Bluebird Hill Cottage

I had a three-day weekend, and Tom and I took advantage of it by visiting Mineral Point.

Mineral Point is tucked in the rolling hills of Southwest Wisconsin in the area described as "driftless". Left untouched by the glaciers, minerals at the surface of the land could be readily discovered. The discovery of lead gave rise to the first "mineral rush" in the United States and Mineral Point grew to be the largest, most important settlement in the area.

In 1830 Mineral Point had a population greater than that of Milwaukee and Chicago combined. The Territory of Wisconsin came into being with the inauguration of Henry Dodge as the first governor on July 4, 1836 in Mineral Point. (The same year as Texas independence from Mexico.)

Some of the 19th century Cornish miners' stone houses have been restored at a historical site known as Pendarvis. In the 1960s artists, craftspeople and preservationists began restoration of more historic buildings. In 1971, Mineral Point became the first city in Wisconsin listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

Today it is worth a visit because of all the artists who work and sell their works as well, often in shops housed in some of the restored historic buildings. Unfortunately, the economy seems to have taken its toll, because there were fewer galleries than when we visited about three years ago and lots of empty storefronts on High Street. Tom got into an extended conversation with Frank Polizzi of Mulberry Pottery and wound up buying a small piece from him.

We stayed at Bluebird Hill Cottage, which is owned by Harriet Story, one of the local artists. She is a potter who lives in a barn a short distance from the cottage. The barn also serves as her studio, but she has a gallery in town. It turns out Harriet grew up in Georgia, although she moved to Wisconsin in the '60s with her husband. She even provided real Georgia peaches in our welcome basket.

The cottage was great. Built in the Prairie Style (think Frank Lloyd Wright), it had a stone fireplace, fully equipped kitchen, 3 bedrooms, 2 baths, whirlpool, 2 patios with picnic table and came with the use of an 18-acre property with pond. Harriet only rents to one party at a time, so we had the place to ourselves. Well, ourselves, lots of birds, butterflies and dragonflies over the prairie flowers, chipmunks and rabbits on the lawn and a black poodle who was determined to play fetch as long as Tom was willing to cooperate.

We only stayed one night, but it would be a nice place to spend more time. Very peaceful and private with a lovely breeze up on the hill overlooking rolling terrain and picture-perfect farms with a distant backdrop of church towers and old mansions.

On the way back today we had intended to visit Taliesen, Frank Lloyd Wright's home and studio near Spring Green. Most of the tours were already booked solid, so we decided to do that another day. We did visit Unity Chapel, established by his mother's family (the Lloyd Jones clan) and where most of the family is buried. Frank Lloyd Wright's tombstone is there, but his body was moved to Arizona by his second wife. The Unity Chapel cemetery is where Wright's mistress, Martha Borthwick Cheney, was buried in 1914 after she was murdered along with her two children and four others by a servant at Taliesen. Although there is no doubt about who committed the crime, Wisconsin's first mass murder, the motive remains a mystery.

Since we could not tour Taliesen, we stopped at a gallery in Spring Green and then headed home. Happily, we wound up in the small town of Plain just as their annual parade in honor of the fire department and EMS began. So we stayed and watched, shaking hands with a number of political candidates who were working the crowd and watching kids scramble for candy thrown from parade vehicles.

We stopped in Reedsburg for lunch, a little window shopping and finally made it home in time for me to take a badly needed nap. The indefatigable Tom did a bit of mowing while Sundance and I snoozed.