Spotlight: Shake Rag Alley

You can't visit Mineral Point without a visit to Shake Rag Alley! A historic arts center and guest center offering arts education on toics from writing to blacksmithing. Learn more in this week's Spotlight!

Shake Rag Alley

18 Shake Rag St., Mineral Point, WI
608-987-3292 | [email protected]
www.ShakeRagAlley.org

Tell us about Shake Rag Alley!
Magic. Joy. Heaven on earth. These words and others like them have been used to describe the experience of learning, staying, and celebrating at Shake Rag Alley Center for the Arts, Mineral Point’s nationally known 501(c)3 nonprofit school of arts and crafts.

Back in the early 1800s, when Mineral Point was a rough-and-tumble lead mining town, a cluster of cabins in the little valley surrounding Federal Spring was known as Shake Rag Under the Hill. When Madison florist Al Felly bought up all the little homesteads around the spring circa 1970 and planted the area into a lovely garden with artisans making their crafts in the buildings, he called it Shake Rag Alley. There’s a local legend that camp cooks used to shake a rag outside their doors to indicate to the miners working in the nearby hills that chow was ready. In several parts of the United States, “Shake Rag” was the name of a poor residential area.

Fast forward to October 14, 2004, when local artists and community members purchased the property and launched a nonprofit arts education center. The spring is still bubbling, and today Shake Rag Alley Center for the Arts occupies nine buildings on the 2.5-acre campus of gardens, trees, and rambling paths.

What other great things can you share about ShakeRag Alley?
Our campus and guest lodging are located in the historic heart of Mineral Point, whose historic district was the first in Wisconsin added to the National Register of Historic Places 50 years ago this summer.

Tell us a little more about your programs!
Our lodging operations support the general operations of our arts education programs, which include blacksmithing and welding, creative entrepreneurship, ceramics and pottery, creative writing and performing arts, culinary arts, fiber arts, glass, jewelry, mixed media, painting and 2D art, paper and book arts, printmaking, and rustic arts and nature crafts.