rock in the house

Fun spot, drive up, check it out, and be on your merry way. No reason to go through Fountain City and not stop to check it out!

If you find yourself traveling the Great River Road between Minnesota and Wisconsin, you owe it to yourself to stop at Rock in the House, in Fountain City, WI. It is at once creepy (in an X-Files/Criminal Minds kind of way), unsettling (not one, but TWO massive boulders plowed down the hillside and landed on this same site! What are the odds! And could it happen again?! While you're in the house??!!) and downright fascinating, to read the story of how this natural disaster happened (twice!), what happened to the family, and the quirky pop culture role it has taken on (TV crews from around the world have filmed the site). I had to laugh at one person's (seemingly snarky—maybe it wasn't) comment, "okay, so this is American ingenuity...rock smashes into house, don't remove, charge people to come see it and they come." First of all, it's two freaking dollars, by honor system—you stuff two bucks into the jagged hand-cut hole of a rusty old toolbox nailed to the side porch. If you really don't want to part with your hard-earned dollars, you could go right on in without paying, as there's no one supervising the self-guided tour (though karma may get you, in the form of another rock tumbling down the hillside while stealing your freebie tour . . . it's happened before. Did I mention twice?). Hollywood couldn't create better ambiance: old clock radio playing in the kitchen when we entered the house (though no one else was present), musty, moldy smell permeated the home, one door in the powder-blue bathroom had a hand-lettered sign taped to it, "Don't Open!" (I have worst-case-scenarioitis and couldn't bring myself to open it, tempted as I was). . . lots of yellowed newspaper clippings adorn the walls, telling of the two disasters (a woman was killed with the first boulder incident), the various TV crews that have visited, lots of photos of the astounding path the boulder gouged into the landscape before landing smack-dab in the middle of the master bedroom, just moments after the owner stepped out, into the kitchen, the next room over (she miraculously survived, and no one else was injured/killed in the 1995 incident).Would I go out of my way to see Rock in the House? Probably not. But if you're in the area, definitely tour it!

Looking at a huge rock in a bedroom may not be really exciting, but when you realize that the housewife had just taken a picture of their newly remodeled bedroom, stepped into the kitchen and "BOOM" the 6 ton boulder rolled into the room she had just left. Decades earlier, the same thing happened on this property, but the house was in a different location. That time, the residents were in bed and the rock carried them both to the basement, killing the wife.Unique and worth at least a look.

Unique attraction off the beaten path, this 55 ton rock hit a house on it's roll down the hillside. You can tour the house for a small fee. It's interesting what havoc nature can cause.

Ok...so this is American ingenuity....rock smashes into home...don't remove....charge other people to come see it..... and they come.

A typical small town attraction thats in the same folds as the biggest ball of string or bailing twine or largest bottle of ketchup, etc......

We knew a little of the history of the rock. We would have likedmore information or someone there to answer questions but we were able to walk around and touch the rock.

It is amazing to see this large rock, 55 ton, that rolled down the hill and crashed into the house. It is just as it happened in 1995. All for $2.00 donation.

I guess it it pretty interesting. Last time I was there you put a dollar in a box. All honor system. It is local so I drive by it numerous times a week.

Ever see a one and a half story rock in a smallish house? It's there in Fountain City, just like it was when it rolled down a bluff and almost through the house. The woman who lived in the house at the time was in the next room, but escaped unharmed, although she could not exit out the front door as the rock twisted the house frame so badly, the front door was jammed. It's an incredible site and all for a $1.00 admission. (At least that was what the cost was several years ago when I visited.) Did I mention the admission price was "on the honor system"? It's worth the stop.

For a buck (honor system), you can walk all around a house where, in 1995, an enormous boulder fell off the bluffside, rolled down the hill, and smashed into a house. The owner was home but not injured. The owners have pretty much left the place as it was, complete with the giant boulder sitting in the back room. You can look around the rest of the first floor of the building, where they have some photos and newspaper accounts posted.The garage of this property is built on the site of where a previous house was demolished by a falling boulder in 1901. A sleeping woman was killed in that incident.