Group holds capital campaign for buildings
By Robert Cloud
The Waupaca Historical Society will hold an ice cream and pie social to celebrate its 70th anniversary in the same building where it held its first meeting.
The social will be held from 6-8 p.m. Thursday, April 27, at the Holly History and Genealogy Center, 321 S. Main St., Waupaca.
The event will feature free refreshments, information on WHS and self-guided tours of the Holly Center.
On April 27, 1953, WHS held its first meeting at the Waupaca Area Public Library, which at the time was located in what is now the Holly Center.
According to Tracy Behrendt, WHS director, Tom A. Browne, a Waupaca attorney, was elected the first president of the new group. Sophelia Kurkowski, a teacher at Waupaca High School, was appointed as vice president and program chair. One of the oldest members of the new society, Jennie Browne Truesdell, was voted to be an honorary permanent member of the new board of directors.
“The purpose of the new Waupaca Historical Society was to preserve historical material of interest and value to the people of Waupaca and the surrounding area,” Behrendt said.
Hutchinson House
In 1956, WHS purchased the historic Hutchinson House and moved it 10 blocks to South Park. The Hutchinson House was opened as a public museum during the summer of 1957, the year the city of Waupaca celebrated its centennial.
Built in 1854, the Hutchinson House was originally located on the corner of West Fulton and Franklin streets. It had been the home of Chester and Susannah Hutchinson.
The white clapboard wood-frame Greek Revival farmhouse is 1 1/2 stories with a gable front in the center. The two wings each have a recessed porch.
Julia Hutchinson, the granddaughter of Chester and Susannah, was the last Hutchinson to live in the house. A Waupaca teacher, she was an active member of the Women’s Christian Temperance Union.
WHS offers tours of the Hutchinson House Museum and its collection of vintage furnishings, clothing, glassware and textiles.
WHS also held meetings and used storage space at what was once Waupaca’s City Hall and fire station.
Today, the building at 222 N. Main St. houses the Firehouse Apartments.
King Cottage
WHS’s next major project was its purchase and relocation of a cottage from the Wisconsin Veterans Home in King to space behind the Hutchinson House in 1975.
Then, a porch was added and interior walls removed so the former dwelling could be used as a research library.
From 1997 until 2001, it was filled with photographs, books, maps and other research and genealogical materials.
In 2001, WHS relocated the research materials from King Cottage to the Holly Center. The building has since been used for storage.
The cottage has several Chain O’ Lakes-related exhibits, including Whispering Pines Park and the Wisconsin Veterans Home in King.
Carnegie Library
In 1914, the Waupaca Free Public Library opened in a new building funded in large part by a $10,000 grant from the Carnegie Corporation.
According to an application to the National Register of Historic Places prepared by Mary Gordon in 1995, the building was designed by architects Bernard Parkinson and Albert Dockendorff of La Crosse and represents “an excellent local example of the influence of the American Arts and Craft and Tudor Revival styles.”
In the 1890s, the Monday Night Club, an early local women’s club, began advocating and fundraising for a public library.
The group invited Lutie Stearns, a leader in the Wisconsin library movement, to speak in Waupaca. They provided donations for the city’s first library books.
Later, the Waupaca Common Council appointed a library board and the Waupaca Electric Light and Railway Co. provided space to house the library’s growing collection of books.
The library board and the women’s club persuaded the common council to pass an ordinance that accepted the Carnegie grant and committed $1,000 a year to fund library operations.
A petition signed by 135 citizens urged the council to suspend the ordinance. The city held a referendum and citizens voted 2-1 in favor of funding of a public library.
The Carnegie building housed Waupaca’s public library until 1993, when Waupaca built its current library and city hall on the site of the former county courthouse on Main Street.
WHS purchased the Carnegie building in 2001 and remodeled it into what has become the organization’s offices, archives, research center and community meeting space.
The building is now named the Holly History and Genealogy Center, because the Holly family has had a major role in supporting the historical society.
As visitors climb the stairs from the Main Street entrance to upper level, they will see photos of A.J. Holly, Roy Holly and Tom Holly, On the lower level is the Cynthia Holly Meeting Room.
Train Depot
WHS’s most recent building project has been the train depot.
Located at the top of a hill just past the Oak Street railroad overpass, the passenger station was built in 1907 by the Wisconsin Central Railway, then later leased by the Soo Line.
The sandstone building has a Spanish tile. Inside there is a waiting room, ladies’ parlor, smoking room, agent’s office, baggage room and three fire places.
Before automobiles and interstate highways, Waupaca became a tourist destination due to train service.
Visitors would disembark at the depot, take a trolley through the city and out to the Chain.
In 1965, Soo Line ended passenger service in Waupaca. The station continued to be used as an agent’s office and crew quarters until the new Wisconsin Central purchased the railroad in 1987.
The depot was abandoned and it became the target of vandals, who covered the walls with graffiti and burned a hole in the wooden floor.
In 2004, after four years of negotiations with the railroads that owned the depot, the Waupaca Historical Society purchased the building.
Mike Kirk led volunteers who worked tirelessly to restore the depot.
They repaired the roof, using what tiles they could save and purchasing new ones when needed.
They cleaned the grounds, cleaned soot from the exterior walls, repaired the fireplaces, repaired and painted the interior walls and replaced broken windows.
Kirk and volunteers also dug out a basement under the depot, using shovels and buckets. Today, a model train runs in the basement.
Capital campaign
The Waupaca Historical Society has an ongoing capital campaign with a goal of raising $400,000.
WHS completed its first two capital campaign projects: a new roof and renovations and technology upgrades in the lower level meeting room at the Holly Center.
This year, WHS plans to renovate the kitchen and the collections storage space at the Holly Center.
Plans also include upgrading the HVAC system at the Hutchinson House.
For more information, go to waupacahistoricalsociety.org/ and click Capital Campaign in the navigation bar at the top of the page.