Tom Kelly has a knack for finding unusual ride routes and destinations for his fellow Moto Guzzi riders to enjoy at the annual Wisconsin Moto Guzzi Riders Rally. The 2026 event was certainly no exception. The destination, Ernest Hüpeden’s Painted Forest, is as obscure as the tiny hamlet where it is located.

Getting to the site took the riders on a scenic cruise on the well-paved, winding roads of Sauk and Juneau counties. The route went from the Rally grounds in Wonewoc through rolling hills to the tiny hamlet of Valton, where you’ll find the Painted Forest.

The name suggests a trip to a large forest with vivid foliage. The reality is, there isn’t a sprawling forest at the site, at least not anymore. However, when Hüpeden arrived in the area in the mid-1890s, roughly 17 years after immigrating from Germany at the age of 20, there was that extensive forest and much less open, tilled farmland.

What the Guzzi riders found instead is a white, wood-framed building that closely resembles many of the 19th-century country churches and one-room schoolhouses that still exist around the country. However, it was never either one. According to a brochure about the site, it was built in the 1890s by the Modern Woodmen of America (MWA), one of hundreds of similar lodge halls put up about the same time.

The MWA was founded as a fraternal order, similar to the Masons or Odd Fellows, complete with secret passwords, initiations, costumes, and rituals. It sounds complicated, but once a member, you are eligible to buy into the Modern Woodmen life insurance plan.

The MWA building in Valton has a unique history and interior, thanks to Ernest Hüpeden’s sweeping artwork. His murals cover every square inch of a 60-by-33-by-24-foot building’s interior, including the arched ceiling. Those painted pines climbing the walls are what gave the building its name, though not until the 1960s, when Ronald and Delores Nash bought the Hall and called it the Painted Forest.

The facility’s neighbor and Valton resident Kevin Burton told us that Hüpeden painted the murals to run edge to edge. They start in the Death Corner, which is to the left as you enter. There, the murals begin to explain the importance of MWA membership and the organization’s reason for existence.

The Death Corner depicts the risks in life, complete with a skull and crossbones, an owl perched in a dead tree, and a man riding a goat. These all symbolize life’s unexpected hazards and the need for life insurance.

Circulating around the room clockwise takes the viewer to murals depicting the need for community and the fraternal order, the MWA initiation ritual, and the positive role MWA members can play locally.

Next, there is a mural that shows Hüpeden’s vision of Valton’s future, complete with inclusion of past residents’ names and businesses, and a never-constructed saloon. It never came to be because the Town of Woodland has been dry since the time of the painting.

After getting the guided tour of the Hall, the Moto Guzzi riders headed out to Wonewoc’s Chapparal Restaurant for a great lunch.