Christmas today is highly commercialized, and American consumers are encouraged to shop for as much as they can buy during the month between Thanksgiving and Christmas. It wasn’t always like this, and during the worst years of the Great Depression Christmas in Rhinelander was celebrated a little differently.

World War II scrap metal drives were an integral part of how people on the home front experienced the war. Much of the metal came from old automobiles, but where some of those old automobiles came from turned out to be quite a surprise.

In the early twentieth century, it was a risky undertaking to dream of a greenhouse and flower business in a northern logging and lumbering town like Rhinelander. Peter Philipp not only dreamed about it, he successfully built one of Rhinelander’s oldest downtown businesses.

Another gun deer season has come and gone, and hunters are talking about the fall harvest. Harvest is a pastoral term that sounds odd when used in reference to hunting, so in this week’s Northwoods Moment in History, local historian Gary Entz explores usage of the term and where it comes from.

One of the nicknames given to soldiers in the First World War was “Sammy.” During the holiday season of 1917, people in the Northwoods were encouraged to support the troops by becoming a “Sammy Backer.” What was a Sammy Backer?

Buffalo Bill’s Wild West and Congress of Rough Riders was one of the most famous touring shows in American history. When Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show toured the Northwoods in 1900, one of his performers fell in love with the area and decided he wanted to call it home.

Buffalo Bill’s Wild West and Congress of Rough Riders was one of the most famous touring shows in American history. What few people today remember is that Buffalo Bill Cody brought his show to the Northwoods and thrilled the local area with feats of skill and daring.

Many notable people have lived in the Northwoods at one time or another in their lives. Sometimes some very accomplished people that listeners may not have known about started out right here in the Northwoods. Dale Wasserman was one such person.

In the early morning gloom, it is easy to imagine what might the thing be that goes bump in the night. Sometimes the thing that is really there turns out to be so unusual that it is hard to believe. Such an event happened at Rhinelander’s Paper Mill in 1935. In 1932, during the waning hours of the night shift at the Rhinelander Paper Mill, two employees were gazing out at the night shadows and started to ruminate about life and death issues. In the early morning mist, the first man turned to the

Vigilantes are part of the lore of the Old West, but they were also in the Northwoods. During the worst years of the Great Depression many Northwoods residents started to take the law into their own hands.