Great River Road
Cochrane, WI

Cochrane was established in 1884 when the Chicago, Burlington, and Northern Railroad relocated its tracks out of the neighboring river town of Buffalo City. Farmers plowing the bluffs just south of Cochrane often unearth rocks of strange shapes and dark brown hue. This material is known as Cochrane Chert and was used by the first people of this area 11,000 years ago. Chert was used to make tools like spear points. Now visitors look for pieces of chert just below the Cochrane Bluffs.

During the turn of the century, Cochrane was growing. A new way to get a new house fast was to order a kit from a retailer like Sears and Roebuck. A kit for an entire house would arrive by railroad and sometimes be erected in as quickly as eight hours. Visitors to Cochrane will drive through a historic downtown of these kit houses.

Just south of town is the Prairie Moon Sculpture Garden and Museum. In the 1950s a Wisconsin farmer established a gallery to display his collection of tools, antiques, photographs, and other souvenirs. He decorated the grounds with fantastic concrete forms encrusted with shells, rocks, and shards of glass and pottery. This kind of sculpture is a folk art tradition that emerged in the Midwest in the early 1900s.