The Hotel
AmericInn Baraboo Event Cente
626 West Pine St.
Baraboo, WI 53913
Room Reservations: (608) 356-6422
Breakfast is included with your stay. Mention String Fling to get a special room rate. Participants are encouraged to stay in the hotel to get the best experience.
The Town
Sauk County, Wisconsin squats on the Eastern edge of the Driftless Area on the spot where the relentlessly grinding Laurentide ice sheet reversed course around 11,000 years ago. Back in the day, ice schooners carved out the quartzite outcroppings of Devil’s Lake leaving glacial till and moraine in their wake. Towering rock formations overlooked the rolling wild karst to the Southwest glimmering with cold rivers and a secret cache of pristine subterranean water.
Within a few millennia the area became a favorite haunt for a panoply of winged, scaled, and furred species who found attractive ecological niches in which to dwell. A short time later the village of Baraboo sprouted from the warm silty soil and became the prime Winter habitat for the Ringling Brothers and Barnum and Bailey Circus.
Although the Ringling Bros. have since packed up their caravans, Baraboo still attracts a carnival of musicians every Spring to roost for a weekend in early April like a sandhill crane tent revival on the Wisconsin River. The first (non-Easter) weekend in April heralds the String Gathering: an indoor convention of bluegrass, old-time, and other traditional and acoustic musicians who spend two days immersed in shared music.
excerpted from an article by Emily Beebe, First published in the March 2023 edition of MadFolk News, the newsletter of the Madison Folk Music Society. Republished with permission.