Punxsutawney: Out of the Shadow

The Borough of Punxsutawney has been celebrating Groundhog Day since 1886. But it's only since the 1993 movie "Groundhog Day" that it has become Times Square for a day, attracting up to 35,000 people and emerging as the most famous town of its size since Mayberry.

Punxsutawney does have a dark secret, however. It is not, in fact, the small town from the movie that made it famous. That town is Woodstock, Ill., where "Groundhog Day" was filmed.

"Probably the number one question I get is about the movie, and I hate to tell people it wasn't filmed here," says Greg Shaffer, a clerk at the town's centerpiece, the Pantall Hotel. "People ask, 'We're looking for the diner that was in the movie.' And I have to say, 'You won't find it here, you'll have to look in Illinois.' "

Despite not standing in for itself in the movie, the town proudly remembers when Bill Murray visited to research his part. From the Pantall's Web site:

"Bill Murray called February 1, 1992 from Pebble Beach and wanted a room!!!!??!!! We didn't have one but knew someone who would give up his if we explained. . . . When he got here, there was a mob waiting and it took an hour to get through the lobby."

That room is now labeled "The Bill Murray Room."

Normally you have to book the Pantall months in advance for Groundhog Day, a year ahead if the holiday falls on a weekend, says Shaffer.

But there's plenty of groundhog to go around all year long.

Remember how Chicago's Cows on Parade in 1999 infected cities nationwide with mascot fever? Washington sidewalks had their donkeys, elephants and pandas, and Punxsutawney has 25 cartoonish groundhogs scattered around.

On one side of the square is the Groundhog Zoo, where Phil and his companion, Phyllis, live in a glass enclosure. You can see them anytime, though for much of the winter they are just sleeping furry balls.

The groundhog thing all started at a well-lubricated 1886 groundhog hunt and picnic, when the editor of the colorful local paper, the Punxsutawney Spirit, dubbed his local gang the Groundhog Club. The next spring, the Spirit began printing the groundhog's forecasts, based on an old Pennsylvania Dutch tradition of using the skies on Candlemas Day to predict the coming of warmer weather.

The Punxy ritual has evolved over the years. Eating groundhog for dinner was a tradition longer than you would think. Sam Light, late president and showman of the Groundhog Club, introduced top hat and tails in the 1950s.

The town likes to claim that Groundhog Day is "America's Second Favorite Holiday." Probably not. But if Halloween is the new Christmas to retailers, then Groundhog Day can certainly be the drinker's new St. Patrick's Day. Well, if that booze crackdown on Gobbler's Knob doesn't hold.