Audio walking tour organizers seeking stories of downtown
By Correne Martin
Attention property and business owners in Prairie du Chien’s downtown district, past and present: Your stories are needed!
PdC Main Street is in the inception phase of creating an audio walking tour of the historical, cultural and personal narratives that can bring the character of the community alive. Whether it’s attributable to a documented source or rather a peculiar tale of one person’s memory, it’s worth being shared.
A vision of the PdC Main Street board for over a year, the walking tour story gathering process has been delegated to Katie and Jim Devereaux, relatively new Prairie du Chien citizens who are enthusiastic about local history, telling stories and marketing. They will soon be approaching occupants of the downtown and reaching out to other residents who may have stories of what’s important and why. PdC Main Street will host a group discussion about the tour at its annual meeting Wednesday, March 15, at 5:30 p.m., at The Blackhawk. The public is invited to attend and learn more.
“We want to get the information out there to the owners so they can kind of prepare themselves to answer [Katie’s and Jim’s] questions or to provide information,” PdC Main Street Past-President Chris Mara said. “We don’t just want the raw data history, but someone or something that can tell the story a little more.”
Maybe there’s a story about a haunted building, a devastating fire, a magical little business that once stood downtown, or the people who used to live on the corner. The stories might be already widely known, or they could be secrets that change the way citizens look at places.
Mara elaborated, the memories can come from the buildings erected in the 1800s, as well as those structures and businesses that existed more recently.
“Marlene (Dyer, PdC Main Street president) has a journal in her family about the old Circle Bar (currently Ft. Mulligan’s). There’s a picture that has the name of Slab Mattie all over it. He was the young man in the picture who was convinced to go to the bar after work. I guess his mother was so upset they had allowed him to drink there that she went down there with a baseball bat and cleared out every liquor bottle in the place,” Mara retold. “Those are the kinds of things that bring the buildings to life.”
Pictures will also be part of the audio tour, so PdC Main Street encourages those interested to round up photographs or artwork that would be helpful in telling the various tales.
Mara said Bill Howe, of the Courier Press’ patriarchy, provided PdC Main Street with a small collection of historical photos, from which one shows a couple of unique-looking people standing in front of the Knowlton House downtown during a parade.
“There’s an old man with a big beard and mustache who looks like he’s the town drunk or something. For all I know, he could have been the captain (Wiram Knowlton),” Mara said. “Some building owners may have taken the time to get that history over the years and others may not, but every little bit is significant.”
The goal, at this time, is to merely glean the stories. Next, the audio will be created with voice over work guided by various locally-famous vocal talents. Pictures will be compiled and organized with the audio. Then, the digital, audio walking tour will be developed so people can access it via apps on their smartphones or tablets.
The exciting aspect of this PdC Main Street project is that Prairie du Chien is going to be one of the first in the nation accessing a new Detour software platform, based out of San Francisco, in creating the tour. People will be taken down the sidewalks and alleys of the downtown by way of location-aware, GPS technology.
“I’ve been working with them for over a year. If this works, I plan to call Stephanie Klett (Wisconsin tourism secretary) and have her come in to use us as an example for what other communities can do,” Mara declared.
The estimated cost to PdC Main Street is several thousand dollars. Mara said he’s hoping, since Prairie du Chien could serve as a case study, there’s room for negotiation on price.
Once the beneath-the-surface tour is complete, it would be promoted in the city at locations such as the welcome center, city hall or on signage. Tourists, and local citizens, could purchase the app and a percentage of the proceeds would be returned to PdC Main Street to pay for the platform or eventually serve as a fundraising source.
Ultimately, downtown Prairie du Chien would benefit from the audio walking tour.
“We’re hoping to get people downtown and into the buildings,” Mara said, noting that the tour might even evolve into a scavenger hunt, where the tour would direct listeners into the businesses. “It might say, ‘Once you’re done shopping, meet me outside the front door.’”
There’s no cost to individuals who help provide the story material.
Anyone interested in sharing a narrative or a lead to one is encouraged to contact Katie at (608) 412-0192 or kremmets@gmail.com.
