The Wisconsin Concrete Park in Phillips is one of the most significant folk art environments in the United States, built by hand over 16 years.
Fred Smith was a retired lumberjack with no formal art training. Over the course of roughly 16 years he built 237 concrete figures on the property behind his Rock Garden Tavern along Highway 13 in Phillips, working with his own hands and the materials he had at hand.
The park ranges from life-size to towering: lumberjacks, soldiers, animals, mythical creatures, and even a concrete replica of a Wisconsin Central Railway locomotive. Smith embedded glass, rocks, and found objects into the concrete, giving each piece a texture and color that no mold could reproduce.
After Smith's death, the John Michael Kohler Arts Center and the Kohler Foundation restored the park in the 1970s. Today it is a Wisconsin Historical Marker site and one of the best-known folk art environments in the country — a self-taught artist's monument to the logging camps, the railroad, and the small-town life of the Northwoods.
The Wisconsin Concrete Park sits at N8236 State Highway 13 in Phillips. It is open to the public from May through October, and admission is free, with donations accepted. The tour is self-guided and walkable in under an hour, which makes it an easy family stop alongside the Phillips Chain of Lakes, the 1,236-acre impoundment that runs through the city a short drive away.
Smith's work sits at the meeting point of two Wisconsin traditions: the Northwoods logging camp and the roadside folk art environment. The figures he left behind are the reason the park draws visitors from well outside Price County.
Source: Price County Fun.