Roasted 2w ago22 views22 pts
We're sorry. Actually, no we're not.
Rhinelander's most famous resident is a monster that a bored timber cruiser named Gene Shepard made up, posed for a photo, and then claimed to have captured alive with chloroform-soaked sponges. That was over 130 years ago, and you've been riding that hoax harder than anyone has ever ridden a lie. Most towns get over being catfished by a guy named Gene, but you made him your mascot.
There are Hodag banners on the light poles, a Hodag in cowboy boots outside a gas station, a Hodag on a pedestal at a real estate agency, and a giant Hodag on the Chamber of Commerce lawn. Somebody looked at all of it and said yes, more. Your economic development plan is a swamp lizard with a legal department.
Rhinelander's culinary scene is the supper club: log cabin, relish tray, Friday fish fry, Saturday prime rib, and a Grasshopper for dessert because you're 71 and nobody can stop you. The Al-Gen has been serving this exact experience for decades, and the town treats any change to the menu like a hostile invasion. Nobody here has ever said 'let's try the new place' and meant it.
You've got roughly 7,500 residents and 232 lakes in the county, so the lakes outnumber the people by a comfortable margin, and the lakes are probably better company. Every summer the tourists show up to fish, buy a Hodag T-shirt, and leave. You're basically a very small town that Chicago borrows every July and returns with beer cans in it.
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