ON WISCONSIN | THERESA THERESA — The trip is almost too much to comprehend. These days we're pampered with spacious SUVs, rooftop storage cases to store the stuff we can't fit in the back, video screens for the kids and satellite radio for the grown-ups. And our roads? They're interstates with speed limits in some states topping out at 80 mph and dotted with hotels with complimentary breakfasts and swimming pools, along with convenience stores and travel plazas overflowing with slices of pizza, chicken tenders, beef jerky and 48-ounce cups of soda.
That wasn't the case in the late 1920s for those heading to Yellowstone National Park. But there were some quaint accommodations and a road designed to get travelers there as quickly as possible. That's why Jim Rodell recently drove his 1925 Ford Model T from Hartford and parked it next to a small cabin in this village's downtown, just a few blocks from Widmer's Cheese Cellar.
He was helping re-create a scene that played out all along the Yellowstone Trail, a 3,600-mile roadway from Plymouth Rock in Massachusetts to Puget Sound in Washington but with a 54-mile spur in Montana that took travelers south from Livingston to Gardiner at the park's north entrance. A refuge for 'autotourists' Theresa, in Dodge County, 21 miles straight south of Fond du Lac, is one of many communities along the Yellowstone Trail, and, from the late 1920s to early 1950s, it was home to four cabins built for "autotourists," many of them headed west to the park. The cabins at Beck Motor Sales on the village's south side could be rented for as little as $1.
25 a night. "The automobile gave everyone a new sense of freedom, and the Model T was a huge part of it," said Rodell, vice president of the Theresa Historical Society. "A cabin like this maybe was something you didn't do every night if you were on the road, traveling to save money, but maybe if the weather was rainy or you didn't feel like setting up a tent, you'd be happy to see that there was a vacant cabin that was available when you reached town.
" Vacationers today who like to push the envelope can drive to the park in about 20 hours, primarily via Interstate 90. But 100 years ago, a trip from Milwaukee to the world's first national park, established in 1872, likely meant a week of travel, thanks to cars that struggled to go long stretches at 40 mph, roads that were nowhere near what we have today, and tires and engines that were less reliable. It also meant driving through, not around, communities, typically down main streets lined with locally owned businesses.
A project that grew and grew and grew The Yellowstone Trail became one of the premier roadways in the northern tier of the U.S. and was founded in 1912 when a group of small town business leaders in South Dakota rallied to create a "useful automobile route at a time when roads weren't marked, there were few maps and slippery mud was the usual road surface," according to the Yellowstone Trail Association's website.
The initial intent was to lobby government officials to build a better road from Ipswich to Aberdeen, South Dakota, 25 miles away. But the effort caught on. It grew to a transcontinental roadway and the creation of the Yellowstone Trail Association, which lobbied for routes, pushed road improvements, produced maps and folders to guide the traveler, and promoted tourism along the route, much like today's AAA.
Wisconsin became part of the route in 1915 with 409 miles of roadway in 18 counties from Kenosha to Hudson. Yellow and brown metal signs — and sometimes yellow paint on rocks, fence posts, telegraph poles and even silos — helped marked the route. In Theresa (pronounced Tha-ress-ah), an original sign found in a ditch is now framed at the historical society.
A replica sign now stands along Milwaukee Street, which at one time was Highway 41 and prior to that, in 1918, was Highway 15. The four Yellowstone cabins at Beck Motor Sales were the brainchild of Louie and Marie Beck, who in 1924 opened their car dealership and service station, where they sold gas and Willys-Knight automobiles. They were later joined by Louie's brother, Reuben Beck, and went on to sell Whippet sedans, Allis Chalmers tractors, and Plymouth and Dodge cars and trucks before closing the business in the 1990s.
"Grandpa did a lot of things years ago. Any way to make a dollar," said Robert Beck, who drives a super-charged 2022 Dodge Challenger that can go 200 mph. "He sold gas and he sold cars, and I guess he thought (cabins) would be a good idea, and I guess it turned out.
But Grandma had to do a lot of work taking care of everything with the sheets and cleaning up every day." Yellowstone Trail Association revival The Yellowstone Trail Association became largely obsolete in the 1930s as federal, state and local governments assumed more responsibility for signage and promoting new roads, but the association was revived in 2003 by John and Alice Ridge, both professors at UW-Eau Claire, who have driven the route's entirety. The new association is designed to increase public knowledge about the trail, promote heritage tourism and to sponsor trail-related events, according to its website.
The Beck cabins closed in the early 1950s. Three of them were removed and later demolished. The lone remaining cabin was purchased in 2012 by two Theresa business owners.
One of them was Jim Polster, president of the Theresa Historical Society and owner of the Pioneer Keg, a downtown bar filled with historical artifacts. The cabin was moved in 2016 to the society's campus and placed on footings between an 1849 log cabin and a house built in 1847 by Solomon Juneau, a French fur trader who founded part of what is now Milwaukee and became the city's first mayor in 1846. Juneau, who in 1830 established a fur trading post along the Rock River in Theresa, used the two-story home in Theresa as a summer retreat and is where he platted the village in 1848.
The grounds also include the 1849 home of J. Schiefer, the local distiller with hops growing on the backside of the home that were once used by the G. Weber Brewing Co.
The brewery, known as "the beer that made Milwaukee jealous," operated from 1852 to 1961. The building still stands, across the street from the historical society grounds. Polster and other volunteers spent six years renovating the 10-foot-wide, 12-foot-long, one-room Yellowstone cabin that was part of the historical society's first Yellowstone Trail Day event in June.
The celebration, which included historical societies in nearby Byron, Slinger and Lomira, is scheduled to return in 2025. "For someone who was born and raised in Theresa, it just fit into the whole elements of the park up here," said Polster, referring to the cabin's new home on the historical society grounds. "It was in pretty rough shape.
It definitely needed some TLC. Any longer and you would have been looking at it slowly falling apart." No luxuries for the autotourists The cabins were simple and functional.
They came with two beds, a chamber pot and a hotplate for cooking. Two of the four cabins had wood stoves for heat, but the vast majority of the stays came during the summer travel season. According to registries preserved from the 1930s, some of the guests came from Chicago, Indiana, Minnesota and Michigan and paid from $1.
25 to $2.50 per night. The cabins also included a curtain that could divide the room and allow complete strangers to sleep in the same cabin, presumably at a discounted rate.
Now a museum exhibit, the cabin also includes vintage photos from the time, a map of the Yellowstone Trail across the U.S. and a more detailed map of the route through Wisconsin, which included communities like Racine, Milwaukee Waupaca, Marshfield, Stevens Point, Chippewa Falls and Eau Claire.
By 1929, the Yellowstone Trail became the first fully concrete road across the state. "Everything wasn't smoothed out like it is now with curves. You had to stop and turn left and turn right again," said Rodell, who one day plans to follow the Yellowstone Trail instead of taking the interstate.
"When I go, the journey is going to be the vacation. You get to go to Yellowstone when you get there, but to me the fun part would be traveling the roads and going through the small towns and seeing the old buildings and the old landmarks." Barry Adams covers regional news for the Wisconsin State Journal.
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