Herman Rusch, Prairie Moon Sculpture Garden, Cochrane, WI
The Site
After retiring Herman Rusch bought the Prairie Moon Dance Pavilion and converted it into a museum. He filled the arched-roof building with natural phenomena, curios, machines, and personal mementos. Among the objects in the museum was a tree grown around a scythe, a washing machine powered by a goat on a treadmill, and taxidermy animals such as a fox and a rabbit trapped in a hollow log.
Once the museum was full, Rusch turned to the grounds. Without any formal training, he became a consummate craftsman and artist, searching local quarries for appropriate stone, and developing exceptional masonry skills, eventually producing over forty concrete sculptures. Embedded with tile and found objects, the sculptures are diverse in subject matter ranging from a Hindu temple, a dinosaur, and a “Rocket to the Stars.”
In 1992, Kohler Foundation, Inc., acquired the property and undertook an extensive preservation project. They donated the restored site to the Town of Milton. It remains open today as part of the Wandering Wisconsin consortium. A fence post from the 260-foot fence that Rusch built is in the Art Center’s collection.
Herman Rusch
1885–1985
The son of immigrants from East Prussia (now Poland), Herman Rusch was born in 1885 in Trout Run Valley, in northwestern Wisconsin. Rusch spent most of his teens working as a hired hand, and in 1914, he took over the family farm when he married Sophie. He and Sophie raised three children.
In 1952, after forty years of working the land, Rusch retired. He first rented, then purchased, the Prairie Moon Dance Pavilion and transformed it into a museum. Concerned that the grounds of the museum were barren, Rusch built his first concrete and stone planter in 1958. By the age of 89, Rusch had created nearly forty sculptures to enhance the grounds.
In late 1994, Kohler Foundation, Inc., donated the Prairie Moon Sculpture Garden and Museum, an important part of Wisconsin’s cultural heritage, to the Town of Milton to be maintained as a public art site. Visitors can see the site as part of the Wandering Wisconsin consortium, a group of nine art-environment sites situated across the state.
