Hiking Tower Hill State Park

Tower Hill State Park is one of Wisconsin’s oldest state parks, and among its smallest. A short network of hiking trails climbs a sandstone bluff that rises 180-feet above the Wisconsin River, with all trails leading to the historic shot tower smelting house and its panoramic views of the idyllic Lower Wisconsin River Valley. Trails in this park are wide two-track footpaths that ascend or descend steep hills in a woodland setting speckled with tall white pines among hardwoods.

A small community of ten campsites nestled together on a knoll above the Wisconsin River and organized around a central playing field is the primary recreation attraction at Tower Hill. A boat ramp and canoe launch only a few feet down the bank from the campground offers easy access to the scenic riverway.

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view from above trees to hills in distance

View from the Shot Tower at Tower Hill State Park

Way back in early American history, nearly two decades before Wisconsin was recognized with statehood, Daniel Whitney looked out from his raft on the Wisconsin River to a tall escarpment rising directly from the riverbank to a height that would be perfect for the manufacture of lead shot. It so happened that this landform was located at the heart of the America’s lead mining industry in the southern Driftless Area. With its natural height, access to raw material, and direct access to the transportation superhighway of the Wisconsin and Mississippi River systems the construction of a shot tower here was imminent.

Lead shot are tiny spherical pellets used as the projectile fired form a shot gun. Shot is made when molten lead is dropped down a tall shaft and as it falls the resistance of the air forms and cools the lead into spheres. This is the same way raindrops are formed. The shot tower at Tower Hill consisted of a forge in a smelting house at the top of the tower where lead was melted and a vertical tunnel that was dug into cliff to form a shaft to base of the cliff where shot was retrieved via a short lateral tunnel. The shot tower was operational between 1836 and 1860.

The next era of the Tower Hill site began when it was purchased in 1889 by Jenkin Lloyd Jones, architect Frank Lloyd Wright’s uncle. He used the scenic knoll beside the Wisconsin River to establish a recreation retreat with guest cottages and entertainment which included lectures, a library, and music performances. In 1918 the Lloyd Jones family donated the retreat to the State of Wisconsin which established the Tower Hill State Park in 1922. The state park system in Wisconsin was first formed in 1900 with the designation of Interstate State Park. Today the park consists of 77-acres of woodland with old growth forest, a picnic area, 10-campsites and 2-miles of interconnected short hiking trails.

HIKING TRAILS AT TOWER HILL

The Old Ox trail begins near the picnic pavilion beside the parking lot and bends up the hill and passes through a rustic gazebo. This trail continues to an intersection with a trail that leads down to the river where hikers can walk into the tunnel to bottom of the shaft. Back on the Old Ox Trail, the trail dips and then climbs a steeper hill to reach the smelting house at the top of the hill. In summer, the smelting house is open as a museum featuring stories and history of the shot tower and site. A pair of trails return to the campground on steep grades. There used to be a steep trail that descended from the shot tower to the riverbank by the tunnel, but that trail has eroded and is no longer accessible.

The hikes at Tower Hill are short, but the steep hills hikers must climb up and down make them seem longer and more strenuous. With the side trip out-and-back to the tunnel by the riverbank and a stop at the smelting house museum you can spend up to two hours hiking in this park.

If you need to get some energy before taking on the steep hikes up to the tower then stop in at one of my favorite shops for coffee and a pastry at the Spring Green General Store across the river in Spring Green.

Gazeebo on the Old Oxe Trail at Tower Hill State Park

TOWER HILL STATE PARK TRAIL SYSTEM

COUNTY
IOWA
COMMUNITIES
WYOMING, SPRING GREEN
TOTAL MILES
1.5-MILE TRAIL NETWORK
DIFFICULTY
MODERATE

Directions and Trail Map

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If viewing on a mobile device, open the trail map above to load into Google Maps App by touching the expand rectangle in the upper right corner.

Address for your GPS: 5808 County Rd C, Spring Green, WI 53588
| coordinates: 43.147969121221095, -90.04596093384468 |