Everybody Knows Everybody
The night before, I sat down with Said to hear about her personal experiences at the bar.
Dressed in a brown cardigan, she tapped off a glass of beer for me and took a seat across the bar. Both friendly and matter-of-fact, her voice carried the slightest Wisconsin twang as she shared her memories.
For her, tavern culture is nothing out of the ordinary, since it’s something she’s been immersed in since birth. As a fourth generation Hanson, she’s lived in the Pub most of her life.
Photo by: Daniel Niepow
“This was my rec room,” she says. “I lived right in the other room.”
She began first tending bar with her parents when she was only 13. She continued to work at Hanson’s until she married at age 23, when she moved to Elm Grove. She became owner of the bar only five years ago. At present, she runs the bar from 3 p.m. until bar close every day except Monday.
Said exchanged brief greetings with a few patrons throughout our conversation, calling them each by name. She seems to personify the overall sense of community and warmth inside the bar. Even outsiders like me get a feel for this after spending only an hour or two inside.
“Everybody knows everybody, even if they don’t when they come in,” Said says. “By the time they leave they pretty much know everybody.”
A Culture of Its Own
Perhaps the best way to understand tavern culture is to view it through the eyes of an outsider. Chicago-native Carl Corey spent two years traveling through Wisconsin and taking photos inside more than 60 taverns. He then compiled his work into a book titled “Tavern League” in 2011.
Corey was drawn to tavern culture in Wisconsin because it’s something he hasn’t seen anywhere else in the country.
“Very few other areas have a sense of community that is exemplified in taverns as much as Wisconsin does,” he says.
He cites Pennsylvania as the only other state that comes to close to Wisconsin in this regard.
It’s easy to point out the obvious physical differences between places like Hanson’s Pub and other bars and nightclubs: the decor, the drinks, the music, even the people themselves. But Corey thinks subtler differences between the two exist as well.
“Bars were places where people go and simply drink,” he says. “It seemed to me that taverns in Wisconsin…are more of a place where the most important thing is getting together with people…rather than actually drinking.”
Healthy Relationships
Architectural historian Jim Draeger worked on a similar project to Corey, and he came to many of the same conclusions. Intrigued by tavern culture from an early age, Draeger collaborated with fellow historian Mark Speltz and photographer Mark Fay to explore the topic at length in a book titled “Bottoms Up: A Toast to Wisconsin’s Historic Bars and Breweries.”
He also feels community and socialization play a larger role than drinking in tavern culture—something Said mentioned briefly in my discussion with her.
She sees people from all ages come into the bar, but she noted that even the younger folks coming in aren’t there for the usual inebriated experience.
“The young people that come in here… just come and have fun,” she says. “It’s not a crazy bar. They don’t get crazy drunk.”
Set against the backdrop of a state with a history of drunk driving, the community at Hanson’s Pub is a model of a somewhat healthier relationship with alcohol. Everyone drinks, of course, but the focus is not on the drinking. And the North Lake community is so small that many of the patrons can simply walk to the bar.
Draeger’s book project also focused on the relationship between bars and breweries, something he was able to study firsthand at Hanson’s Pub.
“The thing that’s most interesting about Hanson’s Pub is that it has survived for an extraordinarily long time with very few changes,” he says. “[It’s] one of the small-town breweries that once dotted Wisconsin, and to find one that is as intact as that…is really remarkable. I did not expect to find one of those.”
He hopes the book will allow people to engage with the past by visiting the many taverns he writes about. In many ways, sitting in Hanson’s and chatting with the folks inside does feel a bit like digging through a time capsule. Almost as old as the state itself, the bar is both a fully-functioning business and a monument to the rich history of tavern culture. For now, at least, places like Hanson’s Pub continue to offer this dual perspective of Wisconsin’s history.
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