Denzer, Wisconsin

Our Lady of Loretto Roman Catholic Church and Cemetery is a historic rural church on County Highway C, 1 mile west of Denzer in Honey Creek, Wisconsin, United States. It was built in 1880 as a mission church for German settlers and was added to the National Register in 1990.Honey Creek was founded in 1852 as a mission of St. Aloysius Catholic parish in Sauk City, under Reverend Adelbert Inama. St. Aloysious also established Saint Luke's of Plain and Saint Patrick's of Loreta as missions about the same time. Worship was first held at Honey Creek in the living room of Katherine and John George Leidig, with the missionary priest walking 13 miles from Sauk City. By 1862 people were buried in the current cemetery at the foot of the bluff. In 1867 a log church was built on the cemetery's side of the road, but it burned shortly after, and the congregation resumed services in Leidigs' home.In 1880 the parish built the stone church very much as it stands today, across the road from the cemetery. Its walls are yellow limestone, randomly laid by local stonemasons Kasper Steuber and/or Peter Mettel and Nicolaus Allart. This uncoursed stone is framed by quoins of dressed limestone, and windows and doors are framed in the same. To make the church look more formal, the masons laid lines of mortar over the face of the uncoarsed stone, to suggest cut blocks. Windows and doors have lancet arches, a hallmark of Gothic architecture. Above the centered front door is a rose window, and above that is a square frame belfry with an octagonal steeple, topped with a simple cross.Inside is a single room, with twelves rows of original wooden pews on each side of a centered main aisle. At the front stands a wooden Gothic-style altar built by E. Briemayer of Milwaukee in 1883–84. To the right of the altar is a pot-bellied Jewel-brand stove. Left of the altar is a confession booth. Above it is a four-foot wooden cross, on which is written "Rette Diene Seele Mission-1860-1887". The first part is German for "save your soul," and the last part indicates it was used for mission services even before the church was built.The interior walls are plaster over lathe, then painted and stenciled - all remarkably original. Designs include stars, lattice, tulip shapes and urns. On the east and west walls are fading inscriptions: Alle Tage deines Lebens habe Gott in Deinem Herzen und Hute dich (Every day of your life have God in your heart and protect yourself) Ye in eine Sunde zu willigen. Tag 4. (Ye to consent to a sermon. Day 4.) Wer euch hort der hort Mich. Wer euch verachtet, der verachtet. (Whoever hears you hears me. Who despises you, despises me.) Du sollst Vater und Mutter ehren. 10 Geb. (You should honor your father and mother. 10 Geb.) Furchte den Herrn von deiner gauzen Seele und halte seine Priester in Ehren Jes Sirach. 7:31. (Fear the Lord of your wretched soul and honor his priests in the honor of Sirach. 7:31.) Nirgen ist ein Fehler gefahrlicher als hir. St. Greg. (Nowhere is a mistake more dangerous than hir.(?) St. Greg.)A caretaker's home was built nearby at the same time as the church. The first priest was Reverend Herman Grosse. Services were monthly and initially conducted in Latin. Later the language switched to German. After WWI, services switched to English. The church remained a mission church with services held monthly until 1942. By then attendance didn't justify that schedule, so services were cut back to several times each year. Edward Bender bought the caretaker's home in 1947 and moved it. In 1960 the mission church was closed.The cemetery across the road is backed by the wooded bluff. The earliest tombstone is from 1862. Grave markers include wrought iron crosses, simple slab markers, and modern, machine-cut stones. Names on the stones include Bethscheider, Bliven, Brylla, Conner, Conway, McKenna, Mehan, Mettel, O'Neill, Power and Unterholtzener. The German, Irish and English names are generally grouped in different parts of the cemetery.In 1973 Robert Jaedike bought the church for $1500, giving it to the Sauk Prairie Historical Society in 1975. Today County C still winds around the wooded bluff and between the church and cemetery. The church serves as a wedding chapel and a public museum on summer Sundays.

Natural Bridge State Park is a 530-acre (214 ha) state park of Wisconsin, United States, featuring Wisconsin's largest natural arch. Directly beneath the arch is the Raddatz Rockshelter, a rock shelter once used by Paleo-Indians and now listed on the National Register of Historic Places. The park is located southwest of Baraboo between the unincorporated communities of Leland and Denzer, in the town of Honey Creek.

The Honey Creek Swiss Rural Historic District is a national historic district in rural Sauk County, Wisconsin. The district encompasses 46 farms over 12 square miles (31 km2) which were settled by Swiss Americans in the 1840s and 1850s. The settlers were Walser people from the canton of Graubünden, and the Honey Creek area remained ethnically homogenous through the end of the nineteenth century. The district includes substantial log and stone houses from the period of early settlement, reflecting the wealth of the new settlers, as well as timber-framed homes within the fachwerk tradition. Later houses in the district reflect contemporary American architectural forms, such as the gable-ell pattern house. The settlers established two churches in the area in the 1850s, one for a German Evangelical congregation and one for a Swiss Reformed congregation; both original church buildings are still standing. The district also includes a variety of barns and agricultural buildings which illustrate the local transition from wheat farming to dairy farming over the nineteenth century.The district was added to the National Register of Historic Places on April 6, 1990.

Witwen is an populated place in the town of Troy, Sauk County, Wisconsin, United States. Witwen is located on County Highway E 8.4 miles (13.5 km) west of Sauk City.The community was named for G. and J. P. Witwen, the operators of a local mill.

Leland is an unincorporated community in the town of Honey Creek, Sauk County, Wisconsin, United States. Leland is located on County Highway C south of Natural Bridge State Park, 12 miles (19 km) west-northwest of Prairie du Sac.The community was named for Cyrus Leland, who built a sawmill around which the settlement coalesced.

Salem Evangelical Church in Plain, Wisconsin, also known as Salem United Methodist Church of Honey Creek Township, is a Gothic Revival church built in 1875. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1988. The congregation, which was formed in 1844, was the focus of the Swiss community.

Durst Rockshelter State Natural Area is a privately owned state natural area located roughly 1 mile (1.6 km) north of Leland, Wisconsin. The property encompasses a rock shelter inhabited by pre-Columbian Native Americans. Archaeological excavations at the rock shelter have uncovered projectile points and ceramic artifacts. The oldest artifacts date to the Archaic period from roughly 4000 to 3500 B.C., though the site was inhabited by multiple cultural groups across several periods of development. The rockshelter is surrounded by a mesic forest split by a sandstone ridge.The property is listed on the National Register of Historic Places as the Durst-Bloedau Site. It is owned by The Nature Conservancy and public access is restricted without permission.

Black Hawk is an unincorporated community in the town of Troy, Sauk County, Wisconsin, United States. Black Hawk is located on County Highway C 5.9 miles (9.5 km) east of Plain.

Harrisburg School is a historic one-room schoolhouse at E7646 County Trunk Highway B in the town of Troy in rural Sauk County, Wisconsin. The Harrisburg School District built the school in 1892 to replace its original 1856 school building, which the district had outgrown by the 1890s. The one-story school is 26 by 38 feet (7.9 by 11.6 m) and has clapboard siding and a gable roof topped by a wooden belfry over the entrance. As the community of Harrisburg was quite small, the school mainly served children living on farms in the surrounding area. A furnace was added to the school in 1908, and the Works Progress Administration added a basement and new ceilings to the structure in the 1930s. The school closed in 1955 as a result of rural school consolidation in Sauk County.The building was added to the National Register of Historic Places on March 24, 2015.

The Town of Troy is located in Sauk County, Wisconsin, United States. The population was 773 at the 2000 census. The unincorporated communities of Black Hawk, Cassell, and Witwen are located in the town.

The Town of Prairie du Sac is located in southwestern Sauk County, Wisconsin, United States. The population was 1,138 at the 2000 census. The Village of Prairie du Sac is located within the town. The unincorporated community of Loddes Mill is also located in the town.

Dr. Evermor's Forevertron is the 2nd largest scrap metal sculpture in the world, standing 50 ft. (15,2 m.) high and 120 ft. (36,5 m.) wide, and weighing 300 tons. Built in the 1980s, it is housed in Dr. Evermor's Art Park on Highway 12, in the town of Sumpter, in Sauk County, Wisconsin, United States. The sculpture incorporates two Thomas Edison dynamos from the 1880s, lightning rods, high-voltage components from 1920s power plants, scrap from the nearby Badger Army Ammunition Plant, and the decontamination chamber from the Apollo 11 spacecraft. Its creator, Tom Every (1938 - 2020), was born in Brooklyn, Wisconsin and was a demolition expert who spent decades collecting antique machinery for the sculpture and the surrounding fiction that justifies it. According to Every, Dr. Evermor was a Victorian inventor who designed the Forevertron to launch himself, "into the heavens on a magnetic lightning force beam." The Forevertron, despite its size and weight, was designed to be relocatable to a different site—the sculpture is built in sections that are connected by bolts and pins.In addition to the Forevertron itself, the sculpture includes a tea house gazebo from which Every says: "Queen Victoria and Prince Albert may observe the launching of Dr. Evermor; it also includes a giant telescope where skeptics may observe the ascent." Dr. Evermor's art park is home to a large number of other sculptures, many of which relate to the Forevertron, such as the Celestial Listening Ear and the Overlord Master Control Tower. Other large-scale sculptures include gigantic insects (the Juicer Bug and Arachna Artie), the Epicurean bellows-driven barbecue train, The Dragon, and The UFO. The most numerous sculptures are the Bird Band and Orchestra which includes nearly 70 birds ranging from the size of a child to twenty feet tall, all made from scrap industrial parts, geological survey markers, knives, loudspeakers, springs, and musical instruments, among other salvaged materials.Every related that he took pride in allowing the original materials to remain unaltered as much as possible, using their original forms in new juxtapositions to create his aesthetic. Although Every has now passed, tours of the art park site can generally be accessed from passing through the surplus store adjacent to it, Delaney's Surplus. Every also created much of the installation art for the House on the Rock, including the world's largest carousel.