In the most respectable and awe-struck way possible, Dr. Evermor’s Sculpture Park looks as if a giant Steampunk-inspired robot emptied the contents of its stomach in the middle of Wisconsin. Or, what the characters of Transformers would look like if they were built in the 1980s and aged naturally. You pick.
Plopped behind a surplus store in the small Town of Sumpter, the sculpture park is a winding display of rusting metallic creatures, huge metal contraptions, and fantastical structures that certainly bring out a sense of wonder in its beholders.
The park was built in the ‘80s by the one and only Dr. Evermor, a mythical ‘Victorian inventor’ persona used by the park’s creator Tom Every. According to their website, Tom was “a demolition expert who spent decades collecting antique machinery for the sculpture and the surrounding fiction that justifies it.”
The largest sculpture in the park, and largest scrap metal sculpture in the world, Forevertron®, was designed with a very specific fictional use case, to launch Dr. Evermor “into the heavens on a magnetic lightning force beam. Forevertron® weighs in at a whopping 300 tons, stands 50 feet high and 120 feet wide.
Weaving around the park, you’ll find the “Bird Band Orchestra,” where seventy bird-like structures roost, a satellite and telescope installation, small mythical bug-looking-creatures, and much, much more.
It’s a must-stop attraction if you’re visiting Wisconsin Dells or headed out to the west side of Wisconsin. Heck, it’s worth it to drive out there just to see the park.
May we all have an imagination like the late Dr. Evermor.