Ferryville is a little village with a population of 192 in Southwestern Wisconsin. It is located on National Scenic State Highway 35 between Prairie du Chien and LaCrosse Wisconsin. Ferryville is at rivers edge and is an excellent area for hunting, fishing and water sports. Along with being a sportsman’s paradise, Ferryville, is a motorcycle riders dream due to the hills, valleys, curves and just pretty scenery. We may be a small village but we have plenty of friendly people and lots of beautiful scenery.

For more information on Ferryville, Wisconsin, please visit our website www.Ferryville.com

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Larry Quamme is my guest on the Ferryville podcast. I don't worry I'm doing fine why you're calling me by my nickname. My nickname is Larry as opposed to what lower it's Jacob Quamme month. That's how my grandmother Clara Quamme me gave me the name popular in Norway. Jacob is pronounced Jacob Quamme. Me and Norm. Norway is, so did you ever spent any time in Norway. Our two sons gave us a trip to Norway. On our 40th wedding anniversary and we spent two weeks we went to the home farm and the cemeteries are full of headstones that say lower its living in Ferryville now where there's a large Norwegian population. Is there any similarities between Norway and here all once I got to Norway I knew why they came here if you put your back to the Mississippi River and you look up the coulees you're in layer doll Norway where my relatives came from. Really they didn't know how to farm except on a side hill so very very similar terrain in that area. What brought you to ferret my wife and I in 1999 went out for a drive. One day she's from Richland Center came down Highway C and we happened to turn on white Road and we went up the farm road up to the top and we were in Eagle Mountain and we came out on this big beautiful area. Lots of vacant land, and we were very attracted to that because I used to come to Ferryville with my grandpa and we ended up buying 15 acres in 1999 was a good move. Larry oh, definitely. We love it here. Let's talk about the Norwegian immigrants that are in the area. My great grandfather, whose name was Jacob Larson Quamme me and his brother Hawken came from Norway in 1870 and they came via what today would be the St. Lawrence Seaway there was a railroad that ran a little ways out of Québec and then from there, the two brothers walked to Mount Sterling, what's Mount Sterling today. All they had is what they could carry my great grandfather was 24 years old and he had just graduated from a Norwegian seminary, and he was a Norwegian Lutheran minister and he promptly settled, and founded Utica Lutheran Church upon Highway 27. When you think about it, Bob. The Civil War was just ending in 1865 and they were coming to America. Some people settle maybe they didn't even know about the Civil War I found some things that would suggest that there was a can be a way of communicating with the ancestors in Norway with a letter and it took about a month to go each way. When they left Norway they went to Liverpool, England, and then brought wooden ship from Liverpool and then came down the Seaway we have no records on Ellis Island. We were immigrants that came into the United States across the border. So he told people you know in Madison that you're moving to Ferryville full time. How did you explain the area that you're moving to the next thing is that I later learned on my the sister 10 years older than I am. She's 88, she had more recall about things around here and we learned that our grandpa had actually rented some land above Ferryville that is today, Eagle Mountain, so I would tell people I moved back to the homeland. When you explain to them where the homeland was which footage of them like this is going for Madison where there's, you know, the hustle and bustle and people all over the place to know hundred 76 people and we see an occasional car drive by now and how did you explain it to them that you're going to go to the promise that go to the homeland going to the homeland. Most people had no idea when you said Ferryville. They did didn't get it. So I started talking about moving to the West Coast of Wisconsin. It became where were halfway between Prairie and lacrosse. Most people knew where that was. Most people looked at you quizzically and said are you okay was a good move for you. Great move. We've enjoyed it. We've enjoyed life. My wife got very involved in many volunteer activities. I ended up being the clerk Treas. for the file chair for a number of years. We've enjoyed it. We love the move. So tell me what the history of Pharaoh. Well, you know, it was a humble Bush you know it one time. Why did the change man from humble Bush to ferret out. I think it had to do with the people at ran a fairy so I'm not certain why it became Ferryville. You know I started coming down here in 1947, 48, my grandpa, kinda like to make the rounds and have a beer or two. My grandmother was very Lutheran and deftly against drinking, but we use to leave and and stop first at the rising sun. He go in the grocery store get me a bottle of grape soda and I'd have to sit outside and then we would go to Fargo Junction and we would make our way back down to Ferryville bustling town. I used to sit near the swing in can't remember what the name was then and watch them load the cattle and hogs on to the railroad and there was a big lumberyard right there and the depot with the big water tower and then shoveling the coal. There's a picture that a lot of people have of the Prince and Princess of Norway visiting Ferryville in 1935. My grandparents Larson Clara were were on the dock there that morning. Ferryville was a real area of commerce up in the north and the trees were growing in they had kinda made a tunnel where you kinda went through a shade and then a course where the Grandview motel. You went over that knoll and grandpa used to drive fast and we thought we were flying through the air. On the other side did Ferryville become a drive through town rather than a destination will I think probably maybe in the slight 60s 70s. The stockyards closed. I believe the lumberyard may have burned and I can't remember early 60s when the train derailed and that took the depot and the entirely at know it ruined you know the depot area where was it just south of the post office which was the bank was at the first place. The plumbing and, for I have heard that yes we used to go and see my my grandmother was a friend of Elvira Smith and that's the White House and we used to go there and in those days you would step up a step to go into the house and then when they have redone 35 today you could sit in that house and look underneath the trucks going by. That's how much the road is been raise. I don't remember the years there's been a couple times at 35, was redone they ran across Dino down by the village hall because the train used to wrap around there. Go down with Pine Street. Today, Ferryville, Wisconsin, being the place for all seasons, but your favorite season. Well I like fall. I'm not a hot summer guy. I love it when the leaves are coming off I given up hunting some years ago I was never much of a Fisher but I like the scenes and I love the you know the hills and mountains's. There are challenges you know where we live because we have 600 foot to keep Wells the nature of it. The Norwegian heritage. It's kind of my little area of the world. I would say that it's a different kind of life to relaxed. If you're interested in. No stoplights and relaxed enforcement of stop signs and it's a great it's a great place to to live in great friends, very, very, you know people that are very interested in being social. Hiking is becoming a really big thing in a course if they were from Stoughton, I'd say you don't come back to one of the epi centers where the Norwegians came to.