Sunday, April 11, 2010

Welcome to Wisconsin!



I'd like to welcome everyone who is stopping by from Blogtrotting today!  I live in the city of Oconomowoc, Wisconsin.  (pronounced oh-CON-oh-moe-wok)




Originally settled by the Potawatomi Indians who called it Coo-No-Mo-Wauk which means where the waters meet. 

We've lived here for 10 years now.  We built a house and moved in in March of 2000 and we love it here.
It's got that small town feel.



But since it's half way between Milwaukee and the capital city of Madison it's close enough to city living and all types of concerts, festivals, shows, museums and one of our favorite places the Milwaukee County Zoo

Travel in any direction and you're sure to run into either one of the many surrounding lakes



Or some type of farm!



In fact our neighborhood is almost surrounded by corn throughout the summer months!

Interesting claim to fame:

 "The Wizard of Oz"  premiered on August 12, 1939 at the Strand Theatre here in Oconomowoc.  It was shown 3 days later at Grauman's Chinese Theatre in Hollywood where it was attended by most of the cast and crew.
The summer of 2009 was the 70th anniversary of the film.  The main street through downtown was closed and the movie was shown on a 40 foot inflatable screen to celebrate the occasion. 




12 comments:

Heather said...

I grew up in a small town much like yours, surrounded by cornfields. I loved it!

What a neat piece of history about the Wizard of Oz!

Thanks for the tour!

Jen said...

What a beautiful home that you have!

Shelley said...

From the looks of main street, I'd say it comes really close to where I grew up in Palatka, FL. What lovely pics. I know that not everyone sees the beauty in a field of corn, but living in a farm community, I absolutely love to go riding and look at the fields of different vegetables growing and imagine that they are feeding everyone. Your pictures are very lovely.
Congratulations on being featured today. Thanks for sharing your town with us.

mom, interrupted said...

Nothing quite like a small town Main Street! Love the Oz trivia too. Fun tour!

Amy said...

Interesting about The Wizard of Oz..that was always and still is one of my favorite movies :)

CaraBee said...

Your town reminds me a lot of my hometown in Kansas. Lovely main street, surrounded by farms. Living in Baltimore, I kind of miss that small town life.

Love the Wizard of Oz! (I'm from Kansas, we're genetically predisposed to like it.) I'll bet it was neat to see it outdoors like that.

Great tour! Thanks for being a part of BlogTrotting!

Carrie said...

Lovely town, thanks for sharing :)

Visiting from Blogtrotting!

I Wonder Wye said...

Your town sounds excellent. Thanks for the photos. I am sorry to hear your husband couldn't get hired on full time by the post office. Yeah, so much of their problems now are being stretched so thin and less people-power working......I will be back!

Elizabeth said...

Came from BlogTrotting....

I grew up in a small town as well but we were surrounded by grapevines. We moved from the Napa Valley to Yuma 16 years ago. When we got here it was a small town but keeps growing.

It's nice to see other places and add some to our bucket list.

brainella said...

Small towns are amazing. I grew up in one that was about 500 people and could NEVER get away with anything because my parents would get phone calls that started with, "Do you know what I saw your child doing?" :-)

Lovely pictures.

Shannon said...

And here I thought my hometown of Soddy Daisy had an odd name! ;)

Glad you included the pronounciation guide, 'cause I'd have had NO idea how to say that.

Great photos (as usual!)

Anonymous said...

I LOVE main streets that look like that!

This is so much fun to see so many different places!