Loretta Gesicki at Geisicki's Tavern, home of 45 X 90 club -- half way to North Pole and half way around the Western Hemisphere. Tim sent me the photo. Check out Confluence.ORG which is devoted to photographing all major latitude/longitude intersections. |
"Half Way to the North Pole and Half Way Around the Western Hemisphere."There's a 'town' about 40 miles SE of Timm's Hill called Poniatowski. It's easy to get to but so small that a lot of maps don't even acknowledge it. It's not much more than two bars, a cemetery and a few houses. But it's been visited by thousands of people from all over the world and received occasional media attention because it's where the principal latitude and longitude crosshairs on even the cheapest maps and globes intersect. That is, 45.0 N and 90.0 W. Halfway to the North Pole and halfway around the western hemisphere! Of the four spots like it on the globe, two (the southeast and southwest quadrants) are under water and the other (northeast) in the middle of China. Mrs. Gisecki has a register of thousands of people from all over the world who have visited, played pool, and looked at the deer antlers. When we were there a Polish wedding was going on in the church across the street. With the ribbon festooned cars I had hoped it was some exotic ritual similar to crossing the the Equator. In Gisecki's tavern there, you can join the 45 x 90 club by signing their register. The state has put up a monument next to the USGS benchmark. Oddly, the highway markers and T-shirts at Gesicki's refer to it as a Geological marker; I would have thought they'd consider it a unique Geographic location. Loretta Gesicki's late husband was the main force behind getting an exact survey done by the state and Univ. of Wisconsin. He also established the 45 x 90 club, the register for which is kept at the bar. It's closed on Sundays and Mondays. Thomas L. Schneeberg, whom I met when I visited has set up an electronic message board for visitors. We were quite the site in the middle of a deserted cornfield as we we whipped out our identical Magellan GPS devices The town is named for King
Stanislaw August
Wisconsin folk singers, Peter & Lou Berryman, wrote a song about it:
PONIATOWSKI
1. Exactly half the way from the equator
to the pole
(Chorus) PONIATOWSKI, PONIATOWSKI, PONIATOWSKI 2. Magellan's men said, "Captain have
we gotten very far?
3. A quarter of the way from top to
bottom of our earth
4. What is on the tip of every schoolkid's
tongue
5. I asked an old cartographer where
he would rather be
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