Just east of the Capital City Trail crossing at the Yahara River, a nondescript warehouse rises on Madison’s west side. Its blank exterior offers no hint of what’s inside, and even the interior is not set up for glass cases and museum spotlights.
But its more than 180,000-square-feet of climate-controlled space contains the largest collection of North American history outside of the Library of Congress.
In all, the Wisconsin Historical Society holds 3.8 million print publications, 25,000 maps, 3 million images, 125,000 cubic feet of archival material and 750,000 historic and archaeological objects. Most are stored in the State Archive Preservation Facility, including the original Milwaukee Brewers Racing Sausages, one of the country’s first weather maps, traditional Ho‑Chunk baskets and comedian Chris Farley’s football jersey from Edgewood High School.
It’s a largely unknown, certainly underappreciated, Wisconsin treasure.
The archives are managed by the Wisconsin Department of Administration and operate in partnership with the Wisconsin Historical Society, Wisconsin Department of Veterans Affairs and University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Typically, history is presented in a carefully curated way – edited in a textbook, displayed behind a rope, maybe protected under glass. But the archives are an uncurated mix, and in many ways a more accurate reflection of the jumble that is human life than the single storyline we try to make it out to be.
Here, history feels human and unfinished. Every box, aisle and rack holds items that come to life when someone pulls them out and shares their story.
“Without the stories, the passion behind them, the experiences of individuals, it’s just a desk or a chair, but it’s the stories that are there,” said Nick Hoffman, chief creative officer with the Wisconsin Historical Society.
Preserving film history at 40°F
As the heavy doors to the “cold room” on the second floor swing open, chilled air spills out. The room’s temperature holds at 40 degrees Fahrenheit with 35% relative humidity – the ideal balance to protect film and videotape.
More than 44,000 film cans sit packed inside, and despite Madison’s distance from entertainment hubs like Los Angeles and New York, this is one of the world’s leading collections of film and television history.
More than 300 manuscript collections include materials from figures such as Michael and Kirk Douglas, Agnes Moorehead, Rod Serling and Edith Head. The shelves hold Mary Tyler Moore’s full archive, materials from early talk show host Faye Emerson, and footage of the McCarthy hearings later used in a documentary by Emile de Antonio.
The oldest film in the archives − “The Lumberjack,” a 16-minute silent film shot in Wausau − dates back to 1914.
Many donors have no ties to Wisconsin. What binds the archive isn’t geography so much as the pull to preserve a legacy.
“It’s often about an individual,” said Jill Sterrett, chief collections officer.
History written in ink on paper
One of the country’s oldest newspaper collections resides on the third floor, including a July 10, 1776, edition of The Pennsylvania Gazette, with one of the earliest printings of the Declaration of Independence, as well as Frederick Douglass’ 1850s newspaper, and the Cherokee Phoenix, the first newspaper published in a Native language.
The archives has the ability to bring people down to the individual level, then zoom out to show how an individual connects to a huge moment in U.S. history, Hoffman said. “That’s the scale that we have here,” he said.
In the early 1960s, for example, the Historical Society began collecting material from civil rights groups and activists, becoming a leading center for studying the American civil rights movement. Today, the archives hold hundreds of thousands of documents and recordings from the Highlander Research and Education Center in Tennessee. Highlander trained activists like Rosa Parks to organize and educate people, especially on voting rights.
That training partly shaped Parks’ refusal to give up her bus seat to a white man, which sparked the Montgomery Bus Boycott, said senior archivist Lee Grady.
One of the earliest weather maps by Milwaukee scientist Increase Lapham is also in the collections. Lapham made the map in 1868, reconstructing a storm from a decade earlier to show how weather patterns could be tracked. The map served as a proof-of-concept, Grady said, which helped prompt Congress to establish the National Weather Service in 1870.
The archives also have an ongoing, little-known interaction with the public. Grady said the Historical Society fields about 16,000 questions a year, mostly by email, on topics like land records, divorce filings, even whether a house is haunted. Family history requests are the most common, he said.
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Racing Sausages, Freedom Desks, tribal baskets share space
About 100,000 objects share space in a cavernous room on the fourth floor.
The original, 7-foot-tall Milwaukee Brewers Racing Sausages tower around the first corner. Made with foam and rubber cement, they are being restored by the Historical Society before they go on display in the new Wisconsin History Center, which is scheduled to open in 2028.
Directly above the Racing Sausages sit “Freedom Day” school desks from Milwaukee. During Milwaukee’s 1964 “Freedom Day” boycotts, thousands of students left segregated public schools to attend alternative Freedom Schools in local churches.
Also on display are materials from the March on Milwaukee – the 200 consecutive nights of marching to protest segregated housing, led by the NAACP Youth Council and advised by the Rev. James Groppi.
Wedged in the middle of a nearby clothing rack is a bowling shirt from Earlene Fuller, a legendary Milwaukee bowler who became known for designing custom shirts, many featuring kente cloth and other African-inspired patterns. She broke down racial barriers in the sport, and was the first Black woman to bowl a perfect 300 game.
There’s also Rosie the Riveter coveralls made in Beloit and Jane Kaczmarek’s “Lucky Aide” smock from Malcolm in the Middle.
“These are telling the stories of everyday efforts to win World War II, to the stories that make us laugh,” said Leo Landis, director of curatorial services.
More aisles open up at the push of a button. Each aisle is arranged by when its contents were donated, a densely packed uncurated cross-section of memorabilia.
One aisle holds West Allis–born speed skater Dan Jansen’s Levi’s velour Olympic warm-up jacket from 1984.
A couple of aisles down are Ho-Chunk baskets, some that date back to the 1800s, weaving together more than a century of tradition.
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Ancient canoes sit alongside the Oscar Mayer Wienermobile
Downstairs, in one of the unassuming basement rooms, it’s hard to know where to look first.
The tightly packed space holds the original Oscar Mayer Wienermobile as well as a Culver’s sign from one of the first franchises, made from a repurposed Ford dealership sign.
There’s also a Packers helmet-shaped ice shanty built by Bill Casper of Sturgeon for Tomorrow, a nonprofit that promotes sturgeon conservation and celebrates Lake Winnebago’s ice-fishing culture.
More: What is Wisconsin’s most important fish? A good case could be made for the lake sturgeon.
But one of the most striking displays underscores how history is still being written.
Two dugout canoes raised from Lake Mendota sit soaking in a chemical bath. Discovered in 2018 and 2022, they have been dated to roughly 1,200 and 3,000 years old.
For the past year and a half, the canoes have been treated with polyethylene glycol, a resin that slowly fills the cells of the waterlogged wood. In about six months, Sterrett said, the canoes will be shipped to Texas A&M to be freeze-dried in a giant chamber, drawing out the water while letting the resin holding its shape.
Sterrett said the canoes, along with others found in Wisconsin lakes, are reshaping what people know about the region’s past climate and how people lived on and with the water.
More: Wisconsin archaeologists find 3,000-year-old canoe in Lake Mendota, oldest in Great Lakes region by far
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Authority, access, audience engagement
The Historical Society is no longer just collecting items. It is rethinking ownership, renegotiating who defines history, and in some cases returning pieces and material.
That shift is visible in the “repatriation room,” where desks and shelves made from Menominee Forest wood help ground the consultations between the Historical Society and tribal nations on returning cultural items. Repatriation has expanded in recent decades, moving beyond compliance toward collaboration.
More: In reclaiming their language, Menominee renew connection to forest
More: Remains of 67 ancient Menominee ancestors reburied by tribe after excavation by Milwaukee Public Museum
More broadly, archivists are rethinking access and engaging different audiences.
The state archives already operates an inter-archival loan system across University of Wisconsin schools. The Historical Society now is working to move records, such as family and land documents, closer to the communities they are tied to.
Anyone can access materials at the Wisconsin Historical Society headquarters on Library Mall on the UW-Madison campus. But the State Archive Preservation Facility is generally closed to the public, with tours offered just twice a year and some items coming out only for special events. When the Wisconsin History Center opens in early 2028, many items from the archives will be on rotating display.
As the leaders of this repository look to the future, they are convinced interest in history hasn’t waned. The key is letting people know what Wisconsin has, and making it available in a way that makes the most of it.
And as always, sharing all those great stories behind the archives.
As Sterrett said, “The risks of not sharing are far greater.”
New history center will increase access to archives
The new history center, slated to open in early 2028, will provide unprecedented access to the objects, entertainment and print products housed within the archives.
The Wisconsin Historical Society broke ground on its new $160.5 million center in 2025. The five-story, 100,000-square-foot building on Capitol Square in Madison will more than double the exhibition space of the previous history center.
When it opens, the center is expected to welcome 260,000 visitors each year. It will feature three core galleries, a rotating community gallery, rooftop terrace, café as well as educational spaces.
More: Groundbreaking moves Wisconsin History Center project forward in Madison
Caitlin Looby covers the Great Lakes and the environment for the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. Contact: clooby@gannett.com. Follow her on social media @caitlooby.
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