EXHIBITS
The Driftless Historium is an award-winning Interpretive Center telling the story of Southwestern Dane County from pre-history to modern day. Over 3,000 square feet of space is dedicated to sharing the lives of our rich cultural heritage.
Visit all three of our exhibit areas: our Permanent Exhibit that tells this area's story through engaging graphics and carefully chosen artifacts, documents and photographs from the Society's extensive collections; rotating exhibits in our Special Exhibits Gallery (see below for a description of the latest exhibit); and changing gallery shows in the Kalscheur Family Foundation Community Education Room (see below).
Also visit our virtual reality kiosk as you virtually walk through three local historical sites.
Come and share the fun and learn about the unique Driftless Area of Wisconsin. Hours daily, 10am - 4:00 pm. (Weather Closing Policy)
Visit all three of our exhibit areas: our Permanent Exhibit that tells this area's story through engaging graphics and carefully chosen artifacts, documents and photographs from the Society's extensive collections; rotating exhibits in our Special Exhibits Gallery (see below for a description of the latest exhibit); and changing gallery shows in the Kalscheur Family Foundation Community Education Room (see below).
Also visit our virtual reality kiosk as you virtually walk through three local historical sites.
Come and share the fun and learn about the unique Driftless Area of Wisconsin. Hours daily, 10am - 4:00 pm. (Weather Closing Policy)
Permanent Exhibit
The Driftless Historium premiered its permanent exhibit in the renovated 2,000-square-foot exhibit hall, located in the facility’s north wing, in 2018.
A year and a half in the making, this fascinating walk through history will take visitors on a journey from the great glaciers to the present. Along the way meet American Indians, miners, innkeepers, farmers, cheese makers, sportsmen, preachers, school teachers, shop keepers, tourists and Civilian Conservation Corps participants as you discover their stories through vivid text panels, historical documents and photographs, and hundreds of artifacts.
The exhibit incorporates all levels of the museum experience from traditional text panels to life-sized diorama settings, hands-on interactive stations to multimedia displays. There is something for all ages!
A year and a half in the making, this fascinating walk through history will take visitors on a journey from the great glaciers to the present. Along the way meet American Indians, miners, innkeepers, farmers, cheese makers, sportsmen, preachers, school teachers, shop keepers, tourists and Civilian Conservation Corps participants as you discover their stories through vivid text panels, historical documents and photographs, and hundreds of artifacts.
The exhibit incorporates all levels of the museum experience from traditional text panels to life-sized diorama settings, hands-on interactive stations to multimedia displays. There is something for all ages!
A sampling of subjects you'll discover:
Driftless Landscape Explained
Immigraton
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Ebenezer Brigham: Dane County's First Permanent Settler
Cheese Factories: The Dairy State's Heritage
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Tourism In and Around Mount Horeb
Civil War
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Carpenter and Craftsman Aslak O. Lie
Agriculture
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NOW SHOWING in the Special Exhibits Gallery through March 30, 2020
“Within the Driftless,” a special exhibition spotlighting rural Mount Horeb-based artist Kathy Hofmann, opens Saturday, February 15 at the Driftless Historium. The fine arts gallery show will feature new paintings by Hofmann, as well as a photographic study by local photographer Ron E. Lutz II. This installation will show daily, 10:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. free of charge, through Monday, March 30, 2020.
The public is invited to a Gallery Opening & Artist Reception on Saturday, from 3:30 p.m. to 6:00 p.m. Both contributing artists will be present and refreshments will be served. Reservations are not required.
Wisconsin native Kathy Hofmann has spent the past decade in the Driftless area painting local rural landscapes. Hofmann’s quiet, intimate paintings recall the work of the Barbizon painters and Luminist style of the Hudson River School. As with those painters, Hofmann reveres and finds inspiration in the land. Her desire to document this unique region is spurred by both a reverence for the land, and an awareness of inevitability of human impact and natural processes—she knows the landscape can and will change.
A series of photographs by Ron Lutz II add even more depth to the exhibit. With a background in museum and gallery work (including time in the Exhibits Department of the Carnegie Museum of Natural History), Lutz traveled with Kathy for weeks across the countryside of southwestern Dane County, documenting her artistic journey as she sought out and captured the Driftless vistas, views and animal inhabitants that would be featured, in spirit or substance, in her paintings.
“Within the Driftless” is, then, both an homage to our natural surroundings, and an insightful look at the artistic birthing process of this homage.
Kathy Hofmann holds an MFA in Painting from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. Her work is exclusively represented by Milwaukee’s Tory Folliard Gallery. All “Within the Driftless” works will be available for sale, with a portion of proceeds donated to the Mount Horeb Area Historical Society.
For more information on this special exhibit or the related February 15, 2020 Gallery Opening & Artist Reception, call 608-437-6486 or email mthorebhistory@mhtc.net.
The public is invited to a Gallery Opening & Artist Reception on Saturday, from 3:30 p.m. to 6:00 p.m. Both contributing artists will be present and refreshments will be served. Reservations are not required.
Wisconsin native Kathy Hofmann has spent the past decade in the Driftless area painting local rural landscapes. Hofmann’s quiet, intimate paintings recall the work of the Barbizon painters and Luminist style of the Hudson River School. As with those painters, Hofmann reveres and finds inspiration in the land. Her desire to document this unique region is spurred by both a reverence for the land, and an awareness of inevitability of human impact and natural processes—she knows the landscape can and will change.
A series of photographs by Ron Lutz II add even more depth to the exhibit. With a background in museum and gallery work (including time in the Exhibits Department of the Carnegie Museum of Natural History), Lutz traveled with Kathy for weeks across the countryside of southwestern Dane County, documenting her artistic journey as she sought out and captured the Driftless vistas, views and animal inhabitants that would be featured, in spirit or substance, in her paintings.
“Within the Driftless” is, then, both an homage to our natural surroundings, and an insightful look at the artistic birthing process of this homage.
Kathy Hofmann holds an MFA in Painting from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. Her work is exclusively represented by Milwaukee’s Tory Folliard Gallery. All “Within the Driftless” works will be available for sale, with a portion of proceeds donated to the Mount Horeb Area Historical Society.
For more information on this special exhibit or the related February 15, 2020 Gallery Opening & Artist Reception, call 608-437-6486 or email mthorebhistory@mhtc.net.
Kalscheur Room Gallery Exhibits
Temporary changing exhibits are open during regular museum hours in the Kalscheur Family Foundation Community Education Room. These are small installations of various subjects displayed in cases or as wall mounted exhibitions.
For additional information on current exhibits see our "Events" page.
Temporary changing exhibits are open during regular museum hours in the Kalscheur Family Foundation Community Education Room. These are small installations of various subjects displayed in cases or as wall mounted exhibitions.
For additional information on current exhibits see our "Events" page.
Virtual Tour of the Mount Horeb Area: History in 3D!!
View the exterior, interior and grounds of the Norway Building, constructed for the 1893 Chicago World's Fair.
At the end of the fair, the building was moved to a Lake Geneva, Wisconsin, estate later owned by the Wrigley family of chewing-gum fame. Eventually it was moved to Little Norway, a local attraction in rural Blue Mounds where generations of visitors experienced its unique charms. Several years after Little Norway closed to the public, the building was moved back to Orkanger, Norway, where it was originally created.
Weeks before the Norway Building was dismantled and moved back to Norway, researchers at UW-Madison's Wisconsin Institute for Discovery scanned the structure and recreated it as a high resolution, 3D reconstruction. Using state-of-the-art technology, visitors to the Driftless Historium can once again experience this unique building as they virtually "walk" through and around the Norway Building at our 3D kiosk.
Also on view are 3D reconstructions of the historic Springdale Lutheran Church and a local "hanging" dairy barn, now part of Rare Earth Farm, owned and cared for by Charles Bauer and Charles Beckwith.
View the exterior, interior and grounds of the Norway Building, constructed for the 1893 Chicago World's Fair.
At the end of the fair, the building was moved to a Lake Geneva, Wisconsin, estate later owned by the Wrigley family of chewing-gum fame. Eventually it was moved to Little Norway, a local attraction in rural Blue Mounds where generations of visitors experienced its unique charms. Several years after Little Norway closed to the public, the building was moved back to Orkanger, Norway, where it was originally created.
Weeks before the Norway Building was dismantled and moved back to Norway, researchers at UW-Madison's Wisconsin Institute for Discovery scanned the structure and recreated it as a high resolution, 3D reconstruction. Using state-of-the-art technology, visitors to the Driftless Historium can once again experience this unique building as they virtually "walk" through and around the Norway Building at our 3D kiosk.
Also on view are 3D reconstructions of the historic Springdale Lutheran Church and a local "hanging" dairy barn, now part of Rare Earth Farm, owned and cared for by Charles Bauer and Charles Beckwith.