Kinstone Megalithic Garden

Cattle once grazed this steep bluff near Fountain City, Wisconsin; since 2011 it has held a modern stone circle that CBS Minnesota called Wisconsin's answer to Stonehenge. Kristine Beck, who is the fourth generation of her family on the land, began Kinstone after visiting stone circles and dolmens in England and Ireland in 2010. Kinstone says she found that circles of 19 stones felt different to her, and 19 stones form the outer ring of the Great Stone Circle, which measures 81.6 feet across. CBS Minnesota reported in 2023 that this circle took 10 days to put together, using 21 semi-truck loads of stone from a quarry in Cold Spring, Minnesota. Kinstone says the stones are mostly granite or gneiss from Minnesota and South Dakota quarries, and that the first group was set in October 2011.

The garden has since grown to include three stone circles, a dolmen with a 13-ton capstone according to Visit Winona, a classical seven-circuit labyrinth, and the Chapel of Creation, built of cordwood with a thatched roof of reeds gathered in the Mississippi backwaters. Kinstone counts 119 standing stones and 71 further boulders. Travel Wisconsin says individual stones weigh up to 35 tons or stand up to 23 feet tall. Several alignments are set to solstices and equinoxes; Kinstone's name combines 'kin' and 'stone'.