What is Gilman, Wisconsin known for?

Its swinging bridge over the Yellow River, built in 1915 and still in use; Gilman Cheese, the village's biggest employer alongside the school; and Miller Dam Flowage, a reservoir five miles northeast known for bass, panfish and ice fishing.

Can you still walk across the Gilman swinging bridge?

Yes. It is a working pedestrian bridge into Gilman Village Park and it sways noticeably as you cross. There is no fee.

When is June Dairy Days in Gilman?

On Father's Day weekend, the third weekend of June. It runs Friday to Sunday with music, a softball tournament, a Sunday chicken dinner and a parade. Check the current year's dates before you travel.

Where can you eat in Gilman?

Amanda's Place on Main Street for breakfast and lunch (7am to 1pm, Monday to Saturday), Sittin Bull Saloon just south of town for beer and pizza, and the fish fries at Hooked at Outboards and Longshot at Miller Dam out on the flowage.

Is there camping in Gilman?

Yes. The village campground at Scout Park has eight sites on the Yellow River, with sites with electricity listed at $20 a night. Chippewa Campground on Miller Dam Flowage, about six miles northeast, has 78 sites and is open from May 20 to September 30.

What is there to do in Gilman in winter?

Snieg Fest in February, tubing and cross-country skiing at the Perkinstown Winter Sports Area on weekends when there is snow, and ice fishing on Miller Dam Flowage.

Things to Do in Gilman WI: Swinging Bridge to Snieg Fest

Gilman sits on the Yellow River where Highways 64 and 73 meet in southwest Taylor County, a village of 378 people with a school, a cheese plant, a hardware store and a footbridge that sways when you walk across it. The things to do in Gilman fit that scale. You cross the bridge, you eat breakfast on Main Street before the cafe closes at one, and you drive five miles up the road to the flowage, which is where the fishing is.

This covers the village and the country right around it. It is a good day out, and a better weekend if you bring a rod or a tent.

The Swinging Bridge and the village park

Start at the swinging bridge. It is a cable footbridge over the Yellow River, built in 1915, the same year the village opened its park on the far bank, and more than a century later it is still how you walk into that park.

Gilman Swinging Bridge

It moves. Not much, but enough that children stop halfway to bounce and adults take the second half more slowly than the first. Visitors who have crossed it describe the same thing: it sways noticeably and still feels sturdy underfoot. Stop in the middle for the view up and down the Yellow River.

The village signs itself as the Home of the Swinging Bridge and calls it one of the last true swinging bridges in Wisconsin. That is a fair claim with one qualifier: River Falls, out near the Minnesota line, has a suspension footbridge of its own. Call Gilman's one of a rare few and you will be right. The village also asks visitors to see all five of its bridges, and the swinging bridge is the one people drive here for.

Gilman Village park

Gilman Village Park, on the far side of the bridge at 300 Park Drive, is the village's main green. There is a playground with swings, picnic tables in the shade along the river, a ball diamond and public restrooms. The park is open from 8am to 6pm and dogs are welcome.

Bring lunch from Main Street and eat it here. The tables nearest the water are the ones to claim.

Main Street: cheese, coffee and the Wednesday market

Main Street is short, and three stops make it worth walking: Vault Village for coffee and gifts, Gilman Cheese down by the river, and the farmers market on summer Wednesdays.

Vault Village

Vault Village, at 280 East Main Street, is a boutique with a coffee counter, which in a village this size makes it the place to sit for twenty minutes. The shelves carry clothing, gifts and work by local makers, and Travel Wisconsin's listing adds meats and cheese to that. It is open 9am to 5pm on weekdays and 9am to 1pm on Saturdays, closed Sundays, so a weekend visit has to happen in the morning.

The Gilman Farmer's Market sets up outside on Wednesdays from 3pm to 6pm, from mid-June into early October. Expect produce, baked goods and crafts, and on a good week a flea-market table or two.

Gilman Cheese

Gilman Cheese, on South Riverside Drive, is one of the village's two big employers, alongside the school. The business goes back to 1932, when the owner of the cheese factory in the old village of Polley bought Gilman's plant, the one later known as Drangle's.

Today the plant makes shelf-stable cheese for other brands, plus smoked cheese, sticks, planks and deli loaves. Reviewers single out the white cheddar and the jalapeno pepper jack. Be clear on one thing before you go: this is a working plant, not a cheese shop. It runs weekdays from 7am, closes at noon on Friday, and if you want to buy, call ahead rather than turning up.

Two more stops round out the street. Romig's Hardware & Plumbing is a working hardware store that also keeps an old-school ice cream bar, a combination you will not find in many towns. It closes at 3pm on Saturdays and all day Sunday.

Down by the water, Gilman Cheese Community Park is the smaller of the village greens, with a gazebo and a stretch of riverbank the village has cleaned up for sitting.

Where to eat and drink in Gilman

Gilman eats early and simply. Amanda's Place feeds the village breakfast and lunch, Sittin Bull Saloon does beer and pizza just south of town, and the fish fries happen out at Miller Dam.

Amanda's Place

Amanda's Place, at 135 East Main Street, is a farmhouse-style cafe that opens at 7am and closes at 1pm, Monday to Saturday. That is the whole window. Miss lunch and you have missed it until tomorrow, and it is closed on Sundays.

What people come back for is plain cooking done well: breakfast plates, comfort-food lunches, good coffee and homemade pie. The room is roomy and easy with children, with high chairs and a kids' menu, and it rates 4.8 from 74 Google reviews.

Sittin Bull Saloon

Sittin Bull Saloon is a country bar on Polley Lane, about two miles south of the village. The lane is named for Polley, a logging village that once had its own sawmill, cheese factory and newspaper. Today it is a bar, a few homes and some farms.

The bar does cold beer, cocktails, pizza and bar food, with games, music and sports on the TVs. There is a beer garden out back that groups can book, and enough room in the lot for trucks and trailers. In winter it is a regular stop for people out on snowmobiles. It opens at 3pm Wednesday to Friday and 12:30pm on weekends, and it is closed Monday and Tuesday.

For a Friday fish fry, drive out to the flowage. Hooked at Outboards, on County Road M, fries haddock, bluegill, walleye, perch and lobster on Fridays, carves prime rib on Saturday nights and runs a pizza buffet on Sundays.

Longshot at Miller Dam, beside the county landing on County Road G, is a family restaurant and bar known for smoked prime rib and homemade fries. Some dishes only appear on certain days, so look at the menu before you set your heart on one.

For something quick, the Gilman Corner Store on Main Street has pizza, a build-your-own sub station and free coffee if you bring your own cup. It opens at 4am on weekdays.

Plan around the early week. Sittin Bull and Longshot are both closed on Mondays and Tuesdays, Outboards is closed on Mondays, and Amanda's never opens in the evening. A Monday night in Gilman is a gas-station pizza night.

Out at Miller Dam

Five miles northeast of the village, Miller Dam Flowage is where Gilman goes to fish, launch a boat and camp.

The maps call it Chequamegon Waters Flowage: a reservoir of about 2,400 acres behind a 1967 dam on the Yellow River, shallow and full of stumps, and known for largemouth bass and panfish. In winter it fills with ice-fishing shanties. Miller Dam Flowage rewards most of a day. Launch at the county ramp, eat at one of the two bar-and-grills on the shore, and stay over if you brought a tent.

Camping in the village

Gilman runs its own small campground at Scout Park, on the Yellow River inside the village.

Gilman Scout Park

There are eight sites on the riverbank, wooded and shady, each with a fire pit and a picnic table, some under a shelter, and paved pads for a car or an RV. Facilities are simple: pit toilets and a hand pump for water, with modern restrooms next door in the village park.

The village lists sites with electricity at $20 a night, and you register in town first. Everything you need is close: the gas stations, the hardware store, Amanda's and both bars sit within a mile and a half of your tent.

There is no dump station in Gilman. The Town of Jump River, about 13 miles north, lets campers dump for $15 if they call 715-668-5360 ahead, according to the village.

For a site on the water, Chippewa Campground is the Forest Service campground on the east shore of the flowage, about six miles northeast of Gilman. It has 78 sites, 41 of them reservable, and a Medford mailing address, and it is open from May 20 to September 30.

Winter: Snieg Fest and the Perkinstown hill

Winter here runs from December into March, and it is not a dead season. Snieg Fest takes over a weekend in February, and Taylor County's tubing hill at Perkinstown opens on winter weekends.

Snieg is Polish for snow. Snieg Fest is the village's winter festival, with snow sculpting and a frying pan toss among the events. It is a local festival rather than a tourist event, which is the appeal.

Perkinstown Winter Sports Area, about eight miles east, is run by Taylor County. It has a tubing hill with a rope tow, plus stairs to the top if you would rather walk; groomed cross-country ski loops over wooded rolling hills, from a half-mile beginner loop to one of nearly eight miles; ski and snowshoe rentals; and a warming chalet with food. It opens on Saturdays and Sundays when there is snow. The snow is natural, so call ahead before you drive out, and bring cash or a check because cards are not taken.

The other winter activity is the one most locals mean when they talk about winter: ice fishing on Miller Dam. A survey by the lake association found it was the top reason people use the flowage, and its ice-fishing contest falls on a Saturday in late January.

June Dairy Days and the summer calendar

Gilman's big weekend is June Dairy Days, held on Father's Day weekend, the third weekend of June.

June is dairy month in Wisconsin, and the village marks it properly. Friday night brings music, which Gilman Cheese has sponsored. Saturday and Sunday are given over to the two-day softball tournament, with a volleyball tournament, cornhole, pickleball, a kids' pedal pull and the Little Britches cattle show around it. Sunday ends with a chicken dinner and the parade. The Gilman Lions, the Community Betterment Association and the village put it on together.

Two neighbours fill the rest of the summer. Jump River, about 13 miles north, holds a Fourth of July that the village says draws more than 3,000 people, with a parade of 70 to 90 entries and an hour of fireworks. Lublin, about seven miles to the south-southeast, has Lublin Days on the last weekend of July, with a parade, softball and a charcoal chicken dinner put on by the American Legion. Gilman closes the year with a Fall Fest.

Gilman's summer weather is short and warm, with highs in the high 70s through July, which is why the whole calendar crowds into those few months. Dates move from year to year, so check the events calendar before you plan around one.

Getting your bearings

Gilman sits where Highways 64 and 73 cross in southwest Taylor County, about 14 miles north of Thorp in a straight line.

Most visitors come up from the south, leaving Highway 29 at Thorp and following Highway 73 north. The drive up from Highway 29 follows 73 all the way in, and the village appears where the highway meets the river. The Chequamegon-Nicolet National Forest begins about three miles east of the village, and Medford, the county seat, is about 23 miles east.

Gilman will not fill a week. It fills a good day and a better weekend: cross the bridge, eat before one, and be on the flowage by evening.