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Prairie du Chien welcome center opens for 37th tourism season

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The Travel Wisconsin Welcome Center in Prairie du Chien is open seven days a week May 2 through Nov. 4. (Photo by Correne Martin)

Inmates from the Prairie du Chien Correctional Institution repainted the interior of the welcome center. (Submitted photo)

By Correne Martin

The Travel Wisconsin Welcome Center in Prairie du Chien, also home to the PdC Area Chamber of Commerce office, was recently spruced up in anticipation of the tourism season. Beginning today, May 2, the facility will be open seven days a week through Nov. 4. Over 15 volunteers and three part-time paid staff will work inside the center, which provides information about over 200 tourism destinations in the tri-state area—from here to Spring Green, Delavan, Hayward, Marshfield, Port Washington and everywhere in between.

The interior walls of the welcome center were repainted, the city of Prairie du Chien signs and Wisconsin Travel Center sign were redone and the lights on the storage building near the center were replaced.

“I think people should be very proud of the welcome center here in Prairie du Chien. It puts us on the map,” Chamber President and CEO Bob Moses stated. “It’s nice for our communities on the Iowa side too.”

The travel center opened in May of 1980. In 2008, the Wisconsin Department of Tourism decided it wasn’t financially feasible to continue supporting the center, Moses said, so the structure changed to a public-private partnership model. Crawford County, the city of Prairie du Chien, chamber members and the business community came together to keep it open to the public, he said.

“Since Stephanie Klett has been in that office (beginning January 2011), we have had a great relationship with the Wisconsin Department of Tourism,” Moses said.

Whether you’re a local tourist or one visiting, if you haven’t been inside the welcome center, take some time this season to stop in. The amount of publications and pamphlets that tell the stories of the many hidden gems the region has to offer is astounding.

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