"Up Wisconsin's West Coast"

Southern terminus: Grant County, at the Illinois state line in East Dubuque

Northern terminus: Douglas County, at the I-535/U.S. 53 bridge in Superior

Mileage: about 412 miles

Counties along the way: Grant, Crawford, Vernon, La Crosse, Trempealeau, Buffalo, Pepin, Pierce, St. Croix, Polk, Burnett, Douglas

Sample towns along the way: Dickeyville, Lancaster, Prairie du Chien, La Crosse, Alma, Prescott, River Falls, Hudson, Siren, Superior

Bypass alternates at: Lancaster, La Crosse

Quickie Summary: State “Trunk” Highway 35 is Wisconsin's western backbone in most places, serving as the "Great River Road" along much of the Mississippi and a key connector route between western Wisconsin towns. It's usually the westernmost route in Wisconsin, and runs the length of the state from Illinois to Duluth, Minnesota. In fact, it's the longest route on Wisconsin's state trunk system.

Highway 35 enters from East Dubuque, Illinois on its 412-mile path to Superior.

The Drive (South To North): Highway 35 begins at the Illinois state line in East Dubuque, Illinois. It used to be the main route into Wisconsin from the Dubuque, Iowa area; now the U.S. 61/151 freeway takes care of that. Dubuque, by the way, is a beautiful Mississippi River town with bluffs a'plenty framing the Iowa, Illinois and Wisconsin sides. If you decide to ride Highway 35 from the state line, hit the U.S. 61/151 bridge or the U.S. 20 bridge from East Dubuque and take in the views.

After hooking up with Highway 11, 35 jogs west onto the U.S. 61/151 Freeway as it comes in from Dubuque and Highway 35 breaks off with U.S. 61 after a few miles on the freeway and heads into Dickeyville (pop. 1,043). Dickeyville is probably best known for the Dickeyville Grotto, one of the most noted and beautiful grottos in the country. The Grotto was built between 1925 and 1931 and religion, patriotism, stones, glass pieces, seashells and costume jewelry still mix in the grotto to this day.

Built in the 1920s with materials donated by parishoners, the Dickeyville Grotto was built to demonstrate the patriotism of Catholics - apparently in response to what some Protestants were saying at the time. A renovation in the mid-1990s restored many of the materials to their original splendor.

Following Highway 35 (still coupled with U.S. 61) out of Dickeyville, you're in Paris. Well, the town of Paris, but still...anyway, you're running along high ridges on occasion, with the bluffs lining the Mississippi to the west and a vast view to the east. In fact, to the east on a clear day along this stretch, the world's largest "M" is visible, a historic monument completed by UW-Platteville engineering students in 1937. It is constructed of rocks arranged 241 feet high and 214 feet wide and looks at the land from a 45-degree angle on Platte Mound, about 12 miles away. Ahead, though, is the "twin towns" of Tennyson (pop. 370) and Potosi (pop. 711), known as "Wisconsin's Catfish Capital."

The "M" outside Platteville is visible from Highway 35, over 12 miles away; approaching Tennyson and Potosi, Highway 133 takes the reins of the Great River Road for a while.

Side Trip: Potosi Highway 35 cuts through Tennyson, but a left on Highway 133 brings you into Potosi, along the "World's Longest Main Street Without an Intersection." Potosi will be home to the National Brewery Museum, now under construction in the home of the former Potosi Brewing Company, which did its share of brewing from 1852 to 1972. St. John's Lead Mine is the oldest mine in the state and provides tours - it's perpetually 50 degrees in there, so dress accordingly - every day but Wednesday for $5.50 (608-763-2121). This mine dates back to the 1700s. Beer is key in the history of Potosi (pop. 671), and will be key to its future. The National Brewery Museum and Library opened along Highway 133 last year. The Potosi Brewing Company busily brewed beer here from 1852 to 1972, and the former brewery's buildings were renovated for the museum, which also features a microbrewery, a restaurant with an outdoor beer garden and a gift shop (you knew there was a gift shop coming.) We WILL be checking it out soon - and if you have and want to share details, let us know! You can't pass up the historical marker, right? Find out about Potosi's 1840s boom period and more here (click on picture for a larger view). The Petosi Brewing Company fell into decline, as seen in this picture from the late '90s. Highway 133 serves as a long, long main street for Potosi. Past the downtown area and the future museum, you pass St. John Mine. The mine was a natural cave worked by Native Americans and then European immigrants, both before and after the "Lead Rush" of 1827. The mine is named after Willis St, John, who made a small fortune in the first twenty years of the lead rush. Tours are available daily, and you can see stalactites (those icicle-looking rock things hanging down in caves) and realize that, whatever your working conditions are, you have it great compared to 19th century miners. The World's Longest Main Street is another claim to fame for Potosi. It is described as the longest Main Street without an intersection. While others will dispute that, hey, who are we to question it? It IS long. And a nice drive, too. It's a great vantage point for observing wildlife, since Potosi is perched on the Upper Mississippi River Refuge, part of the 261 mile-long stretch along the river that serves as home to countless waterfowl, fish and a huge variety of birds...including bald eagles. We'll cover more about that in Cassville. Evidence of the Potosi Brewing Company is everywhere, including this tower that resembles an old-fashioned beer can. Their main brand was known as "Good Old" Potosi Beer, which was brewed here for 120 years in its first incarnation. In 2008, it was revived.

Past Tennyson, Highway 35/U.S. 61 winds past British Hollow and makes a beeline to Grant County's county seat, Lancaster (pop. 4,070). Known as the "City of the Dome" for its handsome Grant County Courthouse, Lancaster's town square brings together Highway 35, U.S. 61, and Highway 81 around a series of stores, a park, and the big green dome made of glass and copper. The park surrounding the courthouse features one of the oldest Civil War monuments in the nation. Near Lancaster is one of the first African-American communities in Wisconsin, founded in 1849. It's now called Pleasant Ridge and is outlined along with other area history at the local Cunningham Museum. A good overnight stop is Martha's Hot Mustard & Bed & Breakfast (7867 University Farm Rd., 608-723-4711), which is exactly as it sounds: a B&B that also makes hot mustards.

Lancaster is called the "City of the Dome" because of this... dome. Built in 1905, this octagonal glass and copper topper to the Grant County Courthouse stands as the crown jewel in the town square of the Grant County Seat.

Highway 35 splits off U.S. 61 at Lancaster (they cross again in La Crosse, French for "The Crosse") and joins Highway 81 for 7 miles. Highway 81 then breaks off toward Cassville while 35 turns north again, is joined by Highway 133 again, and hits U.S. 18. Here, you approach the Wisconsin River and Wyalusing State Park. Wyalusing features beautiful, abrupt bluffs and cliffs overlooking the point where the Wisconsin River blends into the Mississippi. This is a prime spot for camping and hiking, just south of the PDC.

And "the PDC" on the State Trunk Tour is Prairie du Chien (pop. 6,018), Wisconsin's second oldest city (Green Bay is the oldest, in case you were wondering) contains five National Historic Landmarks. The Fox and Sauk tribes were here for hundreds of years prior to French explorers arriving and saying "voila!" Early establishment began in 1673, with the first trading posts developed in 1685 by French explorer Nicholas Perrot. Fur trade, along with Prairie du Chien's natural location near the Wisconsin River and Mississippi River confluence, guaranteed the small settlement would prosper for years to come. Prairie du Chien's history spans five centuries, including the only significant Wisconsin battle in the War of 1812. PDC's first fort, Fort Shelby, was built by Americans built captured by the British in the War. By 1816, it had been replaced with Fort Crawford. The Black Hawk War, which took place in 1832, featured a commanding officer in the form of Colonel Zachary Taylor, who later became 12th President of the United States. A lieutenant during the same time named Jefferson Davis not only married Zachary Taylor's daughter (named Sarah "Knoxie" Taylor, proving cutesy nicknames existed in the 19th century), he later became President of the Confederate States of America. Neither worked out well; the future President Taylor didn't approve and poor Sarah passed away from pneumonia only months after their 1835 marriage; his new country in the 1860s didn't last very long, either.

A statue of French explorer Father Marquette towers above the Wisconsin Welcome Center in Prairie du Chien, facing his university about 160 miles due exactly to the east. The view from the base looking up brings a whole different perspective.

The fur trade may have kept many warm, but it made a few millionaires on top of it. Local resident Hercules Dousman was the first millionaire in Wisconsin, and in 1871 his son H. Louis Dousman built Villa Louis, a National Historic Landmark on St. Feriole Island. The plot of land upon which Villa Louis stands once held Hercules Dousman's original house, as well as Fort Crawford and Fort Shelby. Today it's a museum operated by the Wisconsin Historical Society, the first historic site for the organization.

Did school ever feel like prison? Well, Prairie du Chien has a prison that was once a highly-regarded Jesuit boarding school. Campion Jesuit High School operated from 1880 to 1975 and counts among its alumni the likes of Vicente Fox, Mexican president from 2000 to 2006; George Wendt, Norm of Cheers fame, a number of movies and noted Superfan Bill Swerski; noted sportscaster George Blaha; former Wisconsin governor Patrick Lucey; and politician and prankster Dick Tuck (yes, his real name.) As long as we're name dropping, Pat Bowlen, owner of the Denver Broncos, was born in Prairie du Chien. The difference is, the community owns our NFL team!

A carp-droppin' tradition. Perhaps the newest tradition in Prairie du Chien deals with New Years' Eve. In 2001, they started lowering a carp via crane to coincide with the ringing in of the new year. Similar to the apple in New York City or the peach in Georgia, residents count down the last minute or two of the year while the carp - a 30-pound female named "Lucky" for the 2010 New Years' - gets lowered via crane from about 110 feet high. Now called the "Droppin' of the Carp", it's certainly one-of-a-kind.

The ride from Prairie du Chien northward is one of the most scenic drives in the Midwest. Part of the Great River Road (as much of Highway 35 is from Dubuque to Prescott), you get sweeping vistas of the river while steep bluffs often hug the other side of the road. Portions of the Mississippi here are two to three miles wide, often dissected by island that form portions of the vast Upper Mississippi River National Wildlife Refuge, a 261-mile stretch from Rock Island, Illinois to Wabasha, Minnesota established by an Act of Congress on June 7, 1924 as a "refuge and breeding place for migratory birds, fish, other wildlife, and plants." Settlements along this stretch are few, far between, and beautiful.

Just past Ferryville (pop. 174), Highway 82 comes in, fresh from a bridge over the Mississippi coming over from Lansing, Iowa (follow Highway 82 west to Iowa here.). Highway 35 & 82 run together for about three miles north to the little town of DeSoto (pop. 366). It was originally called Winneshiek Landing (the area was founded as a settlement in 1820), but it was renamed after Hernando DeSoto, the Mississippi River explorer, in 1854. Interestingly, thought it's named for an Italian explorer, the town is known for its Norwegian heritage. Like downriver Cassville, DeSoto is a great place for bird watching, including eagles. You also cross from Crawford into Vernon County immediately after Highway 82 breaks away and heads east. As for you, you'll be continuing north.

	The "swashbuckling" story of DeSoto's namesake adorns the wall along Highway 82, just up from Highway 35, across from a school. Exploration of the Mississippi gives one immortality if you're one of the first, after all.
DeSoto is perched above the Mississippi River. This is the view coming towards Highway 35 from Highway 82 after it descends the bluffs to the east.

The DeSoto area is where Chief Black Hawk and his Sauk and Fox followers were defeated on August 1st and 2nd, 1832 at the Battle of Bad Axe and subsequently slaughtered even though they were trying to surrender peacefully. The battle site is along Highway 35 about two miles north of DeSoto; the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers established a park at the battle site, near the intersection with Battle Hollow Road. The marker to the right describes the battle. Just north of the battle site is the unincorporated community of Victory, followed shortly by the Genoa National Fish Hatchery. Managed by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, it began raising bass and panfish but now raises cold, cool and warm water aquatic species of all kinds. They have 67 acres of rearing ponds - that's a lot of rearing. They also do things like "propagate 250,000 juvenile endangered Higgins' eye mussels." You can go on a self-guided tour if you'd like - about 5,000 others do every year. Beyond the hatchery lies the village of Genoa (pop. 263). Established in 1854, Genoa is one of the "lock towns", placed at Mississippi River Lock & Dam #8. It's always fun to stop and watch the locks at work, and you can't miss it from the highway!

Along the stretch north of Genoa, Highway 35 is almost constantly right along the river, including through the tiny hamlet of Stoddard (pop. 815), one of the few towns along this stretch that was not originally founded as a fur trading post. Stoddard was also originally located about a mile inland, but when the aforementioned Lock & Dam No. 8 was built in 1937, the river widened to a lake and suddenly, the town had plenty of waterfront property. Shortly after crossing into La Crosse County, U.S. 14 & U.S. 61 join in for the ride into La Crosse proper.

La Crosse.
La Crosse (pop. 51,818). La Crosse is Wisconsin's largest city on the Mississippi River and the largest along Highway 35. La Crosse hosts the corporate headquarters of Kwik Trip, the Trane air conditioning company, and FirstLogic. It's also a college town, home to Viterbo University, Western Wisconsin Technical College and the University of Wisconsin-La Crosse. Situated on a rare piece of flat land amidst beautiful coulees and hills, La Crosse emerged as a Native American trading post due to its position at the confluence of the Black and Mississippi Rivers. La Crosse holds a number of "quality of life" accolades, often involving low crime or livable small city status; I note USA Today also named La Crosse one of the "Top Ten Places Worldwide to Toast Oktoberfest" (more on that in a second.) Long known as a brewery town, La Crosse was home to G. Heileman Brewing Company for almost 140 years, cranking out a variety of brands, most notably Old Style. Today, the sprawling brewery complex lies about a mile west of Highway 35 and continues to run as the City Brewery. The World's Largest Six Pack (pictured below) is indicative of La Crosse's fun style, and you can access it by following U.S. Highway 14/61 south for just a few blocks after they branch off Highway 35..

Once Heileman and the home of Old Style, the "World's Largest Six Pack," which holds enough beer to fill 7.3 million cans, lives on as the storage tanks for the City Brewery, founded in 1999. City Brewery brews about a dozen of its own beers as well as Mike's Hard Lemonade and several flavors of Arizona Tea. This is located about one mile west of Highway 35; Highway 33 westbound or following U.S. 14/61 northwest will bring you there.

Oh, and speaking of the World's Largest Six Pack, La Crosse also hosts one of the largest Oktoberfest celebrations in the United States, perhaps the world, and has been doing so every year since 1961. For true animal behavior, La Crosse also has the Myrick Park Zoo, accessible right off 16 across from UW-La Crosse. Several miles of hiking and nature trails are also accessible from the zoo. Other things to check out in town include Historic Pearl Street, filled with Civil War-era buildings, specialty shops, a microbrewery, galleries, antique shops, coffee houses and, at night, college students doing what they do best when they're not studying. The Swarthout Museum (800 Main St.) features changing exhibits from prehistoric to Victorian and the Children's Museum of La Crosse (207 Fifth Avenue S.) has exhibits for our future leaders on three floors. All of this can be reached by your car, or you can hop the La Crosse Trolley in the warm weather months for a little "no need for the gas pedal" tour.

One of La Crosse's most notable landforms, Granddad Bluff made an appearance in Mark Twain's Life On The Mississippi, towers over 500 feet above the city and brilliantly reflects the afternoon sun.

Drive-In Watch: Rudy's Drive-In is one of the great ones in Wisconsin. Built in 1966, Rudy's features roller-skating carhops and a sheltered carport where you can pull up and order your probably-unhealthy-but-delicious food from the menu sitting right out your window. Car shows and "Cruise Nights" happen regularly throughout the summer. You can find Rudy's two blocks west of Highway 35 along Highway 16 (La Crosse Street). Highway 35 basically bypasses downtown La Crosse, instead going right through neighborhoods. You have good access to downtown via U.S. 14/61, Highway 33 or Highway 16.

Highway 35 through La Crosse.

The Downtown La Crosse Option.
Being the largest Wisconsin city on the Mississippi, and the third largest metropolitan area along the river from Minneapolis/St. Paul to St. Louis (the others being Dubuque and the Quad Cities), La Crosse is able to support a pretty healthy downtown. Once you take Highway 35 into La Crosse and U.S. 14/61 meet up, continue on U.S. 14/61 towards downtown. Eventually, you will reach the beginning of U.S. 53, which will bring you north to meet up again with Highway 35. Here are some highlights of the downtown La Crosse area.

Above: Along with I-90 to the north, the two main bridges spanning the Mississippi River and connecting La Crosse with La Crescent, Minnesota are collectively called, creatively enough, the "Mississippi River Bridge." Yeah. Individually, the nearer one in the picture is the Cameron Avenue Bridge, which opened in 2004; the other is the Cass Street Bridge. Opened in 1940, the Cass Street Bridge originally carried both directions of traffic; today, each bridge carries one-way. Left: Paddleboats ply the Mississippi in the summer and make stops in La Crosse at Riverside Park.

More on La Crosse, Onalaska, Trempealeau, Alma, Fountain City, Pepin and more coming soon! Meanwhile, we'll pick things up closer to Prescott...

One of the many views along Highway 35 as it negotiates the bluffs overlooking the Mississippi near Maiden Rock. There's a reason many consider this section among the most beautiful drives in the Midwest.

Highway 35 heading north into Prescott. You get a long view of the Mississippi, including where it splits toward Minnesota with the St. Croix River becoming the new state line. The view changes significantly between afternoon and evening.

A TON more is on the way for this road... more pictures on the portions already covered, plus Hudson, St. Croix Falls, Siren and Superior, all coming up soon!

Upcoming events in places along Highway 35:
Monster Truck Show, La Crosse, March 5-6, 2010
Coulee Region Polar Plunge, La Crosse, March 6, 2010
Greater La Crosse Golf Show, La Crosse, March 12-14, 2010
St. Patrick's Day Celebration, Prairie du Chien, March 13, 2010
St. Patrick's Day Parade, Siren, March 13, 2010

Interactive: Highway 35 from Illinois into Wisconsin

Best Western
Welcome Inn - Lancaster
420 W. Maple St.
Lancaster, WI 53813
(608) 723-4162
Link to hotel and reservations

Best Western
Bluffview Inn & Suites
37268 US Hwy 18.
Prairie du Chien, WI 53821
(608) 326-4777
Link to hotel and reservations

Best Western
Midway Hotel Riverfront Resort
1835 Rose St.
La Crosse, WI 54603
(608) 781-7000
Link to hotel and reservations

La Crosse Interactive Map

Best Western
Hudson House Inn
1616 Crestview Drive
Hudson, WI 54016
(715) 386-2394
Link to hotel and reservations