US 61 seems to run right into Barn Bluff, a massive formation of sandstone and dolomite rising nearly 350 feet above the town. The passage of more than 130 years has not diminished the view. Beautifully restored buildings downtown include the Beaux Arts-style T. B. Sheldon Memorial Auditorium on Third Street and the stately St. James Hotel on Main Street, built in 1875. If your tastes run more to the material, browse for antiques on Main Street, or visit the Pottery District north of downtown. Outlet stores selling everything from galoshes to gargoyles have taken over the old Red Wing Stoneware Company factory, famous for its bluish, salt-glazed crockery.
Potters still use local clay to turn out replicas of the traditional designs.
The Pottery District is also the eastern terminus for the Cannon Valley Trail , a 19.5-mile bike path along the deep, wooded valley of the Cannon River. Leave town on US 61, skirting the stratified flanks of Barn Bluff and swinging south at the foot of a chain of hills that rise in a wall of green above the rooftops. Where there's room between the bluffs and the road, corn grows in neat rows. Just over 10 miles brings you to Frontenac Station , a whistle stop on the St. Paul to Milwaukee rail line that consists of little more than a cafe, a gas station, and a few houses. But the place is a thriving hub of commerce compared with Frontenac , a village two miles to the east that has managed to escape the twentieth century entirely.