Even before Jean Nicolet, the first European to explore the Great Lakes while seeking passage to the Orient, impressed Green Bay’s native Ho-Chunk with his Chinese silk robes and a pistol in each hand in 1634, the people of this land have known it’s more than fly-over (or paddle-through) country. It’s a place of notable, historical “firsts,” including the following six:
• Founding of the Republican Party, Ripon (1854)
• First kindergarten, Watertown (1856)
• First typewriter, Milwaukee (1868)
• First ice cream sundae, Two Rivers (1881)
• First Ringling Brothers Circus, Baraboo (1882)
• First Super Bowl champions, Green Bay Packers (1967)