Every bank keeps a ledger. Ours records better things: new drinks, town news, and the occasional story worth telling twice.
The last ice age flattened most of Wisconsin and skipped this corner. We kept the ridges, the coulees, and the best fall in the state. When the color peaks, and what to listen for at dusk.
Read the entry →On November 27, 1882, five brothers from Baraboo staged their first show in Mazomanie, a few blocks from our counter. Two years later they had a circus. In 1907 they bought Barnum & Bailey.
Read the entry →A folder of 2008 clippings from the Wall Street Gallery, a village that reawakened, and the people who did the waking. Also: a chief named Walking Iron, and the first show the Ringling Brothers ever gave.
Read the entry →Every coffee adds a regular to the line behind you, and the line follows exactly where you walked. That is the problem. The back office computer has been waiting since 1997.
Read the entry →Five locks, one watchman, and a needle that whispers when you are close. What waits behind the big door does not go in the newspaper. Ask the tellers.
Read the entry →Four teller windows, one espresso machine, and the morning line forming the way it always has. Downstream of the creek, as usual. Read the fine print.
Read the entry →One runs the town in 1855. One floats the creek. Finding them is the first level. The ducks are friends.
Read the entry →We rebuilt our website from scratch, and we may have hidden a few things in it. A word of advice: old bank buildings reward the curious.
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