Why You Need To Visit The Fascinating Wisconsin Concrete Park

 

Why You Need To Visit The Fascinating Wisconsin Concrete Park.

 

After slaying timber by hand as a lumberjack in Wisconsin’s Northwoods, Fred Smith came home and created art. Not from wood or with saws as one would expect, but concrete. Whimsical, unconventional, and ornamental concrete art for forthcoming lovers of Americana. 

Located on Highway 13, many people have driven past the park of fantasy folklore on the way to a Northwoods vacation, but few have stopped to see its quirky art up close. From outdoor lovers, brewski buffs, and road trippers, everyone can find inspiration up north at Fred Smith’s Wisconsin Concrete Park in Philips, Wisconsin.

 

“It’s gotta be in ya’ to do it”

Fred Smith

 

Fred Smith Left A Legacy

For being uneducated, Fred Smith (1886-1976) led a life that would inspire people for centuries. When asked if he had been limited from being unable to read and write, he replied, “Hell no. I can do things other people can’t do.” 

Fred Smith was born to German immigrants who settled in Price County, Wisconsin. At age twelve, Smith built his first fiddle and taught himself to play. With no formal education, he became a lumberjack in his early teen years and worked in the Northwoods. He eventually married Alta B. May in 1913, and they had six children.

 

Smith was quite the showman, too. Throughout his life, he shared his musical passion with patrons at his Rock Garden Tavern. It was expected to see Fred Smith playing fiddle or mandolin while clanging sleigh bells together that he tied to his knees. At dances in his barn, rhythmic revelers recall Smith jumping from table to table, providing entertainment.

In summers, when he wasn’t logging, Smith grew Christmas trees to sell to locals and ginseng that he sold to New York markets. However, laboring in the forest took its toll over the years as Smith developed profound arthritis. Around 1948, in his 60s, he quit working in lumber camps and shifted his focus to building sculptures at his tavern and home. 

Smith created sculptures until he suffered a stroke in 1964, just after he completed the last horse of his Budweiser Clydesdales tableau. His disability didn’t stop his dreaming. He envisioned new sculptures in the nursing home until he died in 1976.

Music Inside Logging Camps

Music was a core part of life inside logging camps. Immigrants often used musical instruments as a common form of communication when not working the land. Logging camps typically hired immigrants from many northern European countries, and they had difficulty communicating amongst themselves. Because fiddles were small to carry and were ingrained in European culture, they became one of the most popular musical instruments in lumberjack camps.

See how to experience a proper Wisconsin Northwoods logging camp in Eau Claire.

Concrete Art Folklore In The Upper Midwest 

People have created art from locally sourced materials throughout history. Wisconsin became home to a melting pot of first-generation European immigrants who expressed their home culture and newfound patriotism in art installations. Some chose concrete because it was cheap, available, and easy to use. Often, materials like shards of glass, small shiny rocks, broken porcelain pieces, seashells, and whatever the artists found lying around decorated their concrete artwork. Basically, anything that twinkled in sunlight.

An artist-built environment, like Fred Smith’s Wisconsin Concrete Park, is when an artist creates and displays their work at their home, studio, and yard. Although artist-built environments are found across America, they are most common in the upper Midwest, with the highest concentration in rural Wisconsin. A common trait among these artists is that they lacked formal art training. 

As with the Wisconsin Concrete Park, the Kohler Foundation purchased many of these artistic folklore sites and restored them. The foundation finished the restorations and donated them back to their counties or a reputable local organization that would maintain them as public sculpture parks. 

The Wisconsin Concrete Park now belongs to Price County, and the non-profit organization, The Friends of Fred Smith, manages the park, land, the Historic Smith Family House, and the Rock Garden Tavern. The Friends of Fred Smith continues to develop the Wisconsin Concrete Park and its property as a cultural and public educational destination. We recommend following the Wisconsin Concrete Park on social media because they have fun classes and activities year-round to participate in.

Relax And Enjoy The Outdoors At The Wisconsin Concrete Park

The park, situated over sixteen acres, is in a peaceful outdoor forest setting with its life-size sculptures spread out among mature trees on over three acres. Smith’s admiration for the outdoors is represented in his art. From his first cement piece, a Northwoods deer with large antlers jumping over a log, the self-taught Smith embarked on what became his artistic legacy. Built between 1948 and 1964 and located on his homestead farm, he called it the Wisconsin Concrete Park. He created statues by covering wooden armatures and mink wire with layers of hand-mixed cement.

The final decorations consisted of whole and broken Rhinelander Beer bottles, the favorite beer from his Rock Garden Tavern, colored glass shards, glass electric power line insulators, and anything eclectic he could find. Colored glass, especially blues, became his favorite adornment. Locals enjoyed helping, too. As word spread, Phillips residents began collecting unique and colorful material to help bring life to the sculptures. 

Smith wanted to share his creations with others, so he installed his works of art beside the road for all to see as they drove to and from the small town of Phillips. Concrete and mixed media sculptures grew to include 237 installations throughout the property, with the Budweiser Clydesdales tableau being the last. 

Beer Bottles And Colored Glass At The Wisconsin Concrete Park

We held an event for our book, Secret Wisconsin, at the Rock Garden Tavern. A former resident gleamed as he told us about his memories with Fred Smith. As a child, his parents owned a bowling alley nearby. Bartenders dropped glass beer bottles down the chute, where they landed on the dirt basement floor and broke. Typically, employees buried the broken glass in the basement floor. Instead of burying the beer bottles, he collected them and multi-colored glass pieces then personally delivered them to Fred Smith. He said that Smith liked blue glass the best and was excited to dig through the buckets when he came.

 

A Sample Tour Of Notable Concrete Art Sculptures

Since Fred Smith couldn’t read or write, some of his work has placards with descriptions written by a typist. Sculptures represented his inspiration from history, pop culture, locals, and the Northwoods of Wisconsin. To some, his sculptures may not be aesthetically pleasing, but they are authentic to how Smith interpreted the simple world in which he lived.

Compositions of texture and color from random colorful pieces decorate each sculpture and highlight the plain concrete’s surface. For us, the best way to see the Wisconsin Concrete Park is on a sunny day when the kaleidoscopic decorative pieces are bright and shiny. Vivid colored pieces bring the sculptures to life.

Look For Concrete Tableaus In The Park

Bandstand Tableau – Fred Smith loved music. He especially enjoyed playing the fiddle and mandolin in his Rock Garden Tavern and at barn dances. Naturally, the Bandstand Tableau is located near the location of his old barn that a storm destroyed in 1977. Two-dimensional Christmas nativity scenes surround four musicians on a concrete slab.

Hans Everson Kerosene Wagon – Hans Everson, a local kerosene man from Phillips, delivered kerosene and gasoline from 1901 to 1915 with the tank used in the tableau. Notice how each horse’s head is slightly turned in the same direction as if a noise got their attention.

Musky Pulled by Horses – Another fish story, but this one didn’t get away. Smith built the tableau to demonstrate to his tavern mates that his musky was so big it had to be pulled out of Soo Lake by a team of horses.

Visit the world’s largest musky fish hatchery in nearby Spooner.

Farming with Oxen – A tableau representing early Wisconsin farmers.

Budweiser Tableau – The Budweiser display was the last project completed before Smith suffered a stroke. This Clydesdale team comprised eight draft horses and two ponies and took around six months to complete.

Concrete Folk Art From Fred Smith’s Worldview 

Sacajawea – Of all the sculptures Smith crafted, he believed Sacajawea was the most important. He recognized her guidance to the Lewis and Clark expedition as the critical element that enabled the explorer’s success.

Get To Know Lewis and Clark’s Enormous Dog, Seaman

Frontiersman Kit Carson on his rearing horse

Female Figure – Many female figures adorn the park. Their colorful decorations add a splash of sunshine to those who view them.

Animal Sculptures – Look for a variety of animals. Northwoods animals like moose, bears, elk, skunk, deer, and domesticated animals such as oxen, horses, and cows populate the park. Various birds and animals found worldwide also make up the ninety-nine animal sculptures located around the property.

Two Lumberjacks are portraying the early Northwoods timber industry.

Lincoln-Todd Monument – Sculptures with a significant meaning to Smith, like the presidential monument, were elevated, unlike common people, which stood level with the ground.

Ben Hur – Inspired by chariot races from the movie and novel of the same name, Fred Smith built his version of the Ben Hur chariot. 

The Iwo Jima flag raising near John Wayne and Sacajawea depicts the renowned World War 2 scene.

See John Wayne’s hometown from his perspective. Winterset, Iowa: How To Experience Hollywood In A Small Town.

Mabel the Milker – Smith’s typed narration of Mable the Milker explains how she tried different machines but still found that milking by hand was the best and cheapest way to milk a cow.

Chiann, the cowboy beer drinker, represents one of many everyday Wisconsin people that Smith liked to portray. Of course, Chiann is drinking Rhinelander Beer.

Remembering Fred Smith In The Rock Garden Tavern

Fred Smith built the Rock Garden Tavern in 1936 next to his home with the help of John and Albert Raskie, local masons. However, some people might remember the tavern as the Stoney Pub. After completion, Smith ran the tavern and displayed his smaller art pieces on his back bar for patrons to see. Later, he built an addition using homemade concrete blocks from the same methods he used for his sculptures. He ensured the tavern was full of life as a bartender, storyteller, and musician.

We enjoyed visiting the Rock Garden Tavern and seeing how the Friends of Fred Smith decorated the tavern with memorabilia. We recommend dropping in when it’s open for a look around. You can also enjoy a Fred Smith Lager.

 

The Friends of Fred Smith also own and operate the bar. Profits from the Rock Garden Tavern and its upstairs Airbnb provide funds to help maintain the Wisconsin Concrete Park. The tavern’s interior honors Fred Smith’s legacy with photos, articles, and artistic pieces about his life. Additionally, a watercolor portrait honoring Smith by P.T. Shinozaki has hung above the bar for decades. 

 

Stay In An Airbnb At The Rock Garden Tavern

For a unique place to stay in Wisconsin’s Northwoods, look into the historic Rock Garden Tavern. The Friends of Fred Smith renovated the upstairs into a charming Airbnb. Visitors can easily walk next door to appreciate Smith’s artistic sculptures and attend on-site events. Another advantage of its Phillips location is that it’s located in the heart of Wisconsin’s Northwoods. The apartment is available year-round for visitors who like outdoor activities like fishing on the Phillips Chain of Lakes, ATV and snowmobile trail riding, hiking, and hunting. 

 

Hardwood floors, a beautiful archway, and views of the Wisconsin Concrete Park highlight the Airbnb. The two-bedroom apartment sleeps up to five people and has a full kitchen, as well as WI-FI and a washer and dryer. Guests can rent the Rock Garden Tavern downstairs for private parties and events.