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On the first day of the town's two-day sesquicentennial celebration, there was a whole lot of softball playing going on and old-fashioned play acting during the cemetery walk. While visitors chowed down on pork, Rushford's Richard Hagedorn played "old folks" music on his accordion and kids piled into hay wagons for a ride around the 150-year-old town behind two teams of Belgian horses. Just like in the old days.
Betty McNally introduced Miss Pickwick, Amanda Lutz, then outlined the town's history for the crowd. The first families arrived in prairie schooner wagons with a few head of hogs and necessities to claim land, build a dam and found the town in 1854.
When the Pickwick Mill was complete in 1858, it ground 100 barrels of flour a day and exported it as far as Europe. The first Pickwick school was founded in the same year.
Tim Albrecht drove one of the wagon teams hauling passengers as he has at every Pickwick Mill Day since 1985. He inherited the horses and the task from his father, who began the tradition in 1977. He had hauled six loads by mid day and said, "I'll go until I don't have riders."
Older people used the ride as a taxi from one end of town to the other.
"Kids stay on all day," he said.
Contact reporter David Krotz at dkrotz@winonadaily news.com or call (507) 453-3524.
