Appleton Sights and Landmarks Guide, Wisconsin

What to See in Appleton, Wisconsin

Appleton, a small city in Wisconsin, is located in Calumet, Outagamie and Winnebago counties. It is also the county seat of Outagamie. It is a growing city, known to be safe, quiet and beautiful. The city of Appleton has a beautiful airport. It is served by a large number of local and international flights through the years. Domestic flights from Appleton to Charlotte, Appleton to New-Orleans and Appleton to Portland are served throughout the week. The city of Appleton is well known for being the childhood home of Harry Houdini, the magician.

Appleton, Wisconsin – Sights: Harry Houdini

Since this was the childhood home of Harry Houdini, the Outagamie Museum has a section dedicated to him. In 1999, the previous non-interactive exhibit was changed and made much more interactive as well as child friendly. This now includes not only artifacts from his work, like a straightjacket, leg irons and handcuffs, but also has displays of famous tricks he did like his “metamorphosis” illusion and milk can escape, which allows visitors to learn the secret and try these tricks themselves. However, this has upset many magicians as they feel the secret behind his tricks should not be revealed, while the city says that the tricks were already available in many books about Houdini.

You can also opt to have a historic city tour that will take you through Appleton and show you some of the sites Houdini must have visited as a child.

Appleton, Wisconsin – Sights: Culture

There are musicals and the theatre in downtown Appleton, at the Performing Arts Centre. They had great shows such as the Chinese Acrobats, Phantom of the Opera and Les Miserables with other performances being organized from time to time.

Appleton, Wisconsin – Sights: Shopping

While there are no huge shopping malls, there are numerous smaller ones. There are hundreds of stores, and the best malls to go to are the northland Mall and the Fox River Mall. You can get a large variety of products here, from clothes to shoes, and even buy touristy trinkets from the stores.

The Valley Fair Mall was the first indoor shopping mall in the world, but was torn down in 2007, leaving just the Eastern wing and the movie theatre behind.

Appleton, Wisconsin – Sights: Restaurants

There are a large number of eating places you can go to in Appleton, including regular fast food chains like Taco Bell, Jimmy John’s, Burger King, Wendy’s, Dairy Queen and others. There are also more sophisticated ones like Paper Valley restaurant. You can also get exotic food like Indian, Italian, Hmong and Korean among others at local eateries.

For those that are thirsty, there is a huge number of bars lining College Avenue.