I wonder if the Chippewa Valley as any “secret” warehouses filled with historical artifacts and important odds-n-ends like a Cheesehead bearing the president’s signature. Or an alien spacecraft or something. I broach the subject because Madison actually has such a warehouse in the Wisconsin Historical Society’s over-crammed, 10-room, 20,000-square-foot storage facility (as far as I know, sans alien spacecraft). It’s not exactly secret, but only 2% of the Society’s collection is on display at any given time, so it’s pretty much like that warehouse at the end of Raiders of the Lost Ark. From the Wisconsin State Journal*:

• Deep in a basement on the UW-Madison campus lies the story of our entire state:
• The cheesehead hat signed last year by President Barack Obama on his visit to Wright Middle School in Madison. ... A wild rice threshing machine used on the Lac du Flambeau Reservation. ... A 1941 Harley-Davidson Knucklehead — one of 2,452 made by the Milwaukee company and confiscated by the state after its owner had too many drunken driving violations ...
• They’re among the 98,000 historical objects and thousands more archaeological artifacts found in the storage of the Wisconsin Historical Society. Consider this Secret Place the state’s antique warehouse — clean but musty, crammed but orderly — a slide show of the objects that epitomize Wisconsin, from the notable to the obscure.

Sounds awesome. By 2014, the whole operation will be moved to a new, 95,000-square-foot facility expanding not only storage, but the cataloging/processing and restoration operations, as well. The curator claims they could even park a Wienermobile in there if someone was so kind as to donate one (hint, hint). Most of the collection has been built on donations, and at its current site, the Society has to turn down large items of historical conspicuousness.

Eau Claire should get one of these. Or do we already? (I’m looking at you, CVM.)

• *This article includes a cool video I recommend watching while wearing an exquisitely reproduced Indiana Jones costume.