Don't blink, or you'll miss it! Blasterz were only able to waymark this spot because we had our geocaching GPS with us, which pinpointed this very remote and lonely spot in the middle of extremely rural Wisconsin. There is very little cell coverage out here, so we've made sure to do the best we could with driving directions.
Blasterz literally tripped over this DAR Monument at a roadside pullout as we were heading towards Prairie du Chien on US 18.
We were on our way from Chicago to Dubuque, Iowa. If this boulder had not been on Mama Blaster's side of the car, AND if Mama Blaster does not have an unquenchable curiosity about upright boulders in rock rings at roadside pullouts, AND if Daddy Blaster is not always willing to indulge Mama Blaster as she investigates mysterious upright boulders in roadside pullouts, we might never have visited what turned out to be a DAR marker, since the plaque faces away from the US Highway.
This marker is located along the US 18/ WI SH33 in a small roadside pullout next to expansive farm fields north of Patch Grove WI, between Bridgeport to the west and Mount Hope to the east.
According to Historical Marker Database, the roadside pullout featuring this marker is located at US 18 and Lawless Road: (
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In Wisconsin, this Old Military Road is also known as the Military Ridge Road, which stretched from east to west across Wisconsin from Ft. Howard in modern Green Bay to Ft. Crawford, at modern Prairie Du Chien. Road was built in 1835 when this part of Wisconsin was very wild and only beginning to be settled.
This is actually one of two military roads in Wisconsin authorized by the 1830 US Congress: the first military road was authorized to connect the city of Chicago (Fort Dearborn) to the south with Fort Howard at Green Bay WI to the north.
This waymarked second road would connect Fort Howard at Green Bay to the east with Prairie Du Chien WI to the west. Surveys began in 1831 and continued throughout 1832, mostly following well-worn Indian trails familiar to soldiers, trappers, Indians, and anybody else who was creeping around Wisconsin in the early 19th century.
After the survey was completed and reviewed, in 1835 Lewis Cass, then Secretary of War, ordered the US Army to build the road. Soldiers from Ft. Crawford were responsible for building the road from there east to Ft. Winnebago. Soldiers from Ft. Winnebago were responsible for building the road from Ft. Winnebago East to Fond du Lac Wisconsin. And soldiers from Fort Howard at Green Bay were responsible for building the road west from Green Bay to Fond du Lac.
This is an extremely rough road, very rudimentary. It was so rough that it could only be used during the winter when the ground was frozen.
A fascinating and very detailed discussion of the history of the Military Ridge Road was written by H. E. Cole in the Wisconsin Magazine of history, volume 9, number one (September 1925). This article can be found on the JSTOR website, as an open-access PDF (which means I can't copy and paste from it): (
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THE OLD MILITARY ROAD
by H. E. Cole
The Wisconsin Magazine of History, Vol. 9, No. 1 (Sep., 1925), pp. 47-62 (16 pages)
For the visual people among us, the Wisconsin Historical Society has a map of the road here: (
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