The Dells through a child's eyes

Chapter 4 - The Dells

Ourfirst trip in the new camper was a weekend getaway to Wisconsin Dells.Now, it is known as the Water Park Capital of the World, but in 1966, it was acalm, restful place for parents to let their young children discover all thatis kitschy, while Mom and Dad try to absorb the natural surroundings of rockand water.

          Henry Hamilton Bennett is creditedwith putting the area on the map. In the late 1800s, when the Dells was calledKilbourn City, Bennett began taking photographs of the natural wonders alongthe Wisconsin River. He experimented with new and innovative photography andchanged many aspects of how pictures were captured. As word spread of theamazing photographs he sold, tourists began journeying to Kilbourn City to seethese places for themselves.

          H. H. Bennett Studio is still on MainStreet, and as part of the National Register of Historic Places, it serves as ahistorical museum.

          In the 1920s, enough Americans ownedautomobiles that they could truly flock to The Dells. In the first half of thetwentieth century, the beauty of the Dells themselves, the rock formationscarved by thousands of years of the rush of the Wisconsin River and the work ofglaciers were what people came to see. The famous ducks, amphibious vehiclesengineered and first used by the military, would ferry tourists across land anddirectly into the water for scenic views of the area beginning in the late1940s.

          By the 1950s various entrepreneurs sawopportunities to expand the tourist attractions. One of the first suchattractions was Storybook Gardens and Mother Goose Land. These beautifullylandscaped grounds had life-size figures from all the beloved fairy tales of myyouth. There was a little cottage with statues of the three bears, waitingto greet any girl willing to be their Goldilocks. There was the wallHumpty Dumpty sat on precariously. There were three men in a tub in the middleof a pond. Many more settings from children's stories dotted the grounds.

          When my family visited the Dells in1966, Pat and I ran from one fairytale scene to the next. We pretended toeat porridge with the bear family and carried on imaginary conversations withsome statute children outside a giant shoe. We climbed the crooked ladderto the roof of the crooked home of the crooked man and his crooked wife andslid down the crooked slide.

Storybook Gardens closed in 2010, and thelocal fire department burned down the big boat at the entrance the followingyear as part of their training exercises. It's a shame that today's childrendon't have the chance to live out fairytales like my generation did. It's ashame that their idea of fun is going down the waterslide over and over againwithout using any imagination. Do they even know about Mother Goose?

          For me, though, since I can't swim, itwould always be enough to frolic in the grass and pretend that I was Little RedRiding Hood.

Anyone who has seen any pictures of Wisconsin Dells, has seen these iconic formations. When H.H. Bennett started photographing the area, he took pictures of his son jumping across this space. Now they have a German Shepherd do it. And there is a net underneath him. I took this pictures in October of 2021 when Hubby and I spent a weekend in the Dells.