1,000 Places to See in the U.S.A. & Canada Before You Die (66 page)

There are more than 100 sites on the National Historic Register in downtown Winona.

A steamboat captain founded Winona, which quickly became a vital port, buzzing with sawmills fed by the surrounding forests and crowded with riverboats. The lumber industry helped it grow quickly, and by 1900 Winona had more millionaires per capita than almost any other place in the U.S. This wealth left its mark with a downtown of “Steamboat Gothic” architecture and lavish stained-glass windows, like the Tiffany Studios glass that glows in the 1916 Egyptian Revival Winona National Bank. At Levee Park, the Julius C. Wilkie Steamboat Center houses steamboat exhibits in a full-size replica steamboat. Stop by the brand-new Minnesota Marine Art Museum to view oil paintings, from late 18th-century British and American masters, depicting the twilight days of the great sailing ships.

R
ED
W
ING
: 50 miles southeast of Minneapolis.
Visitor info:
Tel 800–498-3444 or 651–385-5934;
www.redwing.org
.
Winona visitor info:
Tel 800–657-4972 or 507–452-0735;
www.visitwinona.com
.
S
T
. J
AMES
H
OTEL
: Red Wing. Tel 800–252-1875 or 651–388-2846;
www.st-james-hotel.com
.
Cost:
from $119 (off-peak), from $159 (peak).
M
INNESOTA
M
ARINE
A
RT
M
USEUM
: Winona. Tel 507–474-6626;
www.minnesotamarineartmuseum.org
.
B
EST TIMES
: mid-June for Steamboat Days, Winona; mid-Oct for fall color and the Fall Festival of the Arts in Red Wing’s historic district; Dec–Mar for eagle viewing.

Radio Show from a Midwestern Mark Twain

St. Paul, Minnesota

“It’s been a quiet week in Lake Wobegon, my hometown up there on the edge of the prairie …” So begins another endearing essay on small-town Minnesota life in this fictional town, a tale spun weekly by Garrison
Keillor on the nationally syndicated public radio program
A Prairie Home Companion.
Minnesota native Keillor has crafted a career as a Midwestern Mark Twain, making wry and witty observations about rural life on the radio show he began writing and performing in 1974.

Today, Keillor and cast perform the two-hour variety show—a mix of humorous essays, skits, and musical performances—each Saturday afternoon in front of a live audience at St. Paul’s Fitzgerald Theater. (Keillor played a role in renovating the ornate 1910 Schubert Theater and led efforts to rename it in honor of St. Paul’s own F. Scott Fitzgerald.) The show is
broadcast nationally on hundreds of public radio stations throughout the U.S., as well as on satellite radio, but it maintains a homespun feel.

Garrison Keillor and friends perform on stage at the Fitzgerald Theater.

Advance tickets to the show are notoriously hard to come by. Your best bet is to join the long line in front of the Fitzgerald Theater waiting for day-of-show tickets (availability varies) or to try for seats at other venues around the country when the show takes to the road. Being part of the audience offers behind-the-scenes insights into how the cast interacts and what goes into producing an old-fashioned radio program.

W
HERE
: Fitzgerald Theater, 10 E. Exchange St. Tel 651–290-1221;
http://fitzgeraldtheater.publicradio.org
. Ticket info,
www.prairiehome.org
.
W
HEN
: fall–spring; the show travels, check website for schedule.

The Coolest Celebration on Earth!

St. Paul, Minnesota

Get out your warmest long underwear, your insulated boots, maybe even that neoprene face mask. Minnesotans celebrate winter with an enthusiasm that would make most go numb, so it’s only natural that
the capital city of St. Paul should host the oldest and most comprehensive winter celebration in the nation. The 10-day festival beginning in late January features ice carving, snow sculpting, snow sliding, ice-skating, hockey, dogsledding, sleigh riding, and a bounty of other frigid festivities at venues throughout downtown.

The winter extravaganza began in 1885, when a New York reporter proclaimed that St. Paul was “another Siberia, unfit for human habitation.” St. Paul civic leaders responded with the carnival the following year to prove the locals’ love of winter and a spirit unhindered by single-digit (and often subzero) temperatures. It’s been featured yearly ever since, making it one of America’s longest-running civic events. Most famous on the roster are the “ice palaces” built from blocks of lake ice; the 1992 ice palace, the largest to date, stood 15 stories high and used 20,000 ice blocks. It topped the first one ever built in 1886, an astounding 14 stories high—the highest structure in St. Paul at the time. Because of the enormous expense of the undertaking, the palaces aren’t erected every year, but they remain the very icon of the festival.

The annual carnival casts a spotlight on St. Paul, the oft-overshadowed Twin Cities sibling. In contrast with the steely skyline and stylish sophistication of neighboring Minneapolis, St. Paul is more sedate and stately, characterized by quiet neighborhoods, tree-lined boulevards, and a historic downtown punctuated with landmarks like the domed State Capitol and the immense Cathedral of St. Paul.

St. Paul’s role as capital of the Minnesota Territory and its prominence as a wealthy 19th-century railroad hub is still in evidence along Summit Avenue, west of downtown, where blocks of opulent Victorian mansions stretch for more than 4 miles. A few of these Gilded Age relics are open for tours, including the 36,000-square-foot home of tycoon James J. Hill, builder of the Great Northern Railroad, and the 20-room English Tudor–style Governor’s Residence.

Perhaps St. Paul’s wealth provided some of the inspiration for
The Great Gatsby.
F. Scott
Fitzgerald grew up around the corner from Summit Avenue, a street he once described as “a mausoleum of American architectural monstrosities.” Though his childhood home remains a private residence, the native son is honored by the Fitzgerald Theater, a renovated 1910 vaudeville palace and home of the weekly public radio program
A Prairie Home Companion
(see p. 556).

W
HERE
: Como Park, Rice Park, and other venues throughout downtown. Tel 651–223-4700;
www.winter-carnival.com
.
Visitor info:
Tel 800–627-6101 or 651–265-4900;
www.stpaulcvb.org
.
W
HEN
: late Jan–early Feb.

Pigskin Pantheon

Canton, Ohio

Built in 1963, the original complex of the Pro Football Hall of Fame echoes the modernist church architecture of the period, especially in its gleaming, football-shaped spire. This may not be a coincidence
: Football is the nation’s No. 1 spectator sport, and its most ardent fans approach professional games with the same fervor they bring to that other sacred Sunday ritual. The Hall of Fame is their cathedral, featuring relics from pro football’s first century and, in the sanctum sanctorum, nearly 250 inductees immortalized in busts and displays. Even those who don’t profess the football faith will recognize such figures as San Francisco 49ers quarterback Joe Montana, who was a household name in the 1980s (and the only player to win three Super Bowl MVP awards), or New York Giants halfback Frank Gifford from three decades earlier. A 7-foot bronze statue of Jim Thorpe occupies a central position at the entrance to the hall. Grandson of the famed warrior Chief Black Hawk, Thorpe came out of Indian Territory (present-day Oklahoma) and entered history as a collegiate and pro football star and one of the most versatile athletes of all time. Inside the vast complex of galleries, fans can explore the history not just of the game, but also of the Super Bowl (first played in 1967), the NFL’s 32 teams, and the various other leagues—especially the 1960s’ American Football League—that have challenged the NFL’s dominance over the years. Interactive displays invite visitors to test their trivia knowledge and their play-calling acumen, and two theaters—including the state-of-the-art Cinemascope-equipped Gameday Stadium—offer gridiron excitement in film and video.

Once a year, Canton becomes the epicenter of the pro football world when more than 700,000 visitors gather for the Hall of Fame Festival, an 11-day pigskin extravaganza of parades, races, ribs, music, a hot-air balloon competition, a fashion show—and football, lots of football. The festival culminates in “Football’s Greatest Weekend” in early August, when a new group of five or so greats is formally enshrined, and two teams selected by the league play the AFC-NFC Hall of Fame Game, the first preseason exhibition at Fawcett Stadium (across the street from the hall), where a crowd of screaming, cheering, hooting fans vocalize the nation’s passion for its most beloved sport.

W
HERE
: 50 miles south of Cleveland; 2121 George Halas Dr. NW. Tel 330–456-8207;
www.profootballhof.com
.
B
EST TIME
: late July–early Aug for the Hall of Fame Festival.

A Culinary Melting Pot

Cincinnati, Ohio

Don’t mention this in Texas, but Cincinnati is widely regarded as the chili capital of the nation. Who knew? To the uninitiated, the city’s version of the dish is one of the more peculiar gastronomic specialties to come out
of the American melting pot: It’s made of finely ground beef cooked with spices such as cinnamon and nutmeg, typically served over spaghetti with onions, kidney beans, Wisconsin cheese, and sometimes oyster crackers. Credit for the improbable dish goes to Athanas “Tom” Kiradjieff, a Macedonian Greek immigrant who arrived in Cincinnati in 1922 after a couple of years selling hot dogs in New York. With his brother John, he opened up a stand that sold “Coney Islands” or coneys—a nod to the dogs’ New York origins—with a beef sauce seasoned Balkan-style. Likely taking a cue from pastitsio, the Greek pasta casserole, the Kiradjieffs began serving the sauce on spaghetti as well, and a food fad was born. Today chili is ubiquitous around Cincinnati, and its devotees order it two-way (noodles and sauce), three-way (add grated cheese), four-way (add onions), or five-way, aka “the works” (add kidney beans).

Most of the chili parlors that dot the landscape of Greater Cincinnati are chain restaurants—the top two are Skyline and Gold Star—but legions of gastronomes swear by the stand-alone Camp Washington Chili. The funky, much-loved original restaurant was torn down in 2000, but a ’50s-retro-styled new one sprang up just yards away, and patrons flocked back without missing a beat. Johnny Johnson, the Greek immigrant who started working at Camp Washington Chili in 1951 and bought it in the ’70s, still runs the place with his wife, Antigone, making 60 gallons of Cincinnati’s signature sauce and serving it over spaghetti and coneys 24 hours a day for those with 4
A.M
. cravings.

Camp Washington Chili’s Johnny Johnson is committed to a lifetime of doing what he loves best.

Ethnicity and food have long played a role in the city’s mosaic of history and culture. Cincinnati celebrates one of the main ingredients of its own vibrant melting pot—a rich German heritage—every September at Oktoberfest-Zinzinnati, the largest Oktoberfest in the U.S. Modeled after Munich’s famous fair, Cincinnati’s version also features lots of music, lederhosen, and copious beer and food. Half a million visitors consume over 80,000 bratwurst, 3,600 pounds of sauerkraut, and 700 pounds of Limburger cheese, to give just a small sampling of the menu; then they burn off the calories dancing to “The Chicken Dance,” a popular German heritage tune from the 1970s. When 48,000 people participated in 1994,
Guinness World Records
anointed it the World’s Largest Chicken Dance.