Chadwick Swindles McDonald.......

Ahnapee was home to transient woodsmen and sailors during the winters. Drinking, card playing and horseplay figured highly among the men's activities.

Bill Chadwick was one of the men who showed up in the fall of 1866, but he was different. Chadwick read. He went to church and Sunday school. Since Chadwick did not drink or play cards, residents thought he might be a useful member of society. Chadwick became quite popular when he let it slip that he had inherited a large sum of money and was philanthropic. Townspeople were excited when Chadwick announced he desired to enter business with Captain Bill McDonald, who then owned the Ahnapee House (today the Stebbins Hotel) at which Chadwick lodged.

The partnership of Chadwick and McDonald was formed after Chadwick looked into Mr. McDonald's character. Chadwick said he planned to open a mercantile and gristmill where "oppressed farmers" could get a better deal. He also felt the Ahnapee House needed refurbishing and engaged builders.

Giving the builders a $10,000 draft, Chadwick had McDonald and Mr. Osborn go to Chicago where they were to meet Chadwick's father at the Sherman House. The elder Mr. Chadwick was to give the men funds with which to purchase supplies.

While they were gone, Chadwick started a free-wheeling life. He began tending bar at the Ahnapee House where woodsmen were spending their pay. Passing out McDonald's finest alcohol, he took in more money. It seemed to be a good time for all. But then he swindled Charles Boalt out of a coat, and took McDonald's pride and joy, an exceptionally fine trotter, worth about $1,000. After inviting Neil McLean to ride to Kewaunee for more lumber, he gave Mclean the slip, pawned the horse for $100 and started south on foot.

By then McDonald and Osborn were on the way home, knowing McDonald had been swindled as Chadwick was without friends in Chicago. Upon reaching Racine, McDonald hired a fast team to take them home to Ahnapee. On the second day of the trip, McDonald and Osborn came upon Chadwick north of Two Rivers. Thinking fast, Chadwick told McDonald his father had come north rather than staying in Chicago and was in the big white house along the road. McDonald believed him and Chadwick climbed into the buggy. When they saw a man,.Chadwick said "that's father now," and, jumping from the buggy, ran up to him. After shaking hands, he ran into the house and disappeared. All Captain Bill was heard to say was, "Hell."

It was believed Chadwick left the county. Captain Bill McDonald was often overheard to say in the barroom of the Ahnapee House that he would beat the stuffing out of anybody who ever referred disrespectfully to his late partner. And, Captain Bill paid all of Chadwick's bills.

Rostok, A Crossroads Community...........

With travel in the land-locked areas of Kewaunee County – areas away from Lake Michigan – limited to horse and buggy or foot power, crossroad settlements sprang up to meet the need for essential services. Rostok, located in Pierce Town south of Alaska on Highway 42 between Algoma and Kewaunee, was one of these. Rostok’s early residents named it for the city in their German homeland.

Generally, such strategically placed settlements offered overnight accommodations for the traveling public. Most often here was a tavern, dance hall and the store, which usually held the post office, a livery barn, a cheese factory, often a school and sometimes a blacksmith shop.

As early as 1876, Rostok had most of these services. The tavern-dance hall in the photo was originally named the Pierce House as this early 1900 postcard illustrates. The young woman in the photo could be Ida Ousten Skala, wife of Joseph Skala who is possibly the young man on the right. Their wedding photo was taken in front of the Pierce House within the same time period. It was the Skalas who owned the establishment, though a closer look at the bench reveals the name W.J. Marek. Skala's place is still remembered by Kewaunee County residents as Butch Van’s, site of hundreds of wedding receptions, anniversaries, banquets and political meetings.

More well known as the Vans, the Vanderbloemen family remodeled and updated the above building many times over the years. Eventually Vans bought the cheese factory and cheese maker’s home, tearing down the buildings to use the property as a parking lot. The north end of the building above housed the dance hall. That section was torn down in 1992. Though remodeled, the lines of the original structure are visible to those traveling 42 who see a sign indicating Rostok and wonder what it is. Pots R Us occupies the Pierce House today.

The once bustling hamlet has disappeared from Kewaunee County’s landscape just as other places known as Pleasant View, Footbridge, Foscoro, Darbellay, Peot and more.

Always Taxes.........

“Always taxes,” bemoaned the Kewaunee Enterprise editor in a February 1870 edition of the paper. Twenty years later, Kewaunee’s New Era carried the county’s statistics for 1891 when County Clerk William Rogers compiled the following information for the City of Ahnapee, now Algoma. Its 1890 population stood at 1,015.

Collective value of the 140 horses found in the city was $6,150 for an average of $43.92 each. The 179 head of cattle averaged $11.96 each, however the city’s lone mule’s value was $15. Sheep and lambs, pigs, carriages and sleighs were assigned values. Pianos and melodeons had a total value of $2,252 while 74 gold watches came to $820. Merchandise and manufacturing stock amounted to $54,799, whereas the aggregate value of all city lots, including real and personal property, came to $288,830. Property as equalized by the Board of Review totaled $306,386.

Ahnapee’s farm grown products were measured in bushels and included 805 bushels of potatoes. Though oats, barley and wheat were grown within the city, corn was not. Root crops, apples, clover, timothy, flax, hops and tobacco were not measured, but the Enterprise pointed out that Red River grew 4,000 bushels of tobacco. At the same time the Town of Ahnapee produced 220,500 pounds of cheese. Only Carlton Town processed more.

When taxes were levied, state taxes and loans came to $597.50 for the city. School taxes amounted to a few dollars less at $546.19. Current expenses were $953.08 although there was nothing listed for road, bridge and poll taxes. One hundred dollars was included for the poor in both the city and town. In total, Ahnapee’s entire tax burden came to $3918.42, a figure many today pay in property taxes alone.


Always taxes? Some things never change.

Shoemaking in Slovan.........

Harold Heidmann snapped this photo of Slovan cobbler Anton Sisel in the late 1930's. The picture can be found in the collections at Algoma Public Library.

Tell people that Kewaunee County had a number of shoe manufactories in years gone by and you’ll see some raised eyebrows. Many remember Reinhart’s shoe store in Algoma. It had its beginning as Reinhart and Melchior’s manufactory and appears on fire maps as a shoe factory. Ballering's three-story building still stands on the southeast corner of Milwaukee and Harrison Streets in Kewaunee but Pavlik’s huge building in Stangelville is long gone. The four Pavlik brothers took their shoemaking skills to other Wisconsin communities when the Stangelville business failed to provide a living. Anton Sisel’s Slovan shoemaking shop was moved in 1983 to Old World Wisconsin where an interpreter demonstrates the art of shoe making while reflecting on the county’s Bohemian heritage.

Anton Sisel’s was born on the ocean in 1857 when his father Frank and mother came to America. The family eventually got to the Slovan area, known then as Ripley’s Corners.  Anton apprenticed in Kewaunee with John Bangert, whose wife was Theodora Ballering. Following the apprenticeship, Sisel returned to his tiny community and began making and repairing shoes. It was a time when the area was experiencing the heyday of its commercial growth.

What is now Slovan had little identify before the coming of a post office in 1878. The post office gave the place its name. In the late 1870’s Joseph Ouradnik was running monthly cattle fairs that brought crowds of people from as far as Green Bay. Ouradnik operated the village’s only general store and was the postmaster. Albert Dworzak was the cheese maker. There was a hotel, church, school and saloon. After Sisel set up his shop, he married Ouradnik’s daughter, however by 1910, the market for custom made shoes was disappearing and Sisel turned to harness work, selling ready-made shoes and shoe repair.

Though Sisel retired in 1938, the Kewaunee County Bohemian shoemaker and his craft live on in the park which also reflects county Norwegians. A fence from the Merlin Knutson farm near Bolt surrounds a Norwegian cabin. Not to be outdone, Green Bay’s Heritage Hill showcases the Ryan cheese factory and the Massart farm, formerly of Rosiere. Even closer is the Ag Heritage Resources farm just south of Kewaunee. It will not be long before they are all open.


.

A Wrestling Powerhouse......

                                  Luxemburg High School 1939 Wrestling Team

Luxemburg-Casco high school is known throughout Wisconsin for its wrestling teams. What few know is that it all began because of the curiosity of young George Gregor, from the Town of Lincoln, who went on to become Luxemburg’s high school principal.

As a freshman at the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 1920, Gregor happened to peak in an open doorway of the old red armory on Madison’s Lake Mendota. What he saw was Coach George Hitchcock and the UW wrestling team. Hitchcock invited Gregor to don a suit and work out. Gregor continued the work-outs and won an all university tournament that same year. As a freshman he was ineligible for intercollegiate competitions.

Gregor joined the Luxemburg faculty four years later, in 1924, as an ag teacher who taught biology, physics, general science and geometry. He also started the wrestling team with boys named Gashe, Kollross, Boness and Nellis. Mats were about the only expense, but Gregor felt they need not be pretentious. After all his boys wrestled at home in the hay or on turf

While in the early days few schools had teams, Luxemburg had two matches a year with Green Bay East and West and Sevastopol, another of today’s well-known programs. By the 1940’s Neenah had a team though after Luxemburg trounced them 27 – 6, Neenah never asked for another match.

During Gregor’s days at Madison, the wrestlers went 12 minutes straight with two additional three minute periods. In his first years at Luxemburg, matches were a straight seven minutes.

Luxemburg was one of the first schools in this part of the state to offer wrestling. It’s been a successful part of the athletic program ever since.

Picture identification: Top: George Gregor, 1939 State Heavyweight Champion Lee Hoppe, former Green Bay mayor Sam Halloin, Gaylord Ropson. Seated, Irvin Jonet, Francis Seidl, Elmer Frisque, Nelson Frisque and Marvin Sell. The photo is believed to be from Algoma Record Herald.