M. Schettl Sales & Oddity Park

As a lifelong photographer, I’m always on the lookout for visually interesting places in which to practice my art during my travels. M. Schettl Sales & Oddity Park in Oshkosh, WI is an over-the-top example of such a place. On a recent visit the weather wasn’t the best, the lighting was poor, and voracious mosquitoes were on the attack. Those inconveniences aside, this was a wonderfully quirky place to find a plethora of subjects to wrap my creativity around.

M. Schettl Sales is first and foremost a home decor store, described as follows on their website:

M Scchettl Sales INC, in Oshkosh, Wisconsin, is the area’s leading home decor store serving Oshkosh, Appleton, Fond du Lac, and surrounding areas. We offer cabinets, counters, furniture, tools, garden accessories, and much more. 

THE PARK NEXT DOOR website offers a much more appealing description of this fantastic destination:

M. SCHETTL SALES – SCULPTURE AND ODDITIES – OSHKOSH, WI

I’ve been on a quest lately to find unique sculpture gardens.  There are several scattered throughout Wisconsin,  a few within an hour of Milwaukee, even less.  But this spot wasn’t even on my radar until I did another Google search for sculpture parks in Wisconsin and found a listing for M. Schettl Sales on Roadsideamerica.com.  This quirky retail business sells everything from doors, windows, pontoon boats, trailers, yard art, and more.  Just browsing the grounds and buildings is an event.  If your home remodel is in-progress, and if you’re a DIY kind of person, it’s certainly worth a visit.  But I digress…

What we went for was to see all the unique sculpture and nostalgia they have curated and displayed on the grounds.  Everything from a giant King Kong peeking out over one of the buildings, to multiple statues of Michelangelo’s David.  Sharks, eagles, pigs, horses, fairies, the Eiffel Tower, Elvis, The Blues Brothers – these are Just a few of the display pieces you’ll find here. Amusement a-plenty!

Come one, come all.  No admission required. 

Location: 5105 County Road S., Oshkosh, WI (Winnebago County)

While the store itself is filled with unexpectedly varied odds and ends, the main attraction to me was the five-acre park outside the store. A rather plain door in the store simple reads “Oddity Park.” Walking through this door leads to an amazing collection of outdoor sculptures including vehicles, structures, animals, and much more. The following gallery presents the images I captured on today’s visit.