A Tale of Two Cities - And Their Fake Cows

(From the Janesville Messenger, 6-15-08)

Pop quiz: What separates Janesville from Milton?

Some would say the most correct answer is one mile along Highway 26. But I think a better answer is each city’s attitude toward fake cows.

This weekend, Janesville celebrated “Bessie The Cow Day.” Bessie, a 16-foot-tall, one-ton fiberglass cow, was rededicated at her new home next to the Del Taco restaurant on Milton Avenue. The site is near the spot where Bessie stood for over 40 years in the parking lot of the old Oasis restaurant and shops.

Janesville loves Bessie. When it was announced that the Oasis and the Ramada Inn would be leveled to make way for a new Menards store, the first concern on everyone’s mind was, “What will happen to the cow?” The developers, mindful that they owned a local landmark and tourist attraction, decided to have her refurbished during the construction with the intention of returning her to her home after it was completed. This was a major newsworthy event in Janesville because, after all, Bessie The Cow is quite possibly Janesville’s best-known image. There is no shame in this – it is not uncommon in Midwestern dairy country. For instance, if you go to the web site of the Harvard, IL Chamber of Commerce, the first image you will see is their landmark cow statue.

Since Milton is a much smaller community than Janesville, it only follows that Milton’s cow is much smaller, too. She sits on the lawn of the Leuca Guild, a gallery featuring art, tea, jewelry, clothing and a variety of creative and earth-friendly products, events and services. The Leuca Guild is in one of Milton’s historic buildings, the 1867 Goodrich House, the one-time residence of Ezra Goodrich, son of Joseph Goodrich, who fathered both Ezra and the city. The Goodrich House sits across the street from another long-standing building - Milton’s best-known image, the Milton House National Historic Landmark.

While seemingly everyone in Janesville enjoys that city’s fake cow, not everyone in Milton embraced this happy Holstein. One person wrote a letter to the city objecting to the cow’s appearance in the presence of such historic buildings. In a city the size of Milton, all it takes is a letter from one person to shake up City Hall, so the city sprang into action. A meeting of the Historic Preservation Commission was hastily called to discuss the fate of the offending cud-chewer and determine if bovine intervention was necessary.

Why the Historic Preservation Commission? Apparently it was their charge to determine whether having a heifer on the premises udderly defiled the historic nature of the Goodrich House or its neighbor across the street.

The prosecution claimed that cows were not a part of Milton’s history; rather, they were introduced in the mid-20^th century and thus had no place in front of a historic building. OK, I made that up, but it makes about as much sense as any other argument.

Actually, had that been the argument, an interesting counterargument could have been made. Two doors down from the Goodrich House sits the Milton Seventh Day Baptist Church. During a dispute with the church in the 1860’s, Ezra Goodrich claimed that the church sat on his property. In a case of teat-for-tat, he erected a fence around the church and pastured farm animals in the churchyard. So a cow standing in proximity to the Goodrich House may not have been an unusual sight at one time.

At any rate, the Historic Preservation Commission wisely and unanimously (albeit with one abstention) decided that the cow did not have to hoof it to another location. After all, how could you be nasty to a cow – even a fake one – during June Dairy Month?

In Janesville, a celebration. In Milton, a reprieve. Gandhi, a man who considered cows sacred, once said “you can judge a society by the way it treats its animals.” In the wake of this month’s events, Gandhi looks down at Rock County and smiles.