WISCONSIN DELLS — A flock of 136 million passenger pigeons once flew over Wisconsin.

The bird has been extinct for decades. But now, a Wisconsin Dells businessman wants to keep the memory of the pigeons alive and introduce the bird to young people through the gift of a little known print from one of the state’s most well known wildlife artists.

Bud Gussel, owner of grocery distributor Holiday Wholesale, has an original painting of a pair of passenger pigeons painted by Owen Gromme in 1986 at Gussel’s request. The painting has hung in Gussel’s office ever since, but now

Gussel is offering free copies of the painting to schools and libraries throughout the state.

“Nobody sees it and I think everyone should be able to see what a passenger pigeon looks like,” said Gussel, a good friend of Gromme who lived in Briggsville, about 10 miles east of Wisconsin Dells. “I think he’d be thrilled to know that the young people in the state would get to understand the story.”

Scientists estimated that the passenger pigeon population in the United States may at one time have been as high as five billion birds. The world’s last passenger pigeon is believed to have died in 1914 in Cincinnati.

Gromme painted the pigeons for Gussel, who had taken Gromme to a cliff in Wisconsin Dells to show the artist a vantage point Gromme would use in a painting called Distant Thunder. The painting depicted a massive flock of passenger pigeons that flew over the area in the 1870s.

“When he got done with that I asked if he would paint me a pair of passenger pigeons,” Gussel said. “It’s a marvelous reproduction. Anyone who knows Owen Gromme knows his work is excellent.”

Gussel estimates his painting is valued at about $25,000. Unlike most Gromme paintings, it was never made into duplicate prints and sold and distributed.

Gromme was born in 1896 in Fond du lac and after World War I, spent 43 years with what is now the Milwaukee Public Museum. He won the Federal Duck Stamp competition in 1945, and in 1963 completed a volume of scientific paintings called Birds of Wisconsin.

Work by Gromme, considered by many as the dean of American wildlife artists, helped bring protection of the Horicon Marsh and the formation of the International Crane Foundation in Baraboo. Gromme died 1991, at the age of 95.

Kelly Bleich, a Pardeeville author, poet, and educator, is writing a book of poetry about the passenger pigeon’s demise. Bleich’s interest in the bird started when his teacher at Rio Grade School read “Caddie Woodlawn,” by Carol Ryrie Brink. The book contains a section about the Woodlawn family hunting the pigeons, although the heroine, Caddie, declined to hunt.

“This was not hunting. It was a kind of wholesale slaughter,” Bleich said. “She knew that wherever the beautiful gray birds went, they were harassed and driven away or killed.”

Bleich said the last wild passenger pigeon in Wisconsin is believed to have died in 1899 in Babcock. It was found in a game bag of a 12-year-old boy after a day of hunting.

Schools or libraries interested in obtaining a print of the Owen Gromme painting of a pair of passenger pigeons can write to: Bud Gussel, Holiday Wholesale, P.O. Box 117, Wisconsin Dells, Wis. 53965.