We've got flooding in the Midwest, and one victim is the water from Lake Delton, Wisconsin.
For those not from these parts, Lake Delton is the companion city to Wisconsin Dells, which is the Midwest's little bit of Las Vegas kitsch, smack dab in the middle of Wisconsin. Lake Delton is home to a funky diner, a decent vegetarian restaurant (called the Cheese Factory), and numerous family-owned resorts -- which, until a few days ago, had waterfront property.
According to the Milwaukee Journal:
On Sunday, man-made Lake Delton covered 267 acres and held more than 600 million gallons of water. On Monday, it was all but drained within two hours after the shore gave way, less than a quarter-mile from the dam that controls the lake. The breach created a ferocious current as the water tumbled into the Wisconsin River 40 feet below. The failure destroyed homes and dealt a blow to an important piece of the Wisconsin Dells-area tourism industry just as the high season was about to open.Heavy rains are to blame, of course. But I have a different theory about the real cause.
On a recent trip to Madison, I made a stop in Lake Delton to show my traveling companions (who were Dells neophytes) one of the few actually cool things in the Dells area: The Wonder Spot. To my shock, we found that the Wonder Spot was no longer there!
Some quick research showed that it was taken down in 2007 by the Town of Lake Delton to make way for a road. Probably so they could build some more resorts or vacation homes on the now-empty lake.
Opened in 1952, the Wonder Spot was a true "roadside attraction" in the original sense of the word. It was just a little gift shop on the main drag in Lake Delton. You would walk down some wooden steps from the shop into a wooded ravine, until you reached a small shack built on the hill. After that, it got a bit odd.
The folks who ran it talked a good game about it having abnormal gravity and so on, as you can see here. But basically, the shack was built perpendicular to the hill, but appeared to have been built "plumb," or upright. And so when you got inside it, your eyes told you that things were defying gravity. It was pretty convincing!
Anyway, it was all great fun in a mild, pre-Disney World kind of way that I appreciated.
So I like to think that the hole that drained Lake Delton was the revenge of the Wonder Spot, reversing gravity one final time.
2 comments:
I loved this. I was researching the Wonder Spot to take my kids as I went there once when I was a kid visiting family who live in the The Dells. I've never been back but while discussing where to vacation, I immediately thought of the fun I had here. Sad it's gone, and even more sad to find out it's not altered gravity :(
But the bit at the end about the revenge of the Wonder Spot reversing gravity made me smile as if I'd just received an anonymous postcard from a long ago friend from some distant place with just enough detail to let me know it was them. I know it's 13 years later but just wanted to let you know that was very well written and put a smile on this old face. Thanks for that.
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