Our trip took us through Wisconsin and around the Dells. It was quite a shock to get back into the swing of things, but an interesting place to do it.
The Dells is a city in south-central Wisconsin, with a population of 2,418 as of the 2000 census. It straddles four counties: Adams, Columbia, Juneau, and Sauk. The city takes its name from the dells of the Wisconsin River, a scenic, glacially formed gorge that features striking sandstone formations along the banks of the Wisconsin River. Together with nearby Lake Delton, the city forms an area known as "the Dells", a popular Midwestern tourist destination. Wisconsin Dells was founded as Kilbourn City in 1857 by Byron Kilbourn, who also founded Kilbourntown, one of the three original towns at the confluence of the Milwaukee, Menomonee, and Kinnickinnic Rivers that joined to become Milwaukee. Before the establishment of Kilbourn City, the region around the dells of the Wisconsin River was primarily a lumbering area until 1851, when the La Crosse and Milwaukee Railroad was chartered, with Kilbourn as its president. The railroad made plans to bridge the Wisconsin River near the river's dells, and a boomtown named Newport sprang up at the expected site of the bridge in 1853. The population of this new city quickly swelled to over 2,000, but when the railroad finally came through the area in 1857 it took nearly everyone by surprise by crossing the river a mile upstream from the site of Newport. As a result, Newport was rapidly turned into a ghost town as the settlers flocked to the new city at the site of the railroad bridge, Kilbourn City. Gradually, tourism became a large part of Kilbourn City. To make it easier for tourists to identify Kilbourn City with the natural landscape for which it was famous, the name of the city was changed to Wisconsin Dells in 1931. As the twentieth century progressed, new attractions began to draw even more tourists. Dells of the Wisconsin River is a 5-mile (8-km) gorge. 
The cliffs, some over 100 feet (30 m) high, and side Description and formation
The Dells (term used in the singular) was formed
during the last ice age approximately 15,000 years ago,
although the rock itself is much older, dating from the
Cambrian approximately 510-520 million years ago
when the area of Wisconsin was at the bottom of a
shallow sea.
Approximately 19,000 years ago, the Dells was at the
extreme eastern margin of the continental glacier.
However, the Dells itself was never covered by glacial
ice sheets - it was part of the large Driftless Area that
was bypassed by the ice. The melting of the glacier
formed Glacial Lake Wisconsin, a lake about the size
of Great Salt Lake in Utah and as deep as 150 feet
(45 m). The lake was held back by an ice dam of the
remaining glacier. The eventual bursting of the ice dam unleashed a catastrophic flood, dropping the lake's depth to 50 feet (15 m) and cutting deep, narrow gorges and unusual rock formations into the sandstone seen today.
Unique ecosystem
The area of the Dells provides a mixture of plant communities, including northern and southern oak and pine forests, as well as oak savanna, moist cliffs, and dry cliffs. The cliffs provide unique niches for plants, some of which are very rare in Wisconsin, including:
Cliff cudweed
Lapland azalea
Round-stemmed false foxglove
- Maidenhair
- spleenwort
- six rare mussels and numerous species of birds.
Among the rare animals in the dell are six dragonfly species, including the Royal river cruiser taeniolata
- Rhododendron lapponicum
- Agalinis gattingeri
- Asplenium trichomanes
- Fragrant fern (Gnaphalium obtusifolium var saxicola, which is known in only two places on Earth - in the Dells and in the Kickapoo Valley, grows on protected rock ledges.Dryopteris fragrans).
The Dells are on the Wisconsin River in southern Wisconsin, USA. It is noted for its scenic beauty, in particular for its unique sandstone rock formations and tributary canyons. Canyons are closed to the public to protect sensitive ecological features. The viewing of the rock formations by water is a popular tourist attraction in the area. The nearby city of Wisconsin Dells is the center of summer tourist activity, much of it in the form of the theme parks unrelated to the river features.
The cultural history of the area stretches back several thousand years, from early Paleo-Indian people to the more recent Native American peoples, such as Ho-Chunk, Sac, and Menominee, who left behind effigy and burial mounds, camps and village sites, garden beds, and rock art.
Etymology
Early French explorers named the Dells of the Wisconsin River as "dalles", which means slabs.
