Nodolf House

Outside of Platteville, WI at the base of the Platteville Mound on private property are the remains of an abandoned brick farmhouse sitting quietly beneath the trees, overshadowed by the world’s largest “M” towering above the Driftless Area landscape. This is the site of one of southwestern Wisconsin’s strangest legends: the 1880 Nodolf Incident.

Carl and Louise Nodolf built their Platte Mound homestead in 1866, and by 1880 they were raising two young children, four-year-old Minnie and two-year-old Louie. According to local lore, during a violent summer storm in June 1880, the children disappeared from their bedroom in the middle of the night. Their parents searched the house before hearing their voices outside. When they opened the locked front door, they found both children standing on the doorstep in the pouring rain, somehow outside despite the bolted doors and windows, and completely dry. The children had no memory of how they got there, but the strange event left them with a lifelong stutter that fueled decades of speculation about what really happened.

Over the years, explanations for the Nodolf Incident have ranged from sleepwalking and human interference to more unusual theories involving ghosts, alien abduction, and unexplained phenomena. Some legends claim the abandoned Nodolf farmhouse is haunted by the spirit of a jealous deceased fiancé who never existed outside the story, while others say eerie cries and wailing sounds have been heard coming from the ruins. The details of the event were popularized by Kenosha author Erva Loomis Merow in a 1960 children’s book, meaning the story may be part history and part folklore, but the abandoned house near Platte Mound remains one of Wisconsin’s most unusual mystery landmarks.