Exploring the Town of Waupaca Wisconsin…Plus

Of course, while we were wandering and eating around the Chain O’ Lakes area, we had to stop in Waupaca to look around and give the 3 sisters and Cousin Carla a chance to shop.  I took the opportunity to take a few photos around the center of town…

The first building that I spotted was the Rosa Theatre at 218 South Main Street.  It’s unusual in that very few small town cinemas continue to operate, especially in the downtown areas.  One issue has been the cost of converting to a digital movie format and the other is competition with big multi-screen theaters and companies such as AMC, Cinemark and Regal.

The Rosa Theatre is a relatively new building in downtown Waupaca, having been built in 1948.  This theater is actually part of a small chain of small town theaters.  Rogers Cinema operates 7 theaters in Wisconsin and upper Michigan.  In Stevens Point Wisconsin, this company actually has a multi-screen theater with 7 screens.  To learn more, just go to https://www.rogerscinema.com/.

The Danes Hall was built in 1894 as a gathering place for the Danes Home Society.  Originally it served as a clubhouse, a meeting hall and as an auditorium.  There was a dance floor on the upper floor with its own balcony. 

The Danish Club was organized in early 1877.  The Wisconsin Central Railroad had just completed construction to Ashland Wisconsin and, combined with out of work farm workers, there were a lot of idle men around that had no place to go except for the local saloons.  At its peak, the club had 300 members before dropping to only 32 by 1940. 

Danish Club bylaws required that only males born to Danish parents, were 18 years of age or older and who could read and speak Danish, would be eligible for membership.  Gambling and alcohol were forbidden.  The Club had a library of over 1,000 books and the Danes Home Society even had their own health and long-term insurance program.

In more recent years, the dance hall has been used by various groups as well as by the National Guard for drills and the local high school for graduation ceremonies.  As the photo shows, it’s once again being refurbished.  The stated goal is to return the building as “a focal point and social gathering space…” for Waupaca.

Downtown Waupaca is somewhat restricted by its location on a ridge or hill alongside the Waupaca River.  As recently as June of this year, the river was expected to crest at 2 feet above flood stage.  I was on the hill where downtown is situated when I took this photo.

The river got its name from the Native Americans that inhabited the area.  Waupaca is the Native American word for ‘tomorrow’.  Since the Native Americans needed 24 hours to travel the full length of the river, they wouldn’t be able to reach the end until ‘tomorrow’.  The state of Wisconsin officially calls the river the Waupaca/Tomorrow River. 

These 2 buildings at 103 and 105 North Main Street were built within a year of each other.  The first one is the Beadleston Block. (1877) The one to the right is the Masonic Block. (1878) Note the Masonic symbol at the top.

The Beadleston Block was built for Hiram C. and Henry Beadleston who came to Waupaca in 1857 and opened a grocery store on this site in a wood frame building in 1862.  This building was erected in 1877 after a fire destroyed their first store.  The Masonic Building was built immediately afterwards.  This building not only served as the Masonic Temple but it also served as a drug store beginning in 1877 and continuing until recent times.  Now it appears to be part of the Main Street Marketplace.  

Website: http://www.mainstreetwaupaca.com/home.html.    

What would any self-respecting town in Wisconsin be without a local bar or pub!  The Paca Pub at 106 North Main Street has been in business since 1984.  They serve adult beverages in addition to lunch and dinner.  The front of this building has been ‘updated’ but the Gmeiner Block/Building was built way back in 1900. 

For more on the Paca Pub, go to https://www.facebook.com/PacaPub/.

This one is a little confusing.  There are 2 Roberts Blocks…connected but built at different times.  The original building was built in 1884 by R.N. Roberts.  He built it on the site of his father’s general store.  In 1893, Roberts added Roberts Block #2…all in all, a total of 5 storefronts.  

Roberts was a successful businessman who had an interest in the city’s Crescent Roller Mills, a lumber company and the city’s potato starch company.  In 1884, he founded the City Bank for which in part he’d built this building.  Eventually it became known as the Old National Bank.  Other commercial businesses in these buildings included a restaurant, shoe store and a drug store.  Part of one of the buildings is now an extension of the Rosa Theatre.  Addresses for the Robert’s buildings include 204, 210 and 212 South Main Street.

This is one of the ‘newer’ buildings in Waupaca’s Main Street Historic District that’s listed on the National Register of Historic Places.  The Whittington Block is located at 201 North Main Street.  This rather more modern structure was built in 1913 by a firm based in Marshfield Wisconsin.  The two separate storefronts have seen many different businesses come and go in the last hundred years. 

Note the rapidly increasing rarity along the side of this building…a blue United States Postal Service mail drop box!  Like pay telephones, they’re headed for extinction.

Ah…and I was just sitting down and relaxing in chairs provided by a local merchant when I saw my ‘tour group’ headed on down the sidewalk in my direction.  Carla, Laurie, Karole and Bonnie were ready for our next adventure…

Don’t you love covered bridges?  They remind me of the olden days.  But this one over the Waupaca River isn’t really old.  It was built in 1976 in order to connect a subdivision of new homes to the main road.  It still gets your attention when you first spot it!

I was unable to identify this older building at the Wisconsin Veteran’s Home in King Wisconsin…just outside Waupaca.  The Wisconsin Veterans Home has been in existence for 130+ years.  All branches of the military are represented here.  This long-term and rehabilitative facility provides care for veterans, veteran’s spouses, veteran’s widows and Gold Star parents.  

The setting is certainly beautiful.  This 42 acre facility sits on the shores of a blue spring-fed lake on one side and there are rolling green hills on the other.  Buildings date from the 1880s to the present.  In 1887, the City of Waupaca purchased a defunct hotel and 78 acres for the establishment of the Wisconsin Veterans Home.  

The property was presented to the Grand Army of the Republic for the creation of a Veterans Home.  The GAR was a fraternal organization made up of veterans from all branches of the Civil War’s Union Army.  The GAR was among our first organized advocacy groups and one of their causes was the establishment of health care for surviving injured veterans.  By 1890, the GAR had 490,000 members.

Civil War physician and GAR member Dr. Frederick Marden headed up the effort.  One of his innovative ideas that was put into action was the practice of allowing wives and widows of veterans to live at the home. 

The Wisconsin Veterans Home in the town of King (Waupaca County), is one of the largest veteran’s home facilities in the USA.  It has almost 1,000 employees…even its own fire department.

In 2016, there was quite a bit of uproar in the news about the quality of care being delivered at the home, ongoing staffing shortages and the state’s redirecting of millions of dollars of Federal funding from the King facility to other veteran’s programs. 

To learn more about this facility, you can go to https://dva.wi.gov/Pages/veteransHomes/VeteransHomeKing.aspx.

This large and beautiful Queen Anne style home overlooking Rainbow Lake, part of Waupaca’s Chain O’ Lakes, is the Commandant’s House at the Wisconsin Veteran’s Home in King.  It was built in 1888 by the GAR to house retired soldiers.  It now houses the facilities commandant.  This is the only  large frame structure remaining from the Veteran’s Home historic period.  The effort was to make this complex into a real community, where staff and residents lived and worked together. 

FYI…The last member of the GAR and last Union Army veteran died in 1956 when he was 106 years old.  He’d been a drummer boy.   The last verified Union Army combat veteran died in 1953 at the age of about 110.

Dr. Marden also piloted the idea of allowing veterans to live semi-independently in cottages.  Consequently, this pleasant street and one other in the Veteran’s Home complex are lined with 31 small neat white cottages.  Some were used as staff residences too.  As per the Veteran Home’s building inventory, the cottages were built between 1890 and 1925.  Despite the parked cars, some of the cottages didn’t look like they were being lived in when we drove through and most of them needed repair and refurbishment, at least on the outside.

Note:

·         Wisconsin’s first state veteran’s cemetery was opened right across the street from the Veteran’s Home.  The first burial was of course, that of a Civil War Veteran.  This cemetery is now the final resting place for more than 6,700 veterans and their dependents.  Veterans from the Civil War, Indian Wars, Spanish American War, WWI, WWII, Korea, Vietnam and the Persian Gulf War are all buried here.

That’s all from Waupaca…both the city and the county.  Just click on any of the photos to enlarge them.

Thanks for stopping by for another glance into the past…and present.

Take Care, Big Daddy Dave