September 23-25, 2017 Friday-Sunday
We have been in Sheboygan, Wisconsin for four days waiting for fair seas and have been pleasantly surprised by its rich history and interesting sites. With time on our hands, we hiked in the Sheboygan Indian Mound Park and the Kohler-Andrae State Park. Explored the area around the Blue Harbor Boardwalk and Resort, walked the beach at Deland Park next to our marina, enjoyed the Saturday farmer’s market and visited the John Michael Kohler Arts Center and Bookworm Garden. The farmer’s market was unique in that most of the vendors were of Vietnamese descent. Sheboygan has a large population of the Hmong Vietnamese who fled Vietnam after the Communist takeover. These Hmong Americans are very accomplished farmers and grow wonderful looking fruit and vegetables.
The Sheboygan Indian Mound Park which contains 18 Indian effigy mounds distributed over 15 acres. An effigy mound is a raised pile of earth built in the shape of a stylized animal, symbol, human, or other figure and generally containing one or more human burials. A unique feature of the park is an exhibit of an open mound with a burial inside.
Kohler-Andrae State Park has two miles of sandy beach and contains one of the state’s largest collections of rare interdunal wetlands. We enjoy hiking both the Creeping Juniper Nature Trail and the Dunes Cordwalk, the two-mile-long cordwalk that snakes through the dunes gave us a close-up view of the unique landscape with signs that describe plant life, geological history, and animal life.
John Michael Kohler Arts Center, currently celebrating its 50th year, is a not-for-profit art museum operated by the Sheboygan Arts Foundation and has world-class exhibitions, not to be missed are the award-winning washrooms. Currently on exhibit is the home of Loy Allen Bowlin, also known as The Original Rhinestone Cowboy. His artwork largely included bejeweling his clothing, Cadillac, home and even his dentures with thousands of rhinestones.
Bookworm Garden is an enchanting botanical garden based on children’s literature a bus for The Magic School Bus, a barn for Charlotte’s Web, a hollow tree with a door for Winnie the Pooh, a log cabin for Little House in Big the Woods, and much more. Simply charming and so much fun to watch the children enjoying books coming to life.
On Monday we visited the Kohler Design Center and went on the their “Industry in Action” factory tour which was a three-hour tour that took us through the cast iron, brass, and pottery sections of the plant. Imagine seeing a 6-foot red hot cast iron bathtub being brought from the oven to receive its enamel coating. Today that whole process is done by robots but just a few years ago it was all done by hand. Kohler has been making bathtubs since 1883 when John Michael Kohler took a cast-iron horse trough, added four decorative feet to the bottom, and covered it with an enamel finish.
During World War I Kohler made mine anchors, projectiles, and shells, during World War II it made precision valves and fittings for use in aircraft, such as the DC-3 and B-29 and built a variety of electric generators for the armed forces and produced 105mm and three-inch artillery shells, as well as forgings for rockets and other shells, fuses, torpedo tubes, piston rings, shell rotating bands, and engine bearings. For the Korean War, the company produced 105 mm shells.
The Design Center showcases hundreds of the company’s popular and innovative designs in room settings and functional displays in its 36,000 square foot three-story building, with a historical Kohler display in the basement. Unfortunately, we were not allowed to take pictures, but we did get lots of ideas for remodeling our kitchen and bathrooms.
