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.

Stables, Not Garages

Work of tearing down the old stable at the rear of the Stebbins Hotel began during September 1933, according to the Algoma Record Herald.

It’s removal marked the passing of a structure believed to have been built about 1870, a time when stables, not garages, had a place in history. That stable had room for at least 20 teams, much like this one behind the Kirchman Hotel.

Places all over Kewaunee County had stables for those who stayed the night, those who came into town just for the day and teams that needed protection from the hot sun or the cold winter winds. St. Paul’s church in Algoma maintained a stable behind the parsonage for church goers.

Stabling with an attendant hostler was necessary for business, but the advent of the railroad, and then the automobile and truck some years later, brought a decline in the need for such facilities.

At one time the Stebbins, then called the Ahnapee House, had another stable on the spot that Harmon Allyn’s Laundromat now occupies. It was considerably larger and could house 50 teams, which was not adequate for hotel purposes. That stable was torn down just after 1900 when a vegetable garden was put in its place. The garden provided fresh produce for the hotel’s dining room.

John Slaby was managing the hotel when the 20-team stable was demolished. His plans included seeding and beautification as soon as debris was cleaned up. Ridding the property of the old stable significantly reduced the fire hazard in that part of the city.

It wasn’t only stables that disappeared. Horse watering troughs at intersections, hitching posts and steps along the streets to facilitate alighting from a buggy are nowhere to be found in today’s Kewaunee County.

1852: Kewaunee County is Born

What today is the Door Peninsula was once part of Brown County, as illustrated on this undated map representing Northeast Wisconsin before 1851. American Indians inhabited the wilderness that became Wisconsin and Indian lands west of Fort Howard -Green Bay today - appear on the map.

Chapter 664 of the Laws of 1851 of the State of Wisconsin created Door County, setting it apart from Brown. A year later Kewaunee County was created and set a apart from Door. Governor Leonard Farwell approved the new county, created in Chapter 363 of the Laws of Wisconsin, on April 16, 1852. An Act to attach Kewaunee County to the 4th Judicial Circuit and to Manitowoc County, for judicial purposes, was approved almost four years later on March 31, 1856. Door County had also been judicially attached to Manitowoc County. From then until the organization of Kewaunee County - on or  about January 24, 1857 - the county's records were kept in both Manitowoc and Brown Counties. In a letter to Edward Decker on April 8, 1857, James Parker of Green Bay mentions the judicial attachment. It was on May 4, 1858 that the Legislature approved an Act organizing Kewaunee County judicially.

Edward Decker was chosen as Register of Deeds in the first general election that November, and the office opened on January 1, 1859. At that point, records held in Manitowoc County were transcribed and deposited in Kewaunee.

There were earlier elections. However as there were no roads in the county, which early surveyors estimated to be 90% timber and 10% marsh, and when possible travel was by water. The first county election was held on May 10, 1852 at John Volk's home at the mouth of the Kewaunee River. The men of Wolf River (today's Algoma) were among those arriving by boat. 

During the meeting, the Town of Kewaunee, the county's only town, was organized. Orin Warner was elected as a supervisor and Abraham Hall was chosen as the first town clerk. John W. Lee was elected as one of the constables and John Hughes was elected as one of the justices, although the county was attached to Manitowoc.  They were Wolf River men as were George Rosier and William Dutton who arrived in Wolf River in the spring of 1852. They attended the meeting and were among the 16 county men men voting.

Twenty-eight men voted in the November 1852 presidential election, favoring Franklin Pierce to General Winfield Scott  by 23 to 5 vote. The meeting was again at Volk's home. It took another six years before there was an attempt to divide the electorate into parties. A year later, 1859, the new Kewaunee Enterprize encouraged immigrants to file their "first papers" so they could vote.

Note: The Enterprize was renamed Enterprise in 1865.

Kewaunee County's "Big Steb"

Noted genealogist/historian Shirley Ver Bruggen's blog presents the story of her ancestor Ahnapee's DeWayne Stebbins. In Kewaunee County's 160 years of existence - that anniversary will be marked on April 16, 2012 - DeWayne Stebbins remains one of its most illustrious sons. That Big Steb entered politics was not a surprise to Wolf River residents.

Baseball bound the young men of Wolf River together as it does in Algoma today. Abisha Perry was an athlete who Bruggen's ancestor George Wing would write of 50 years later remembering his slugging prowess and the long legs that just "ate up the bases." It was Steb who generally played left field, and if the ball came his way, he took his time getting it. If the ball was slugged over Mrs. Lovel's First Street barn and Steb found it, he would often stop to discuss politics rather than throwing the ball. Wing never proffered an opinion on Steb's contribution to the team, but his contributions to his community, county and country are well documented.

DeWayne Stebbins was elected as a state senator in 1872. When he died on June 12, 1901, he was the oldest member of the Senate and had also been a 27-year member of the Kewaunee County Board. At his 66th birthday a few months earlier, his fellow senators expressed their appreciation of his work by presenting him with a gold-headed cane. In 1900 Steb was a candidate for the Republican nomination for governor, but he withdrew in deference to Bob LaFollette. LaFollette was among the three thousand others at his funeral only months later.

A Wisconsin State Journal columnist wrote in 1938 that "few men have served in the Wisconsin legislature who had a larger degree of common sense than Mr. Stebbins." It was said Steb did not talk much and rarely debated. Had Mrs. Lovel been living, she might have disputed that. Steb was known to carefully investigate the measures before him. Constituents could depend on his voting. record.

It was said never introduced a bill, but he did. Rumor had it that unobserved in 1894, he slipped through a bill permitting cities and towns to changed their names. Ahnapee had long been the butt of jokes and took advantage of the legislation when it changed its name in to Algoma in 1897. Years earlier, January 1873, the Enterprise reported that Steb introduced a bill prohibiting smoking and the reading of newspapers within the bar of the House. Though Steb was ahead of his time, the legislature was not and the bill was voted down.

Mr. Stebbins' importance was noted in a September 13, 1883 Record article when it was pointed out that he had a "telephone instrument" at the Bank of Ahnapee so he could "communicate with the outside world without leaving his office."

When Frank Slaby bought the Ahnapee House, he renamed it the Stebbins Hotel. It remains on the corner of 2nd and Steele in Algoma, though few residents are aware of the naming and know little of the illustrious Big Steb.

                                                                                      

Kewaunee County and Parker Pens

Imagine what fourth grade would have been like if you had a ball point rather than a fountain pen. Remember that glass bottle of blue ink, filling the pen, your stained fingers and worrying what your mother was going to say about ink on your clothing again? Then there was the inkwell in the desk. There was trouble when boys had fun trying to dip the braids of the girls sitting in front of them into the inkwells. That memorable fountain pen probably came from Janesville’s Parker Pen Co, a company with a close connection to Kewaunee County.

Will Palmer was the son of Seymour C. Palmer, onetime owner of the Ahnapee Record. He was born in Racine and was 8 years old when he came with his family to Ahnapee. Will conducted a telegraph and post office in the present Algoma Mercantile building before leaving town in 1882.

Ten years later, Will was an insurance salesman sharing a hotel room with Mr. Parker in Janesville. Parker was a telegraphy instructor who conceived ideas about a perfect pen while repairing the different makes used by a school. Parker supplied the patent, Palmer the money and a new company was born.

The pen was originally manufactured in the east but within six months the demand was so great that Parker and Palmer opened their own factory. Twenty years later they were employing over 100 men and were turning out ½ million pens for an international market. At one time Parker Pen’s Main Street plant in Janesville was the largest writing instrument plant in the world. The company was eventually sold to Guilette and then sold again.

As so many others with roots in Kewaunee County, Will Palmer achieved a prominence well beyond its borders and yet remains obscure.

Will Palmer served as secretary-treasurer of the company, (after he traded the presidency to Mr.Parker) and while he remained somewhat obscure in county history, he made it big.

When Parker Pen Co. offered stock worth about $4,000,000to the public in late 1928, Will planned to dispose of 75,000 shares of stock that he held. His plan was to leave Janesville to relocate in California.

Googling tells us Will sold 75% of his stock to an investment banking house which then sold the shares to the public. The company had seen tremendous growth during the 1920s and sales increased fourfold. Its Duofold pen came on the market in 1921 and sold for $7.00, which would equate to almost $150 in 2025.

Will was 78 when he died in 1933 in Beverly Hills, California. His remains were returned to Wisconsin for burial in Oak Hill Cemetery, Janesville.

Source: Algoma Record Herald; familysearch.org. 

Boundaries...................

For Kewaunee County residents who fish, hunt, enjoy the casinos or have cottages in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, it is not far away. Why that part of Michigan isn’t Wisconsin is a mystery to many. But, it was "politics." What any mother calls two-year-old behavior was reflected in the politics of the time. Some things never change.

Wisconsin’s boundaries were laid out in the Ordinance of 1787, although there was no name for the place then. As territorial residents began to plan for state governments years later, they began to think boundaries were unjust. To give Illinois outlets to Lake Michigan, that state’s northern boundary was moved 50 miles north of the line set down in 1787. Then Michigan got the slice of land south of Lake Superior that should have been Wisconsin's. That was the inducement offered to settle Michigan’s southern boundary dispute with Ohio.

The Wisconsin Territory was in need of internal improvements and offered in 1834 to stop agitating about boundaries if the Federal Government would build a railroad from Lake Michigan to the Mississippi River, would improve the Fox River waterway and provide harbors on Lake Michigan. Today we would say the offer was blown off, though the drive for statehood continued. In 1846 Congress authorized Wisconsin to prepare for admission to the Union. When the Federal Government found that the line separating Wisconsin and the Upper Peninsula could not be run, it laid out a new line. The new line, however, did not really affect anything.

Wisconsin became a state in 1848, after the people voted on it at least twice. The state had an area of 56,066 square miles but it would have been more, and have counted two lakes as boundaries, if politicians had just left things alone.

 

The map is from The Abandoned Shore-Lines of Eastern Wisconsin by James Walter Goldthwaite, Assistant Professor of Geology at Northwestern University. The book was published at Madison, Wisconsin in 1907. It came from Bulletin No. XVll, Scientific Series No. 5 of Wisconsin Geological and Natural History Survey. The book is in the author's collection.

Kewaunee County and Rural Free Delivery

Using horse and buggy, the U.S. Post Office Department in 1896 embarked on a great experiment in three West Virginia communities. The experiment was a success and Rural Free Delivery, or RFD, was born. RFD evened the field as it provided rural folks the mail service enjoyed by their city cousins. Consistent mail service was more than a convenience. It shattered rural isolation, created economic opportunities and served to unify the country.

RFD became a Kewaunee County reality in 1904. When Rural Agent William F. Esch described Kewaunee County in his letter of support to the 4th Assistant Postmaster General, he said the county was one of the most thickly settled in Wisconsin. Esch said Kewaunee County had fairly good roads which would be kept open in winter. He said heavy soil was so well mixed with gravel that roads would not be impassible due to mud, and that the mostly German, Belgium and Bohemian population was exceedingly prosperous, possessing great thrift and industry. On one route Esch found 35 homes being constructed, something he had not seen equaled in any other county. Most people were dairy farmers, and cheese making was the leading industry. Esch went on to describe the residents as being bright. When shown the advantages of RFD, he knew they would be quick to avail themselves of it.

Agent Esch recommended 21 routes coming from distribution points in Algoma, Casco, Kewaunee, Luxembourg and Stangelville. Patrons would be equally served from routes of about 24 miles each, and carrier salaries were to be $684 per year. In his final recommendation, Esch said he had no doubt postmasters would take a personal interest in every route and would take great pains to provide service.

For as much as RFD promised, there were those in opposition. Twenty-one post offices were to be closed by November 30, 1904. The offices were in the stores, hotels and saloons of the county where proprietors were sure to experience a drop in business when area residents no longer had to pick up their own mail.

The above picture is from the cover photo on the c. 2008 book Here Comes the Mail, Post Offices of Kewaunee County. Postmarked "Ellisville, 1907," the picture is that of an RFD carrier driving south out of Ellisville. Looking up the hill to the north today, Janda's bar is on the right  (east) side of the road. Once a thriving community, Janda's is Ellisville's only remaining business.

In 1904, Luxembourg was the spelling of the village today called Luxemburg.

Kewaunee County and Prohibition

As lawn care companies flood mailboxes with their best prices for spring weed control, some home owners deep in snow are beginning to think that the worst of their nightmares is really those cute little buttery yellow followers called dandelions! But, during the 1920's, a yard full of dandelions was as good as it could get.

Prohibition was in effect. Dandelions, wild grapes and elderberries were among the coveted ingredients for homemade wine. When Congress passed the Volstad Act in 1919, it became illegal to buy, sell or drink alcohol except for religious and medicinal purposes. The Volstad Act touched so many facets of American life that just touching an alcoholic product could have been a crime. Suddenly many had medical problems requiring alcohol, but physicians and drug stores also had problems with alcohol. If the government approved the sale of alcohol to a doctor, it was for one pint that was to cover ten days. A physician could get an emergency stock of  six quarts of whiskey a year, but the sale was carefully documented.

Any physician wishing to prescribe whiskey was required to make a special request for a permit. Physicians had to describe the nature of the illness requiring the whiskey. If the physician succeeded in prescribing, the patient could get the whiskey only from drug stores having a special permit, Rates were set between $2.50 and $3.50 a pint.

On February 27, 1920 Algoma Record Herald pointed out the facts on whiskey consumption to city residents when it said none of the city druggists had made application for a government permit to sell whiskey, nor had any of the doctors asked for permission to prescribe whiskey as medicinal.

It was not long before there were rumors of bootlegging and moonshine in Kewaunee County. Raids followed. There were seizures of moonshine and then stills were found.  A sizable still was found in Forestville - five miles north of Algoma in Door County - in 1921. Apparently the owners tried to destroy the still, but agents said they found corn and raisen cooked mash and a keg of moonshine whiskey. Just after that, agents intimidated a farm woman who would not unlock a shed. The agents broke in and found a fifty-five gallon drum. When agents simultaneously raided 16 - 18 taverns in the southern and western part of the county, only two saloon keepers were found with liquor. Agents found a still in the tree tops on a Town of Carlton farm. On completing the batch of moonshine, the farmer hid his still in what seemed to be an unlikely spot.

In one instance, a tavern was raided, product was seized and money was taken from the cash register. That turned out to be what some called a frame-up. The feds were on the way, but the scammers got there first. When some young Algoma men returned from a dance and were arrested for drunken driving, agents found shacks hidden in the hills west of town. They reported finding "real Kentucky product" there. A first offense usually brought a $200 fine. That Kentucky product must have been exceptionally good. The fine was doubled to $400. There are still some of Kewaunee County's elderly residents who tell stories of moonshine being hidden under the gutters in the barn. There was safety in manure.

Prohibition's greatest effect in Kewaunee County, as in the rest of the U.S., was disrespect for the law. Prohibition was repealed in 1933 during the depths of the Depression. After all, liquor sales are revenue enhancing.

Boedecker's Drug Store at the southeast corner of 4th and Steele was one which stopped the sale of alcohol before Prohibition. Boedecker Bros. ran ads saying alcohol could be bad for one's health. The photo was taken from a postcard in the author's collection.

Algoma's Stebbins Hotel.............

Algoma's Stebbins Hotel athe northwest corner of 2nd and Steele Streets, ca. 1910

In 1905 When Frank Slaby remodeled the hotel at the Northwest corner of 2^nd and Steele in Algoma in 1905, he renamed it Stebbins Hotel in honor of distinguished city resident DeWayne Stebbins. Stebbins was a Civil War hero who was reported to have saved the life of General - later president - U.S. Grant. "Big Steb," as he was called, served as Ahnapee Record editor and state senator. Stebbins had died a year or two before.

It was during 1857 when David Youngs and George Steele, the Wolf River proprietors of what is now downtown Algoma, approached Capt. Charlie Fellows with an offer of any lot in the tiny village if he would build a luxurious hotel costing at least $1,000. Youngs and Steele had lots to sell. Investors needed a comfortable place to stay if they were going to be induced to buy property in a forward thinking pioneer community of only a few hundred residents.

Fellows agreed and hired local residents Andreas Eveland to dig the cellar and James Keogh to put up cellar walls. Fellows hired Racine carpenters even though such carpenters as George Beuitling, James Parker and Joseph Anderegg were already living in town. Hand shaved cedar and pine shingles were locally made. Hall’s sawmill was in existence on the South Branch of the river, but Fellows brought most building materials from Racine.

1857 was a time of economic uncertainty in the U.S. Hotel business was not appealing to Fellows and did not meet his expectations. Fellows’ Lake Michigan freight business was also suffering when he called upon his father-in-law John LV. Yates and Capt. Bill McDonald to run the place while he tried to keep his shipping business intact. Finally Fellows sold the hotel to Dave Youngs who sold it to Frank Feuerstein who sold it to John Weilep who made money. John Ihlenfeld bought the hotel and he sold to Mr. Grimm who sold it to Frank Slaby.

Although the hotel has undergone changes in the last 100 years, it was Slaby who moved the original hotel back to where the kitchen is now and constructed what is there today. The hotel was one Wolf River’s first frame buildings.

The Stebbins is Kewaunee County’s longest, continuously operating business. It’s had a most impressive history.