LIVING HERE
The Lake Geneva Wine Walk sells out again.
The downtown Lake Geneva Wine Walk 2023 is all set for Sunday, May 21st. The wine walk starts at noon and runs through that afternoon until 4 p.m. The downtown will be very busy, as the wine walk ticket purchasers stroll through the streets of Lake Geneva. They will be sampling wine and enjoying treats at all the participating businesses while also browsing through the many great local and wonderful shops. There are over thirty downtown shops and restaurants participating this year. Proceeds from this year’s wine walk will benefit the Never Say Never Playground project, which is almost paid for.
It’s time once again to talk about the Beast of Bray Road.
A community event is scheduled for Saturday, May 20th, at the Elkhorn Community Center, located in Matheson Memorial Library. The program begins at noon and will be providing plenty of information about this mythical creature. The Beast of Bray Road, a large wolf-like creature, has reportedly been seen many times on or near Bray Road outside of Elkhorn since early 1936. The beast is described as a humanoid wolf-like creature standing between 6 feet and 7 feet tall, covered in thick coarse hair. Mark Shackleman worked as the night watchmen for the St. Coletta School for Exceptional Children, and part of his job was to walk those grounds every night located right outside Jefferson.
In rural Jefferson, there wasn’t much to worry about in the way of real crime, save for the possibility of a burglar or some teenagers playing a prank. Then on one specific night Shackleman saw a form hunched on all fours, digging into one of the mounds left over at an old Native American Burial site. From the canine way it dug, it could have been a dog or maybe a wolf, but even from far away, Shackleman could see that the thing was far too big for that. The next night, Shackleman returned to St. Coletta for his usual rounds. As he walked the fields, he saw the shadowy creature again, digging into the same mound as the night before. In both incidents the creature stared at him, growling, and showing its fangs. It was almost as if it was trying to communicate in some sort of way, with its guttural delivery that was half-human and half-beast.
This legend stems from this first reported sighting of the creature that would eventually become known as the Beast of Bray Road. Sightings became prevalent in the ’80s and ’90s, particularly centralized around Elkhorn. The legend of the Beast was first chronicled by author Linda Godfrey in 1991 in the Walworth County Week newspaper. It has since been the subject of her book, movies, tv shows and much more. To learn more about the history and folklore of the Beast of Bray Road make sure to visit the Elkhorn Community Center.
