MENUWeekly Column
Each week a small segment of Vernon County history is published in the county papers.
For the week of 11/23/2025
by Kristen Parrott, curator
The Vernon County Museum and History Center is now on its winter hours of Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday, 11AM to 4PM, or by appointment. Note that we will be closed on Thursday, November 27, for Thanksgiving.
Plans for our annual Holiday History Tour are taking shape! This year’s tour will feature five historic buildings in and around Viroqua. The tour will be held on Sunday, December 14, from 12:30 to 4PM. Start at the Vernon County Museum and History Center to enjoy holiday treats, tour the exhibits (now in heated comfort!), and purchase tickets. Tickets are $10 for adults and $5 for children ages 5 to 12 (children under 5 are free).
Other stops on the tour include two schoolhouses, both the Colonel May School on Hwy. 56 west of Viroqua, and the Foreaker School at 606 W. Broadway. The Colonel May Schoolhouse was built in 1922, and has just been renovated into a short-term rental. The Foreaker was built in 1888, and will be filled with holiday decorations made by local schoolchildren.
The final two stops are the historic St. Mary’s Church, located next to the Foreaker School, and the Sherry-Butt House at 795 N. Main St. The church will feature live holiday music all afternoon, with different musicians playing each half-hour from 1 to 3PM. It will also be the site of our popular hot chocolate bar! And the house, built in 1870, will be decorated for the season and open for tours.
Remember that the Vernon County Historical Society’s annual sweepstakes drawing will be held on Wednesday, December 17, at 4PM, at the History Center. Suggested donation for tickets is $5 each, and the prizes are all cash, from $50 to $300.
Next year we will commemorate 250 years since the start of our nation. July 4, 2026, will mark 250 years since the signing of the Declaration of Independence in 1776, and the creation of the United States of America. We continue to create new exhibits at the museum for the 250th, and the latest is called “Fashion of ‘76”. This clothing exhibit is found on the 3rd floor of the museum. It features dresses worn by women during the U.S. bicentennial of 1976, and explores ideas behind these clothing styles. More exhibits for the U.S. 250th are in development and will be appearing soon!
A new exhibit has just opened about the costumes and clothing of the U.S. bicentennial.
For the week of 11/16/2025
by Kristen Parrott, curator
November is Native American Heritage Month. The Vernon County Museum and History Center is always seeking to increase its knowledge and information about Native people, particularly those who live here in Vernon County now and those who lived here in the past.
Our museum collection includes a few historic Native items, such as 20th-century Ho-Chunk baskets, and a larger number of prehistoric Native objects, including projectile points like spear heads and arrowheads. These objects are found throughout the museum exhibits.
The U.S. 250th exhibit on the 1st floor explores five different themes that we will be focusing on as we approach our nation’s 250th birthday, and one of these themes is “We the People”. This theme is illustrated by stone tools that were once used by Native people who lived here thousands of years ago. Most stone tools found in Vernon County date to the Archaic Period, 8000 to 500 B.C., when a large population lived here.
Our American Indian room is located on the second floor. In this exhibit space you can learn more about the prehistoric Native people of this region, and you can pick up lots of brochures about the Ho-Chunk people past and present. This topic is too big for one small room, so it flows outside the door with maps of where Wisconsin’s tribes are located, and basic information about the Ho-Chunk Nation. Also on this floor is a small exhibit about 19th-century Ho-Chunk village and camp sites in what is now called Vernon County.
Then on the third floor you can find the military exhibits that were mentioned in last week’s column, one on Captain Joshua Sanford, a World War II fighter pilot of Ho-Chunk heritage with roots in Hillsboro, and one on the Black Hawk War of 1832, which ended near what is now the village of Victory. Also on this floor is our “Crossroads of Cultures” exhibit, exploring some of the different ethnicities that have called Vernon County home over the years, including American Indians.
Much more information on Wisconsin tribes and specifically on the Ho-Chunk can be found in our archives. Various primary and secondary sources, including maps, scholarly articles, and newspaper clippings, help tell a fuller story. You can visit the museum and history center to enjoy the exhibits and do research in the archives during our regular winter hours of Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday, 11AM to 4PM, or by appointment.
And you can learn more about Native American Heritage Month from this website, which is a collaboration amongst the Library of Congress, National Archives and Records Administration, National Endowment for the Humanities, National Gallery of Art, National Park Service, Smithsonian Institution, and United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.
One of the exhibits about Native peoples
featured at the Vernon County Museum and History Center.
The previous two articles: