“Mr. Wisconsin Dells”: Tommy Bartlett Got His Start in His Hometown of Milwaukee

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Photo via Wikmedia Commons

Tommy Bartlett Water Show (2007)

Tommy Bartlett Water Show (2007)

Bartlett didn’t invent water skiing, and he wasn’t the first person to convince tourists to spend their summer vacations in the Dells. But Tommy Bartlett played a major role in popularizing water skiing as a spectator and participatory sport. He helped transform the Dells into such a summer attraction that Bartlett spent much of his life being referred to in the press as “Mr. Wisconsin Dells.”

Before Bartlett was promoting water sports or summers around Lake Delton, he was a kid from Milwaukee who wanted a career in radio.

Thomson Bartlett was born into a prosperous Milwaukee family on July 11, 1914. His father, Ferdinand Bartlett, was an executive for the Northwestern Mutual Life Insurance Company. His mother, Elizabeth Towles Thomson Bartlett, came from an even more prestigious family. Her uncle, Nicholas Longworth, was a Republican congressman from Ohio who served as Speaker of the US House of Representatives from 1925 until 1931. Longworth was probably more well known for his marriage to Alice Lee Roosevelt, the daughter of President Theodore Roosevelt. Longworth and “TR” had a long-running public spat after Roosevelt decided to run for president in 1912 on the ticket of the “Bull Moose Party,” opposing incumbent Republican President William Howard Taft.

Young Thomson’s prized possession was Longworth’s gavel from his time as Speaker of the House. “Tommy” had one sibling, an older sister named Elizabeth with whom he remained close for her entire life. Additionally, his cousin Michael Bartlett was one of America’s top opera singers of the 1930s and 1940s.

Initially, the family resided near Ferdinand’s office in a luxury Downtown apartment on Wisconsin Avenue. Later, the Bartletts relocated to tony Fox Point, the affluent North Shore community which was established in 1926. The family owned a summer home in Fish Creek, along Green Bay in Door County.

Drawn to Performing

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Photo via Wikimedia Commons

Tommy Bartlett (circa 1940s)

Tommy Bartlett's headshot from his time with CBS-NBC Chicago as the host of the "Welcome Travellers" radio program (circa 1940s).

From an early age, Bartlett showed an interest in performing, either on stage or on the radio. His father Ferdinand was heavily involved with Milwaukee community theatre, participating for years as a singer and an actor with the Wisconsin Dramatic Society. Tommy, too, caught the bug as a youngster and started acting and singing in amateur productions.

He made his first appearance as a radio announcer on WISN at age 13. By age 16, he was a regular announcer on the station. By day, he attended Shorewood High School and in the evenings he performed on WISN programming. Bartlett dropped out of school after his junior year to work full-time in radio.

Precious was the word for Mr. Bartlett.

For a time, Bartlett was the youngest announcer in the entirety of the Columbia Broadcasting System ([CBS] WISN was Milwaukee’s CBS Radio affiliate). Before Bartlett could drive, he spoke regularly at Rotary Club luncheons across southern Wisconsin on behalf of WISN and CBS.

WISN was the home station for a nationally syndicated program called “The Inside Story,” which focused on Hollywood. At 18, Bartlett became the show’s lead announcer. At 19, he became the station’s director of public relations.

During lunch hour, Bartlett hosted a Man-in-the-Street series for WISN. The station set up a microphone outside the entrance to the Riverside Theatre. After a couple of airings, crowds lined up to talk on the radio with Bartlett during their lunch breaks.

Talent Contest

On Monday nights, Bartlett hosted an amateur talent contest at Riverside Theatre. Top prize was $15. Bartlett maintained that gig for several years, even after he took a position at Chicago’s WBBM. Every Monday, Bartlett drove back to Milwaukee to host the competition.

At age 21, WBBM snatched up the young radio talent. WBBM general manager Bob Kaufman had caught wind of the tireless Bartlett’s act, following him around for a day as he wore many hats for the radio station. Kaufman offered him a job on the spot.

Even while broadcasting on WBBM in the late 1930s and 1940s, he remained a well-known person in Wisconsin. WBBM could be heard clearly in Milwaukee and had a sizable audience as far away as Green Bay. The Milwaukee and Green Bay newspapers highlighted Bartlett’s programs and noted his local connections frequently.

World War II interrupted Bartlett’s radio career. In 1942, he enlisted and served in the U.S. Army Air Corps. He spent much of the war as a flight instructor in Texas. Additionally, he worked as a radio broadcaster for programming targeted at the Air Corps.

Welcome Water Skiers

After returning from the Armed Services, Bartlett hosted several different daytime radio programs on WBBM, including “Welcome Travelers” and “Meet the Missus.” An assignment emceeing at the 1949 Chicago Railroad Fair changed Bartlett’s life. He hosted a series of water-skiing exhibitions on Lake Michigan being put on by Cypress Gardens, the Winter Haven, Florida theme park that developed water sports during the 1930s. Bartlett liked what he saw but thought that he could add greater showmanship and spectacle to water skiing performances. Additionally, he thought that water skiing could become a regular attraction that would draw large audiences in middle America.

Bartlett created his own water sports company, which he called the Tommy Bartlett Water Ski and Jumping Boat Thrill Show. His first business decision was to purchase surplus water-skiing equipment from the participants in the Chicago Railroad Fair. In addition, he hired performers who had worked previously for Cypress Gardens.

Bartlett outfitted his performers in colorful clothing and helped them develop daring routines that included ski jumping, skydiving, and dancing on the water.

Summertime Destination

He worked closely with Carl Kiekhaefer of Mercury Marine, the Fond du Lac based manufacturer of outboard motors. Kiekhaefer provided Bartlett with motorboats. Bartlett provided Mercury Marine with a summer’s worth of advertising for their products. The partnership made fortunes for both men as spectators of the soon-to-be rechristened “Tommy Bartlett Show” became participants in the sport and Mercury Marine motors.

Initially, Tommy Bartlett Shows were based in Chicago, but he started hosting regular events in Wisconsin Dells, which was quickly becoming a popular summer tourist destination for residents of southern Wisconsin and Chicagoland.

At the behest of the Dells’ Chamber of Commerce, Bartlett moved the show’s headquarters to Lake Delton and Wisconsin Dells permanently in 1953, which helped transform the region into one of the country’s great summer recreation areas.

Bartlett’s guests in Wisconsin Dells left with a Tommy Bartlett Show bumper sticker, which helped advertise the show to potential customers across the Midwest. By the mid-1950s, Bartlett had one company that performed daily on Lake Delton and four other troupes which toured the United States and Canada.

Korea to the World Fair

As Tommy Bartlett’s empire grew, he found an important way to give back to the Armed Forces. He worked with the United Service Organizations (USO) to entertain the troops overseas. Tommy Bartlett brought his water-skiing exhibitions to Asia. His shows played at military bases and civilian installations in Japan, Burma, Thailand, the Philippines and South Korea. Additionally, Tommy Bartlett Shows performed at four different Worlds Fairs.

Bartlett went water skiing just once in his life—as a publicity stunt on his 70th birthday in 1984.  Bartlett completed his first and last experience in water skiing with his usual sense of showmanship. He smiled and waved to the crowd while gliding by the assemblage on Lake Delton.

Later in his career, Bartlett started an education-themed park in Wisconsin Dells. Tommy Bartlett’s Robot World and Exploratory opened in 1982 with over 150 interactive science-based displays. It would soon be renamed the Tommy Bartlett Exploratory. For many spectators, the highlight of the Exploratory remains the module from Russia’s Mir Space Station, which has been on display since 1996.

Bartlett died at age 84 on September 6, 1998, in Madison. He was buried in the family plot at Forest Home Cemetery in Milwaukee. He never married and he had no children.

More than a quarter century after his death, Milwaukee’s Tommy Bartlett’s name remains a well-known one. In September 2020, the Tommy Bartlett Show announced that it would cease operations, unable to weather the shutdowns caused by Covid. Between 1952 and 2020, an estimated 50 million people around the world saw Tommy Bartlett water skiing shows.

In 2025, Ripley’s Believe It or Not! purchased Tommy Bartlett’s Exploratory and added the Ripley’s name to its moniker. Ripley’s owns the intellectual property for the Tommy Bartlett water skiing shows as well and it is likely that they will bring the name back at some point in the future.