Wisconsin Concrete Park

Fred Smith, a retired lumberjack and tavern owner, spent 16 years after his 1948 retirement covering five acres behind his bar with more than 200 concrete sculptures embedded with glass bottles, mirror shards, and ceramic tile. The self-taught sculptor depicted farm life, local legends, and figures like Paul Bunyan and Abraham Lincoln using cement mixed by hand and armatures made from scrap metal and wood. A stroke ended Smith's work in 1964, and after his 1976 death a storm damaged more than 70 percent of the figures. The Kohler Foundation restored the park and donated it to Price County, which now maintains it as a free public park.