Old World Wisconsin
| Old World Wisconsin | |
| Wisconsin Historical Society site | |
 Koepsel House at Old World Wisconsin
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| Country | United States |
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| State | Wisconsin |
| County | Eagle |
| Location | Eagle, Wisconsin, United States |
| - coordinates | 42°51′50″N 88°29′16″W / 42.86389°N 88.48778°WCoordinates: 42°51′50″N 88°29′16″W / 42.86389°N 88.48778°W |
| Area | 480 acres (194 ha) |
| Founded | 1976 |
| Management | Wisconsin Historical Society |
| IUCN category | V - Protected Landscape/Seascape |
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Website: oldworldwisconsin |
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Old World Wisconsin is an open-air museum located near Eagle, in Waukesha County, Wisconsin, USA. It depicts housing and the daily life of settlers in 19th-century Wisconsin, with separate areas representing the traditions of different ethnic groups who settled in the state. Costumed interpreters portray the occupations and chores of typical settlers of the time.
Opened in 1976, the museum is owned and operated by the Wisconsin Historical Society. The largest outdoor museum of rural life in the United States, it encompasses approximately 480 acres (2.4 km²) of rolling wooded hills. It contains more than 60 historic structures, ranging from ethnic farmsteads with furnished houses and rural outbuildings to an 1880s crossroads village with traditional small town institutions. A restaurant, gift shop, and conference space are located in the octagonal Clausing Barn. Trams run between the Scandinavian and German, African-American, and Crossroads villages.
Old World Wisconsin exists largely due to the efforts of German immigrant Hans Kuether and architect Richard W. E. Perrin. Perrin was an early advocate for the preservation of historic structures as evidenced by his involvement with the Association for the Preservation of Historic Buildings and with the preservation of the Mitchell-Rountree House in Platteville, Wisconsin in 1959. Perrin publish a guide book in 1960 titled Historic Wisconsin Architecture listing 76 structures in Wisconsin that he felt were worthy of preservation. Perrin first proposed the idea for an outdoor museum in 1964 in the form of a "Pioneer Park". Perrin's inspiration for the park actually dated back to a trip he made to Europe in 1953 and visited European outdoor museums including Skansen in Sweden which he used as his model for the Wisconsin Park.
The effort to actually create the museum began in 1966, when the University of Wisconsin Department of Landscape Architucture and the Wisconsin Historical Society, agreed to have an undergraduate class at the university prepare preliminary plans for an outdoor museum. The proposals created were published in a report titled "Heritage Village, Wisconsin – A Preliminary Proposal". Following this, two graduate students were selected to refine and expand the preliminary programs through research, on-site investigations and design studies and create a master plan for development. The study was co-funded by the College of Agricultural and Life Sciences and the State Historical Society at a cost of under $5,000. In 1968, the master plan was summarized in a 122-page report which also included an economic feasibility study by a graduate student in the School of Business. The project was named Old World Wisconsin and the Heritage wording was later applied to the Heritage Hill State Historical Park near Green Bay, Wisconsin.
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