Historic lake geneva 2017

Historical

LAKE GENEVA e h t t a k c a b e s A glimp s n i g i r o s t i d n a y t i c

Published by the

2017

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HISTORICAL LAKE GENEVA • 2017

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Museum’s Main Street T R A NSP ORTS V ISI TOR S TO PA ST HISTORICAL LAKE GENEVA • 2017

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by Sandra Landen Machaj CORRESPONDENT

Let’s take a walk down Main Street. Not the Main Street of today’s Lake Geneva, but Main Street as it would have appeared from 1830 to 1930.

It’s a visit to a time when life was much simpler than today’s complex schedules, but physically was much harder. Our walk down Main Street begins after entering the Geneva Lakes Museum.

The brick-paved Main Street with its life size displays of rooms and businesses will take you back in time. The early Pottawatomi Indian Lakeside Village that would have existed in the area prior to its settlement by the ancestors of today’s resident greets you at the entrance.

In 1830, the street would not have been paved by bricks but would have most likely been dirt and in rainy season, mud, deeply rutted from the wheels of carriages and wagons. In the early 1900s the bricks would have made a better surface for the automobiles, which were replacing the horse and wagon.

A stop at the farm displays reveals many of the tools used to till the land, plant, and harvest. Visitors will meet Molly the cow and Fibber the workhorse. Some of the tools on display were used at Black Point, a large estate, now a museum overlooking Geneva Lake.

This area, according to Karen Jo Walsh, director of exhibits recently had a minor facelift with the addition of a barn wood wall where tools could be attached to display them.

Businesses past Visitors can stop in at the local businesses, including the blacksmith shop, the general store, the post office, and the firehouse – complete with a 1917 fire engine. And don’t forget to check out the dentist’s office tucked into a corner of the general store.

On the other side of Main Street the Victorian parlor is a delight. The Victorian era was a formal and elegant era and everything in the room emphasizes that.

Moving onto the 1900s, imagine eating dinner in the elegant 1910 Edwardian

JANET EWING Historical Lake Geneva

The Geneva Lake Museum offers a chance to take a stroll back in time and experience Main Street as it appeared in the 19th and early 20th centuries. The museum is at 255 Mill St., Lake Geneva, in a former Wisconsin Power and Light Co. building.

dining room with its fine selection of china. It would be an elegant place to hold a dinner party even today.

The dual kitchens display features the 1880 kitchen with its icebox to cool food and, next to it, the 1920 kitchen of two generations later with an electric refrigerator complete with compressor on top. It presents a far different look than today’s sleek stainless steel refrigerators with a separate freezer. The kitchen sink

Historical Lake Geneva 2017 A glimpse back at the city and its origins

in 1920 with running water shows how far things progressed from the 1880 sink with a pump in place.

The museum offers a plethora of interesting memorabilia as visitors continue to wander through. A favorite display of many is Ceylon Court. Ceylon Court was a building at the 1893 World’s Exhibition in Chicago and after the exhibition closed was purchased and moved to the shore of Geneva Lake where it served as a home for many years.

The Geneva Lakes Museum is unlike most museums because all the displays are

open and visitors are encouraged to walk into and touch a piece of history. Most items are displayed in an open setting, not tucked behind locked cabinets with a do not touch sign.

A historic location The Geneva Lakes Museum opened in 1983 in a house at 818 Geneva St. Always looking for ways to make the museum better, museum leaders

See MUSEUM, Page 4

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On the cover:

Bruno’s Liquors in Lake Geneva originally began as the Northwestern Hotel that Bruno Sharkus and his father Walter bought in 1949. They ran the Knotty Pine Tavern until 1959 when the hotel and tavern burned for three days with Bruno his wife Pat and their two children narrowly escaping. Bruno and Pat shook it off and rebuilt in 1960 and Bruno’s Pink Isle Tavern was born. Soon a laundromat and Lake Geneva’s first dive shop would follow. In 1975, with raising five kids, they had enough of the bar business, so they closed the bar and added 30 feet to the end of the building to accommodate a walk in cooler and Bruno’s Liquors was born.

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HISTORICAL LAKE GENEVA • 2017

• Museum

(Continued from page 3)

Long before the white man settled the area, it was the home of the Pottawatomi Indians, a seminomadic tribe.

upon learning that the 1929 Wisconsin Power and Light Building at 255 Mill St. was vacant recognized a chance to expand. At that time the City of Lake Geneva Water Department had moved to a new facility. So museum officials approached the city about arranging for the museum to use the facility. They were successful and the Old Wisconsin Power and Light building was to become an expanded Geneva Lake Museum.

By 2004 after much hard work by museum staff and many volunteers, Main Street was constructed in the space. In addition, organizers were able to create several other display rooms, a library space, a museum store and meeting rooms. An open and welcoming entrance greets visitors to the museum.

In addition to displays, the museum has many programs throughout the year. The Tuesday at Two program is just that, a program each Tuesday at 2 p.m. about a historical event or place in Lake Geneva. Some of last summer’s programs included, the Geneva Lake Conservancy, Tales from a Vintage 1958 house trailer, a talk by author Daniel Rozelle and the Camelot White House in Miniature.

Community programs The museum reaches out to the community and has programs that are brought to the people. The Sharing Trunks is a program where teachers may borrow a trunk of items from a specific era to share with their students to enhance a history lesson.

Another outreach program is the Antique Road Share.

This program, administered by Barb Belter and Joanne Niessner, takes a few artifacts to residential facilities to stimulate conversation as residents and docents share remembered stories. The program is offered free and lasts about 45 minutes.

Looking for a special place to hold a business lunch, meeting, shower or dinner? Space can be rented in one of the meeting rooms or along Main Street. Table placement can be flexible and there are endless ways to arrange

JANET EWING Historical Lake Geneva

them.

A kitchen is available with easy access. Free parking is offered behind the museum. Tables, chairs, a flat screen television, DVD player and kitchen use are included in rental fee.

With so much to take in on one visit, there is always something new to be noticed at the Geneva Lakes Museum. It might not be new to the museum but will be to visitors.

From November to April, the museum is open from 11

a.m. to 3 p.m. on Tuesday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday.

Check the website www.genevalakemuseum.org for further information and hours of operation May through October.

The museum, 255 Mill St., Lake Geneva, can be reached by telephone at (262) 248-6060.

Admission is $7, with children through high school admitted without charge. Seniors and college students with ID are charged $6. Memberships are also available.

THE RAUL AND AGENCY has a rich history in the Geneva Lake’s area The Rauland Agency, Inc. does business the old-fashioned way – “We earn it.”

Realtor Bob Rauland’s life in the Lake Geneva area began in 1943 when his family bought a cottage in Buena Vista Park. In 1952 his parents bought a lakefront home at 382 N. Lakeshore Drive, Fontana. The lakehouse was a large two-story stucco home. His parents paid $16,000 for the property, $195 per foot of lake frontage. In 1954 they sold the home for $26,000, which equates to $317 per foot of Lake frontage.

The Rauland Agency’s first lakefront home sale occurred in 1962 when they sold 200 feet of prime Lake front with a colonial home on Basswood Drive, South Shore on Geneva Lake for $75,000 or $375 per foot of Lake frontage.

In 1978 a 13.5-acre lakefront estate with 700 feet of lake frontage, 20 rooms, swimming pool and guest residence sold for $775 per foot of lake frontage. Things have dramatically changed over the years. In 1985 lakefront property sold for about $2,500 per foot. Lakefront property reached its high of $30,000-plus and has since settled back to $18,000 to $24,000 for riparian-right lake frontage per front foot.

Bob Rauland has been called “the grandfather of real estate” in Walworth County. Grandfathers are people who are gentle, honest, caring and enjoy making people happy. That’s a pretty good description of this Realtor. Bob personally had the opportunity to know and work with many wealthy lakefront families and

property owners for the past 56 years.

The Rauland Agency has sold many improved and vacant farmland properties since 1961. When Bob began his career in Real Estate, Bob Rauland Big Foot Prairie Farmland was selling for about $100 per acre. Prairie Farmland values have reached a value of $10,000 per acre as of the end of 2016. During the past 56 years the Rauland Agency has had farm sales in excess of 10,000-plus acres of farmland in Walworth and Rock counties.

The Rauland Agency goal is to provide our clients with a professional buying and ownership experience that consistently satisfies each individual’s need yet exceeds their expectations in a comfortable, supportive environment. A long-standing tradition of Chief Big Foot dating back to the early 1900’s has been an inspiration to Bob and the communities around the lake. Chief Big Foot’s name is recognized as the home of: Big Foot High School in Walworth; Big Foot State Park in Lake Geneva; Big Foot Country Club in Fontana; Big Foot Prairie, west of Walworth; and numerous other institutions around Geneva Lake.

Bob was a director of the former Walworth State Bank for 43 years and

SUBMITTED PHOTO Historical Lake Geneva

Cooper’s Market as it was in the early 1900s. The building housed the grocery store owned by Cynthia Rauland’s (Bob Raulaund’s late wife) family. The old store and the building to the right are now home of The Rauland Agency Realtors..

Chief Big Foot was the bank’s logo.

The Rauland offices were purchased

by Bob in 1961 for the establishment of his real estate and insurance businesses.

The history of the buildings dates back to the late 1800s when the buildings were the home of: Woodman’s Insurance Co.,

Walworth’s’ first library, the Masonic Center and two grocery stores.

The two buildings have been the home of the Rauland Agency Inc. Realtors for 56 years.

For more information on the Rauland Agency, see the company’s ad on Page 2.

HISTORICAL LAKE GENEVA • 2017

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HISTORICAL LAKE GENEVA • 2017

A bit of the area’s history

he City of Lake Geneva is located in southeastern Wisconsin, 10 miles north of the Illinois state line, 75 miles north-northwest of Chicago and 45 miles southwest of Milwaukee. The city was recognized in 2009 as One of a Dozen Distinctive Destinations by The National Trust for Historic Preservation, it sits on the eastern shore of Geneva Lake in Walworth County.

The estimated population of the city is about 7,600.

About 18,000 years ago, the last of many glaciers retreated to the North after having gorged-out and depressed our lake basin, and leaving a moraine of rolling, gravel hills.

The earliest record of white men seeing this beautiful expanse of water was a party traveling with the Kinzie family between their army post at Fort Dearborn (Chicago) and Fort Winnebago (Portage City) near the Fox and Wisconsin River portage in1831. This area was not on the river and lake highways of the earlier frontier period and thus lay undiscovered.

The ancient Oneota Tribes of the lost Hopewell Culture Indians lived here.

These agricultural peoples enjoyed an

advanced civilization on these shores as long ago as 1,000 B.C. They built effigy mounds in what is now Library Park. The effigies of a panther and a Lizard were removed several years ago. Eventually, the migrating forest tribes, who were hunters and fierce warriors, drove out the earlier inhabitants. Subsequently, these later Indians were removed by the United States Army to Kansas following the Black Hawk War of 1831-32. Questionable treaty arrangements in 1833 laid the foundation for the eviction of Chief Big Foot and our local Potawatomi Tribe in 1836.

John Brink, a government surveyor, laid claim to the waterfall power and adjacent land at the White River outlet to the lake in 1835. He named the lake after the lake in his home in Geneva, New York.

The Indians had called it Kish-Way-KeeTow, meaning clear water. You must visit the dams and canal that fed many mills subsequently built here (adjacent to the Chamber of Commerce building in Flat Iron Park on Wrigley Drive).

In 1836, Christopher Payne, a pioneer settler from Belvidere, Illinois, established a rival claim for the water power. He built the first log cabin, the site of which

WHEN ICE WA S T H E

is marked by a boulder and a plaque on Center Street just north of the river.

Following a “Wild West” battle to settle ownership, grist and sawmills were built.

Lakeshore logs and many walnut trees were floated to the mills and cut into lumber from which the town was built.

Eventually, flouring and wool carding mills followed. The fourteen-foot drop of water provided the most economical milling, and farmers brought their grain to Lake Geneva from as far away as Kenosha, Milwaukee, Belvidere, and Beloit. Our town was surveyed and laid out in 1837.

Earlier land sales were confirmed at the Federal Government Land Office in 1839.

The price was $ 1.25 per acre. Immigrant settlers from New England and New York flooded into the town. Most came via the Erie Canal and steamboat or sailing ships through the Great Lakes, embarking at Southport (Kenosha) or Milwaukee.

Others trudged through the swamps and forest of Southern Michigan, Northern Ohio and Indiana. By 1840, there were two hotels, two general stores, three churches, and a distillery added to the mills, cabins and houses.

Prior to the civil war, Lake Geneva

was on the reverse route to the Great Lake ports for slaves escaping from Southern Illinois and Eastern Kentucky. After the war, the town became a resort for the wealthy Chicago families. These families began construction of the many mansions on the lake, and Lake Geneva became known as the Newport (RI) of the West.

Visitors included Mary Todd Lincoln and Generals Sherman and Sheridan.

The Chicago Fire of 1871 caused many Chicago families to move to their summer homes on the lake while the city was rebuilt. The construction and maintenance of these mansions, as well as household employment, developed a separate industry in the town adding to the milling, furniture, wagon and typewriter manufacturing enterprises. After arrival of the railroad, thousands of tons of Lake Geneva ice were shipped each year to the Chicago market, until the beginning of World War II. The towns filled with homes and buildings from these earlier times. They represent the frontier and pioneering, as well as the later Victorian period.

For more information, visit the Geneva Lake Museum of History.

Harvest

Geneva Lake was prized for its pure, crystal blocks

By Sandra Landen Machaj CORRESPONDENT

In wintertime Geneva Lake has a far different look than it does in the summer when the area is filled with summer residents and visitors. This was especially so in the early 1900s, when the majority of the elegant mansions along the lakefront, which were not equipped to handle the winters of Wisconsin, were vacated.

But the lake, even though it was empty of boats and swimmers, became a busy and active place once the temperatures dipped below freezing.

By December the crystal blue waters of Geneva Lake were transformed into a solid sheet of ice often from 12 to 20 inches deep.

The serene look of the lake would not remain so for long, for in the late 19th and early 20th century, the frozen lake was a field ready for harvest.

In those days, before electricity was found in homes and businesses, ice was a necessary commodity to keep food fresh, not only in the area, but as far away as Chicago and Milwaukee. In the Lake Geneva area, which abounds with lakes, ice-cutting companies became as prevalent as the lakes and ponds.

The ice-harvesting season was a short one, from December until March – that is if the weather held out. The beginning and end of the harvesting season was weather dependent. Most of the ice was for industrial use and ordered in specific sizes. Dale Buetter is the Operations Director of the Geneva Lakes Museum and their resident

ice-harvesting specialist.

“The ice was usually not harvested until it was 12 inches thick,” Buetter said. “Then it was cut into 16 by 16 modules. This size was chosen because of the length of the wagons that were used to transport the ice from the lakeshore to the icehouses for storage or to the trains for transportation to the city. It was also important that the ice be no thicker than the 12 inches for stacking purposes.”

An arduous task The cutting of the ice was an arduous process that began with the ice harvesters, having to scrape the snow off the ice at regular intervals long before the actual process of harvesting began. The snow acted as an insulator and would hamper the freezing process if not cleared. Measuring the ice frequently determined its readiness for harvest. When the ice reached its ideal depth, the true work would begin.

The team of ice cutters and horses would make their way to the shore. Using a plow like tool, attached to a horse and guided by one of the ice cutters, the job of scoring the ice blocks would begin.

Once the deep score was placed on the ice, marking the rectangular blocks that would be cut into individual blocks of ice, the workers would begin to saw them apart. A channel was then cleared which would allow the blocks to be floated toward the shore. The field of ice that the harvesters worked at a time was often as

COURTESY OF GENEVA LAKE MUSEUM Historical Lake Geneva

Signs such as this one were hung in the window to let the iceman know how many pounds of ice were needed that day. Ice was delivered up to three times a week and placed in the icebox to keep food cold.

large as five acres.

The ice harvesters were a combination of local residents and temporary workers who drifted into town. They worked for room and board and minimal wages of a couple of dollars each day. The work was not easy or enjoyable for they were out in the elements

the entire day. One of the dangers was falling into the lake, which happened with some regularity, according to historical accounts.

When a worker fell in, other workers would gather around with a tool called a

See HARVEST, Page 7

HISTORICAL LAKE GENEVA • 2017

Page 7

Horses, too, suffered from being dumped in the icy water when the ice they were standing on cracked or they stepped off the ice. The horses would be guided along through the channel using a choke rope around their neck as they swam to shore.

Occasionally a horse or sometimes a whole team of horses would drown.”

• Harvest

(Continued from page 6)

pike, regularly used to slide the blocks of ice, and use it to pull him out of the freezing water.

Peril for man and horse Horses were an important part of the iceharvesting team. In addition to being used to score the ice they were needed to pull the heavy blocks to the shore. Horses, too, suffered from being dumped in the icy water when the ice they were standing on cracked or they stepped off the ice. The horses would be guided along through the channel using a choke rope around their neck as they swam to shore. Occasionally a horse or sometimes a whole team of horses would drown.

Depending on the size of the operation, the ice blocks would be moved onto a wagon pulled by horses and taken to the rail station or to the icehouse. There it would be moved up a conveyor belt to the icehouse for storage.

“The blocks of ice were stacked on top of each other, with sawdust layered between each block,” said Buetter. “The purpose of the sawdust was not so much for insulation as many people think but to keep the blocks from freezing together.”

When the blocks were loaded into the icehouse by the conveyor, the crew inside the icehouse would then stack it in the icehouse, which were constructed of wood and usually had heights of over 30 feet.

The icehouses themselves were massive structures. The buildings were usually triple walled and were filled with sawdust, horsehair and hay to provide better insulation for the ice. Surprisingly the ice lasted even through the hot 80 and 90 degrees of summer. One of the major problems with the icehouses was that they were built of wood and filled with flammable materials and so were susceptible to fires. Lightning often seemed to strike them perhaps because they were the tallest buildings. The top blocks were often covered with swamp grasses to also keep them from melting too quickly.

Industry booms The first ice cutting business in the Lake Geneva area was founded by Daniel Gross and Elyas Brooks in 1874. It was so successful that the 400-ton capacity storage house built that year had to be enlarged to 800-ton capacity by the next year. New ice harvest companies were quickly established to take advantage of the need for ice especially in Chicago.

J.V. Seymour was one of the largest ice producers in the area and was known as the “Ice King.” He is reported to have cut as much as 35,000 tons of ice in one winter and had approximately 300 men on his payroll.

His icehouse was near the rail depot, making transportation fast and easy.

Seymour sold the depot icehouse in 1900 to the Knickerbocker Ice Company, but that did not mean he was out of the ice business.

Instead he built another icehouse closer to the lake near the western edge of the property, which today is known as Library Park. He maintained this icehouse known as the Lake Geneva Ice Company until 1908 when again he sold out, this time to Martin Kelley and Peter Russell.

The refrigerated railroad cars moved meats to Chicago in a safe manner. Prior to its transportation by train in ice-cooled cars, much of the meat being shipped would spoil before reaching the final destination. Another famous Wisconsin product, beer, also had to be kept on ice to keep from spoiling in the days before beer was pasteurized. Other ice was sent for use in homes and restaurants in the city.

Ice was harvested from almost any water source that froze. Lake Geneva ice was considered to be of the highest quality.

Because the spring fed lake was crystal clear, so was its ice and it was highly desired especially by the bars for use in their drinks.

The body of water that was used to harvest ice affected the quality and the purity of the ice. Ice that came from polluted lakes and

COURTESY OF GENEVA LAKE MUSEUM Historical Lake Geneva

Ice harvesting was hard work and required not only the ice harvesters, but a team of horses to pull the ice blocks that weighed more than 100 pounds.

ponds spread disease and caused epidemics of illness such as typhoid if consumed.

Iceboxes to refrigerators In the early 20th century, food at home was kept cold by being placed in an icebox, as electric refrigerators were not common in the homes of average people.

The iceman would come to the home two to three time a week and deliver the block of ice to be placed in the upper chamber of the icebox. Food would be placed in the bottom chamber to be kept cold.

A sign would be placed in the home’s window alerting the iceman what quantity of ice was needed that day. Blocks of 25, 50, 75, and 100 pounds were available and sold for about 50 cents per 100 pounds. Many of the mansions along Geneva Lake had their own smaller icehouses to meet the estate’s needs. These would be filled by the ice companies during the winter harvest so the mansions would have plenty of ice

when the families returned in spring.

Ice companies flourished in the Geneva Lake area until the 1930s when electric refrigeration began to make its way into family homes. The conversion to electric refrigeration was slowed with the advent of World War II as factories turned to supporting the war needs and metals were used to manufacture trucks, tanks, and bullets rather than home appliances.

So while the ice harvesting business had slowed it managed to hang on for another 10 years or so until the end of the war brought servicemen home and new households began to purchase the new electric refrigerators.

For more than 50 years, ice harvesting was a major industry in the Geneva Lake area but today it has been replaced by refrigerators and commercially frozen ice.

The Geneva Lake Museum, 255 Mill St., Lake Geneva, features a display of ice harvesting tools and photos. The museum is open Tuesday, Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m.

COURTESY OF GENEVA LAKE MUSEUM Historical Lake Geneva

Ice was harvested not only in the Lake Geneva area but also in Fontana and at other areas around the lake. The harvesters often would harvest a field of ice up to 5 acres.

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HISTORICAL LAKE GENEVA • 2017

800 Park Dr Lake Geneva, WI 53147

262-248-2031 Same Family Owned andPhone: Operated Since 1912

Since our first location in 1912 in

1912-1934

downtown Lake Geneva, the Derrick Funeral Home has been owned and operated by the Derrick family.

Even though we have moved to a couple of locations, one thing has remained the same, the professionalism and the dedication of the staff to providing the families that we serve with the best possible care.

Main Street, Lake Geneva Derrick Funeral Home will be more than honored to assist you or your family with everything from a traditional funeral to celebration of life to preplanning and pre-funding a funeral service.

If you have any questions please don’t hesitate to give us a call, 262-248-2031 or visit our website, www.derrickfuneralhome.com for more information.

1934-1997

Center Street, Lake Geneva

1997-Present | 800 Park Drive, Lake Geneva

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