Wednesday, January 18, 2023

Little Norway

AVI posted about a 75-year-old travelogue about New Hampshire and suggested that there might be some for other states.

Yes, there was one from about 15 years later. (No, the Badger State was not named after the animal badger, but the mining kind.) It claimed that Little Norway was close to Madison, which seemed odd since I've never been there.

It was a tourist farm centered around a building built by Norway for the 1893 Columbia Exhibition, which was moved to Wisconsin. "After the end of World War II, the owners had offered to sell the facility the State of Wisconsin for $1 but the state didn't want to take on the maintenance of the property." What with upkeep and taxes the facility couldn't make it go, so they closed.

If I still want to visit it I can, but it's more of an adventure--"a delegation from Orkdal" bought the place, raised private and public funds to move it, and it is back where it started 124 years before.

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