A visit to the Wisconsin Cranberry Discovery Center just isn’t complete until you’ve tried some cranberry ice cream. We feature several flavors of ice cream handcrafted by Dave Edwards of Ranison Ice Cream & Candy in La Crosse. Dave and his wife, Kim, are just the third owners of the company, founded in 1933.

"I started working for Bruce Ranis (the company's second owner) when I was a college student at UW-La Crosse. Then in 1998 when Bruce was ready to retire, I bought business from him," Dave said.

Ranison Ice Cream makes more than 50 flavors of ice cream, plus is now developing several flavors of cranberry ice cream for the Cranberry Discovery Center. Currently available are Cranberry, Cranberry Truffle, Cranberry Cheesecake and Chocolate Cranberry Caramel Swirl. You might also find a sampling of some of the other flavors Dave makes, including perhaps Blue Moon, Pineapple Orange or Grape Nut.

Visitors at the Cranberry Discovery Center can eat their ice cream at a restored marble soda fountain counter. From the early 1930s until 1973, the counter graced Steele’s Drug Store in Tomah. In storage for the past 30 years, Bob and Arlys Steele donated the counter to the Discovery Center.

Mr. Steele began working at the drug store in 1938 when he was 14 years old. “Back in the ‘30s, Saturday night was the big night and people would be six deep at the fountain trying to get an ice cream cone. And they’d get a big one for a nickel,” he recalled.