Lake Wobegon is a fictional town in the U.S. state of Minnesota, said to have
been the boyhood home of Garrison Keillor, who reports the News from Lake
Wobegon on the radio show A Prairie Home Companion. Its location is believed to
be north of St. Cloud and is claimed to be the town of Holdingford.
Name On the show Keillor says the town's name
comes from a fictional old Indian word meaning "the place where we waited all
day in the rain [for you]." Keillor explains, "Wobegon sounded Indian to me
and Minnesota is full of Indian names. They mask the ethnic heritage of the
town, which I wanted to do, since it was half Norwegian, half German." The
English word woebegone is defined as "affected with woe" and can also mean
"shabby, derelict or run down." The term could also be a portmanteau of woe, be,
and gone, as in "woe, be gone". Standard monologue items
In Keillor's weekly monologue about Lake Wobegon, there are recurring monologue
descriptions of the town: The opening words of the monologue
usually are: "Well, it's been a quiet week in Lake Wobegon, Minnesota, my
hometown, out there on the edge of the prairie."
Lake Wobegon is characterized as "the little town that time forgot, and the
decades cannot improve." The closing words of the monologue are
"Well, that's the news from Lake Wobegon, where all the women are strong,
all the men are good looking, and all the children are above average."
Models Although Keillor has revealed that his
original model for Lake Wobegon was actually Marine on St. Croix, Minnesota,
it also resembles many small farm towns in the upper Midwest, especially western
Minnesota, North Dakota, and to some extent, northern Iowa, Wisconsin,
eastern South Dakota and northeastern Montana. These are rural, sparsely
populated areas that were settled only in the late 19th and early 20th
centuries, largely by homesteading immigrants from Germany and Scandinavia,
especially Norway. One of these, Holdingford, Minnesota, which Keillor
said is "most Wobegonic" is on Stearns County's Lake Wobegon Regional Trail,
advertises itself as the "Gateway to Lake Wobegon" and even hosts a "Lake
Wobegon Cafe." Keillor formed most of his ideas for
Lake Wobegon while working for NPR at KSJR on the campus of St. John's
University in Collegeville; Avon, where he lived; and local towns such as
Albany, Freeport, Cold Spring, Richmond, Rockville, St. Joseph, St. Stephen, St.
Wendell and Holdingford. Stearns County was predominantly German and Catholic in
the 1970s, and the second most Catholic county in the USA. In order to balance
the religious and ethnic demographics of the physical location in Stearns County
with the rest of Minnesota, Keillor 'imported' the Lutheran and Scandinavian
elements into the mythical town, making it more identifiable and therefore more
interesting to the rest of the state. Location
According to Keillor, Lake Wobegon is the seat of Mist County, Minnesota, a
tiny county near the geographic center of Minnesota that supposedly does not
appear on maps because of the "incompetence of surveyors who mapped
out the state in the 19th century". The town's slogan is Gateway to Central
Minnesota. The real town of Holdingford now bears the same slogan.
Lake Wobegon is occasionally said to be near St. Olaf, Minnesota, another
fictional town referenced in The Golden Girls television series. The town's
school and amateur sports teams compete against the Uff-das of Upsala, a real
town in southwest Morrison County, which is close to Holdingford. The town
residents drink Wendy's Beer, brewed in St. Wendel, a real town in northeast
Stearns County. The nearest good-sized town referenced in Keillor's monologues
is St. Cloud. Lake Wobegon is sometimes compared favorably to a rival fictional
town called Millet; a real town called Rice lies 20 miles north of St. Cloud.
Microsoft Virtual Earth now returns a location when Lake Wobegon, Minnesota is
entered into their search engine. The place is a little north and somewhat
east of St. Cloud. The programs distributed at live performances of A
Prairie Home Companion in 2005 have a map showing Lake Wobegon about two miles
north of Holdingford, north and west of St. Cloud.
Keillor often references a cafe in downtown Lake Wobegon called the
"Chatterbox Cafe". There is a real cafe and gas station in Olivia by the same
name. Olivia is located in north-central Renville County.
History and character Keillor chronicles a number of bizarre
incidents in the town's early history, akin to the events in Black River Falls
in Wisconsin Death Trip. Keillor identifies the original founders
of what became Lake Wobegon as New England Unitarian missionaries, at least
one of whom came to convert the Native American Ojibwe Indians through
interpretive dance. A college was founded at what was then called New
Albion, but the project was abandoned after a severe winter and numerous
attacks by bears. The project had only one survivor, a very practical woman who
married a French Canadian fur-trapper who fed her in exchange for her help
with the chores. This pragmatic couple were the founders of the current
settlement. The founders of New Albion decided to
settle at Lake Wobegon because they had gotten very lost and did not know how to
get back to where they had last been. To celebrate this, the colony's motto was
Ubi Quid Ubi. Later the motto in the Lake Wobegon incorporated town seal is
described as Sumus Quod Sumus. Most of the current population is made
up descendants of German immigrants, who are mostly members of the Catholic
parish of Our Lady of Perpetual Responsibility, and descendants of
Norwegian and Swedish immigrants, who comprise the Lake Wobegon Lutheran
Church. Keillor describes his family as members of the Sanctified Brethren.
The 800 residents are proud of the Statue of the Unknown Norwegian. Lake
Wobegon is in competition with its rival, St. Olaf, for having the most
descendants of the same common ancestor. Lake Wobegon became a secret dumping
ground of nuclear waste during the 1950s.
The town is the home of the Whippets baseball team, tuna hotdish, snow,
Norwegian bachelor farmers, ice fishing, tongues frozen to cold metal objects,
and lutefisk - fish treated with lye which, after being reconstituted, is
reminiscent of "the afterbirth of a dog or the world's largest chunk of phlegm."
But it is also the home of the Mist County Fair, old-fashioned show yards
with flowers "like Las Vegas showgirls", sweet corn, a magnificent grain
elevator, and the pleasant lake itself. The Lake Wobegon effect
The Lake Wobegon effect, a natural human tendency to overestimate one's
capabilities, is named after the town. The characterization of the fictional
location, where "all the women are strong, all the men are good looking,
and all the children are above average," has been used to describe a real and
pervasive human tendency to overestimate one's achievements and capabilities in
relation to others. The Lake Wobegon effect, where all or nearly all of a
group claim to be above average, has been observed in high school students'
appraisal of their leadership, drivers' assessments of their driving skill, and
cancer patients' expectations of survival.
Businesses, organizations and landmarks Jack's Auto Repair, including Jack's
School of Thought, Warm Car Service, Dry Goods Emporium, Jack's Fountain Lounge,
and Jack's Home, "a rest spa for people of all ages"
Ralph's Pretty Good Grocery; "If you can't find it at Ralph's, you can
probably get along without it." Bertha's Kitty Boutique
The Sidetrack Tap, run by Wally and Evelyn; "The dim little place in the
dark where the pinball machine never tilts, the clock is a half-hour slow,
and where love never dies." The Chatterbox Café, "The place to go
that's just like home." Café Boeuf, "Where the elite meet to
greet and eat," with maitre d' Maurice. Art's Baits & Night o' Rest Motel
Our Lady of Perpetual Responsibility Catholic Church; Father Emil, Father
Wilmer Lake Wobegon Lutheran Church; Pastor
Ingqvist, Pastor Barbara Ham, Pastor Liz Bunsen Motors, run by Clint and Clarence
Bunsen, local Lutherans Krebsbach Chevrolet, run by Florian
Krebsbach, local Catholic, and his son Carl.
Moonlight Bay Supper Club Buck's Rent-a-Tux
The Herald Star, town newspaper run by Harold Star
Skoeglin's 5 and Dime LuAnne Magendanz's Bon Marché Beauty
Parlor and Salon Co-op Hardware
Clifford's The Sons of Knute Temple, Norwegian
fraternal organization The Whippets, [Town Team Baseball,
"We'll Whip ya, whip ya good!"] The Herdsmen, champion church ushering
team The Curl Up and Dye, another local salon
Tentative Point, Sons of Pitches, a men's chorus made up
of the Original Main Street's finest in the Home of Sinclair Lewis
Lake Wobegon Piles Mist County Historical Society Museum
Wally "Old Hard Hands" Bunsen Memorial Field,
Lake Wobegon Loons Powdermilk Biscuit Plant
Lake Wobegon High School Lake Wobegon Leonards high school sports
teams Municipal Sanitary Landfill
Statue of the Unknown Norwegian Farmer's Union Grain Elevator
Bob's Bank, in the green mobile home World's Largest Pile of Burlap Bags
In literature Keillor has written several
semi-autobiographical books about life in Lake Wobegon, including:
Lake Wobegon Days, ISBN 0-14-013161-2; a recorded version of this won a Grammy
Award for Best Spoken Word or Non-musical Album in 1988
Leaving Home, ISBN 0-670-81976-X We Are Still Married, ISBN 0-670-82647-2
Wobegon Boy, ISBN 0-670-87807-3 Lake Wobegon Summer 1956, ISBN
0-571-21014-7 In Search of Lake Wobegon, ISBN
978-0-670-03037-8 Pontoon: A Novel of Lake Wobegon, ISBN
0-670-06356-8 Liberty: A Novel of Lake Wobegon, ISBN
0-670-01991-7 Life among the Lutherans, ISBN
978-0-8066-7061-4 Pilgrims: A Wobegon Romance, ISBN
978-0-670-02109-3 See also
Lake Wobegon Trails, two paved recreational rail trails in central
Minnesota named after the fictional Lake Wobegon in Garrison Keillor's Prairie
Home Companion Lake Wobegon Marathon, marathon that is
run along the Wobegon trail from Holdingford to St. Josehph
Lake Ore-be-gone References
External links Lake Wobegon Trail in Stearns County,
Minnesota In Search of Lake Wobegon from National
Geographic, part of an article plus links to related sites
Hiring: The Lake Wobegon Strategy, Peter Norvig, Google Research Blog
News From Lake Wobegon podcast, National Public Radio
A Prairie Home Companion Lake Wobegon Monologues, American Public
Media's Pretty Good Goods The Source of Lake Wobegon