 34 recruits and a recruitment rate of 18.5 percent—than any other county in the nation without a major Army installation.

first appeared: 12/29/2008

—At the Harley-Davidson Museum in Milwaukee is Elvis Presley’s 1956 KH model, bought the year he had a No. 1 hit with “Heartbreak Hotel.” In the original January 1956 paperwork for the monthly $50.15 installments, Elvis lists his occupation as “vocalist-self-employed.” The museum opened in July.

first appeared: 11/30/2008

—The world’s largest talking cow is Chatty Belle in Neillsville (pop. 2,731). The 16-foot-high cow statue chats about the state’s dairy industry when you deposit a quarter.

first appeared: 11/16/2008

—National Baseball Hall of Famer Hank Aaron, who hit 755 home runs during his major league career, began his career for the minor league Eau Claire Bears at Carson Park Stadium in Eau Claire (pop. 61,704) in 1952. A statue at the stadium depicts “Hammerin’ Hank” when he was an 18-year-old shortstop.

first appeared: 11/2/2008

—Children of La Pointe (pop. 246) on Madeline Island travel to school in Bayfield (pop. 611) on a windsled, a locally designed school bus on skis, several weeks a year when Lake Superior is frozen, preventing ferry travel.

first appeared: 10/19/2008

—Opened in 1893 by businessman Guido Pfister and his son, Charles, the lavish Pfister Hotel in Milwaukee features a grand marble staircase and has the largest collection of 19th-century Victorian art of any hotel in the world.

first appeared: 10/5/2008

—Artist Vinnie Ream, who sculpted the marble statue of Abraham Lincoln in the U.S. Capitol, was the first woman and the youngest artist, only 18, to receive a commission from the U.S. government for a statue. She was born in 1847 in Madison.

first appeared: 9/21/2008

—The election for the Bohners Lake Sanitary District commissioner seat in Burlington (pop. 9,936) ended last April with candidates Denise Rintz and Thomas Sondej each receiving 145 votes. The town found an easy solution. They dropped the names in a box and picked one: Rintz.

first appeared: 9/7/2008

—The world’s largest calzone, made with 83 pounds of dough and measuring 19 feet, 4 inches, was rolled out last November at Lovshack Calzones in Madison. A calzone is an Italian turnover made of pizza dough and stuffed with cheese, meat, vegetables and other fillings.

first appeared: 8/24/2008

—At Wyalusing State Park near Bagley (pop. 339), you can camp 500 feet above the confluence of the Wisconsin and Mississippi rivers. The park’s bluff-top trails are especially popular with birdwatchers.

first appeared: 8/10/2008

—In September 1962, the Soviets’ Sputnik IV satellite plummeted to Earth, and a 20-pound fragment landed in Manitowoc (pop. 34,053). A brass ring marks the spot where the metal chuck was found embedded in the street.

first appeared: 7/27/2008

—Frank Oresnik of Catawba (pop. 283) affectionately calls his 1991 Chevrolet Silverado pickup truck “the old girl.” The truck passed 1 million miles in February while a film crew recorded the event and a public radio audience listened. Oresnik has had the truck’s oil changed more than 300 times, so often that the oil pan drain plug had to be rethreaded several times.

first appeared: 7/13/2008

—From 1863 to 1947, Raspberry Island Lighthouse in the Apostle Islands was home to keepers and their families. Today, an automated beacon guides vessels on Lake Superior, but the restored lighthouse is open for tours.

first appeared: 6/29/2008

—If incoming freshmen this fall at Ripon (pop. 6,828) College don’t bring a car to campus, the college will give them a free mountain bicycle, helmet and lock, valued at $400. The bike giveaway is designed to encourage good health and to help with the problem of overcrowded campus parking lots.

first appeared: 6/15/2008

—A statue of Arthur “Fonzie” Fonzarelli, the leather-jacketed biker played by Henry Winkler in television’s Happy Days, will be erected in Milwaukee, where the 1970s sitcom was set. Local groups raised $85,000 for the “Bronze the Fonz” project.

first appeared: 6/1/2008

—For 55 years, Laverne and Beverly Maves of Edgerton (pop. 4,933) delivered the Wisconsin State Journal. Both in their 80s, the couple, who worked seven days a week, 365 days a year, retired in February.

first appeared: 5/18/2008

—Fond du Lac (pop. 42,203) cooked up the largest vat of cheese fondue in the world last year in an 8-foot-wide fondue pot with a capacity for 2,500 pounds of cheese. The dipping forks were 7 feet long.

first appeared: 5/4/2008

—Milwaukee native Tom Snyder pioneered the late-late network TV talk show, The Tomorrow Show, which followed The Tonight Show on NBC from 1973 to 1982. Snyder died last July.

first appeared: 3/9/2008

—Gills Rock originally was known as Hedgehog Harbor after a family of hedgehogs chewed holes in the hull of fisherman Amos Lovejoy’s boat. In 1870, the community was renamed Gills Rock in honor of lumberman Elias Gill.

first appeared: 2/24/2008

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