Eau Claire’s City Hall also opened a century ago, in 1917

1. LAKE WISSOTA

Despite what you might recall from the movie Titanic, Chippewa County’s Lake Wissota wasn’t around for Leonardo DiCaprio to fall into in the early 1900s. The lake wasn’t created until 1917 when a hydroelectric dam was completed on the Chippewa River, flooding 6,000 acres of forest, swamp, and farmland. Celebrate the centennial by going fishing – on the ice or otherwise!

2. EAU CLAIRE CITY HALL

Eau Claire’s City Hall also opened a century ago, in 1917. Built for $72,000, the two-story building was meant to complement the Carnegie Library next door (which, incidentally, is now part of City Hall). It was built to resemble the Petit Trianon, Marie Antionette’s chateau on the grounds of the Palace of Versailles, in France, so to celebrate, “Let them eat cake!”

3. GILLETTE SAFETY TIRE CO.

Ray Gillette began to manufacture tires in Eau Claire 1917. The company he founded became the U.S. Rubber Co. in 1940, Uniroyal in 1967, and finally Uniroyal-Goodrich before closing for good in 1992. Now the nearly 2 million-square-foot facility is a multiuse complex that’s home to dozens of businesses, offices, and artisans. Celebrate by attending the Banbury Art Crawl on Feb. 10-11 – and by checking your tire pressure.

4. NUMBERED HIGHWAYS

In the early 1900s, traveling cross-country by car was challenging. Roads were primitive and poorly marked, and designated “trails” might not be the most efficient way from Point A to Point B. That began to change in 1917, when Wisconsin became the first state to replace trail signs with numbered highway signs. Celebrate by ditching your GPS for an old fashioned road map.

5. STATE CAPITOL

Wisconsin’s state Capitol building in Madison also turns 100 this year. The present building is actually the fourth Capitol in state history and the third building on the current site. It was built between 1906 and 1917 and remains an iconic part of the Madison skyline (by state law, no building within a mile can be taller than the base of the columns around the dome). Celebrate by taking a tour – the Capitol is classical gem.