WISCO NSIN ' S VERNACULAR REGIONS
Ruth F . Hale
University of Wisconsin-River Falls
~~roughout
America title s have been assigned to places
than counties but smaller than states. Such references
I ca l2.. "vernacular re gional name s ," a nd they generally are not
found on topographic s heet s or state road maps . Yet th~ place s
symbo ized may be Hidely known, even beyond the bounds of the
state ~n which they are s ituated. Who has not heard of
Ken tuc~y's f amed Bluegrass Region, or met a Kentuckian who could
not d i~ect you to that part of his state?
~isconsin, like most states in America, i s bless ed with
. lacE ~ames not generally f ound on commonly used maps, though
none t~ Ele ss recog nizable to local people.
Sometimes these
v e rn6c~ lar names coincide Hith those endowea by academics and
s tat e a~encies; other time s the terms introduced by the latter
g r o u~~ jear no re semblanc e to references embraced by the man in
the s~~eet. For example, geologists may speak of the pre- Cambrian
part 2~ t he state, but would residents of the North Woods know
t hat ~a~e? Conservation Department officials could probably
loca t e 3ay Country, but would people from the Fox Ri ver Va lley?
The C~t over Lands could be outlined by a geographer, but would
citiz e ns of Chequamegon Bay know that that is where they li ved ?
Obv io-_ sly , a need exists for regional nomenclature, yet response
to t he ne e d by professionals and bureaucrat s may di f fer greatly
from : =cal, regional preference s . Of course in s ome cases, local
:"olks ::iesperate to identify the ms elves as being from s ome place
may 2~Op t a name a ss i gned to them by outsiders; thus residents of
~ i scc~s in's phy s iogra ph ic Central Pla i n may admit to living in the
':;ol de:-_ Sands.
~ith it s long history of geolog ical a nd ge ographical s elf ­
consci~usn e ss , Wisconsin has evolve d a va ri ed collection of
rea i c~al names as indicated in Figur es 1, 2 and 3 (Geological,
?hys i c~ r aph ic a nd Con servation Departme nt maps) .
Wh ile academi cs
a nd c..:''::-ical s have cl~ eated the se nam e t ags , local resid e nts have
dev e l~ : ed some of t he ir own.
TI ese ve r na cular a ppella tions were
g a the ~ e d i n a national surve y I conduc te d of country r e s i dents
i nc lL~ i g we ekl y n ewspa pe r ed i t ors , post mas te r s and county a gen t s
an d 2:::- 8 s hmvll in Fi gure 4. VI ere one l-m ndre d perce nt of t he
re s_ c~ ~ en t s cho se ~h e s ame ti tle t o r e=er t6 a reg i on l arge r than
t hei:::- count y , a s t r ongl y ide nti f ied r~g ion was note d . Ot he r
large~
12
13
.
WISCONS IN
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PR~ - C"'MB "I"'N
"""GNE ~J AN
Geological
Regions
jtO~ "':1,1".
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Figure 1. Geological regions of Wisconsin (from Martin 1965: 1 2 ) • .
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WISCONSIN
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Io(~OI '"t!.91
H ' IiIHQ"'~ 1
Phy~ , ographi c
Rcgion !l
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Figure 2. ~hys i o gra p hic regions
of Wisconsin (from Martin 1 965 :
33 ) .
14 WISCONS IN
INO! Ar,. HEAD
COUN rR Y
f igure 3. Conservation Depart ­
ment ' s regions of Wisconsin.
WISCONSIN
iNOI ANH EAO
COUN!Ii!Y
Vernacul<1r
Regions
~' igu r e 4.
r eg ions .
Wi scons "n ' s v e r nac u
a~
15 regions were described as moderately 01' weBkly known.
Most conspicuously identified by local people in this survey
Has Kettle l~oraine Country of eastern \-lisconsin. In fact, it was
the only vernacul.ar region in the state identified by one hundred
percent of the respondents. Other areas less frequently
mentioned were the Black Hawk area of the south\\Testern part of
the state, Coulee Country, the Fox River Valley and Indianhead
Countl'Y·
The term "Black Hawk" commemorates the Sauk leader \\Tho
unsuccessf ully resisted Hhite c onquest of tribal lands along the
Rock River of Illinois and was eventually captured in 1832 after
attempting to lead his famished people across t he Nississippi.
"Coulee, " according to Cotton Mather vITi ting in the Hisconsin
Academy Review, was emblazoned on the regional consciousness of
the state by Hamlin Garland. ['lather explains that coulee can be
used in different geomorphological contexts, but in southwestern
vlisconsin it refers to steep-walled tPibutary valleys occupied
mostly by intermittent stpeams.
The Fox River Valley name is se lf-explanatory as is Black
River Country, although apparently the latter is unknown in
academic or tourism promotion circles. Use of the term Indian­
head, so-named for the profile s ugge s ted by the Hest ern outline
of Wisconsin's borders, indicates that "panhandle psychology,"
common in Florida, Oklahoma, Alaska, Nebraska and Texas, is not
unknown in \~isconsin.
Origin of the vernacular title Yellow Thunder remains a
puzzle, at least to me; and no reference is made to such a place
or person in the WPA guidebook, Wisconsin, A Gu ide to the Badger
State. Perhaps a resident of Columbia, Juneau or Sauk counties
or the Department of Conservation Hill enlighten us!
Compared to other parts of the nation, large se ctions of the
l'iidHest remain undtled in vernacular usage. Residents of
Hisconsin areas shovm Hith question mark s in Figure 4 offered no
con s istent re sp onses at all; the same \'Jas true of extensive areas
of Illino is , Indiana, IOHa, l'iinnesota and the Dakota s . For
example, of I o vIa , s ninety-nine countie s , only t\\Tenty-tHo were
identified a s be ing part of a larger region, and such unimagina­
tive name s as NIAD, believed to be an acronym fo r NorthHest IOHa
Area Developme nt region, Here coined. Lack of commitment to
reg ional cons c iousness in the r·j id\-Ie st contrasts markedly ...,ith
that of such states as Tennessee where most p eople s eem to know
whether they live in I']est, Middle or Ea st Te nne ssee , or Georgia
where mos t f olks knoH that t hey inhabit t he mount ai n s , the
piedmont or t he coastal pla in. The temp t at ion is to exp l ain t he
-1id'dest ' s l'leak region a l consciousness by i t s monotonous physical
teprain or its relative yout hf ulness. But hOH , then, can on
expla i n the strength o f f lat f loI··ida ' s Gol d Coast , Big Bend or
I n d ian. River regions? Or yout hfu l Ore gon ' s Columbia Valley or
High De sert ?
16
The need for re g ional names to re fer to places intermediate
in si z e b etwe en the county and the s tate is kee nly fe lt, but th e
res ponse r emain s , at least in Wisconsin, un even.
R FERENCES
Ha le, Ruth Feser. "A Map of Vernacular Regions in America."
Ph. D. dis s ertat i on , Univer~ity of Minnesot a , 1 97 1.
Karan, P . P ., and Hather, Cotton. Atlas of Kentucky .
Univers ity Press of Kentucky , 1 9 77.
Martin, Lawrence. The Ph ysical Geography of Wisconsin .
Univers ity of Wisconsin Press , 1965.
Le xin gt on, KY:
~adison:
'. at her, Cotton. "Coulees and th e Co ul e e Country of lrli scons in."
Wisconsin Academy Review
22 (1976): 22-25.
St ewart, Ge orge .
Name s on the Land .
Ne VI
York :
Ran dom Hous e. 194 5 .
)i scons in, A Guide to the Badger State. Writer s ' Program, Wo rk
Pro ject s ,\dminist rration . NeVI York: Due ll, Sloan, and Pearce ,
19 41.