Day Light Store

This delivery wagon for the Day Light Store, a local grocer, is decorated for a parade. The store was located at various times at 135 Main (proprietor Fred Peterson) in 1910 and 198 Main Street (proprietor H.E,. Bullard) in 1917 when the ad below appeared in the MHS yearbook. TELMO Brand, advertised on the wagon, was a family of food brands carried in stores, much like Kraft Foods today.   

 

 

Top photograph courtesy of the Menasha Public Library

Lock View

This photograph was captioned "View Southwest, Menasha Lock."  From the 1995 Historic American Engineering Record, as documented in the Library of Congress. 

On the Lower Fox, in the course of almost 40 miles, the river drops approximately 170 feet—almost the height of Niagara Falls.  Harnessing this waterway with all the locks made the river navigable in an era when roads were largely dirt, or plank, at best.

The Menasha lock is an example of a pound lock which is a type of lock that is used almost exclusively nowadays on canals and rivers. A pound lock has a chamber (the pound, also known as a reach or a level) with gates at both ends that control the level of water in the pound.

photo courtesy: Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division, HABS [or HAER or HALS], Reproduction number HAER WIS,70-MENA,3--5

Wisconsin Central

In May of 1900, the Wisconsin Central Railway put together a booklet extolling the virtues of some of the stops on its northeastern Wisconsin route.  Fond du Lac, Oshkosh, Neenah, and Menasha all received the travelogue treatment, providing local photographs and flowery essays praising everything from the local industry to the fish and game in the area.  Many of the photographs featured in the booklet have been seen a thousand times before in this blog, but shown above are just a few of the iconic illustrations paying honor to a most celebrated mode of travel for its time, the railroad. 

Gibson Chevrolet

December 3, 1965 Appleton Post-Crescent

The Gibson Company was a foundation of the downtown business district for many years on Main Street, right next door to the old fire station. Alenor J. Gibson, Jr., son of the firm's founder, was the maternal grandfather of car dealer John Bergstrom. Bergstrom got his start in business by selling cars for his grandfather after graduating from the Marquette University business school. 

Gilbert Idyll

 

The recently departed smokestack makes another appearance in a souvenir postcard of our fair town.  Few ducks in evidence, but quite the reflection.

St. Patrick's School

This 1910 postcard shows the largely undeveloped Washington Street heading towards the horizon.  This school building, the parish's second, lasted until June of 1940.  The school we all remember was dedicated in August of 1941.

Roselawn Dairy

Roselawn Dairy, located northeast of Menasha on Manitowoc Road, like many others in the community was eventually a victim of the large milk producers who could undercut the price points of smaller concerns and "bring the savings home" to consumers.  But at what cost?  The same mentality that Wal-Mart and big box grocers later used to drive smaller competitors out of business was at work here. 

The protective caps shown above are products of a by-gone era, when milk came in bottles that were reused again and again.  The four digit phone number dates these caps to the late 1940s. 

June 5, 1961 Appleton Post-Crescent

 

You can see from the letter above, that Roselawn was one of the victims of this 1954 "milk war."  By 1967, Gear and Marten's would be gone too.

Lenz Hotel

From the 1920 Sterling Directory

 

Later known as the Schumacher Hotel in its last days of decline in the late 1970s, this shows the hotel one year before proprietor Herman Rollfink sold his interests to Reinhold Gothke. 

As detailed previously, the Hotel Lenz pictured had many incarnations. Starting business as the Wisconsin House in 1871 by John Lenz, Jr., this facility at the corner of Third and Racine Streets had a beer garden in the spring and summer and catered to a German clientele. On the streetcar line and close to the Soo Line depot, this lodging enjoyed transportation access others did not. You can see the streetcar tracks that came up Third Street and turned down Racine Street on the way to downtown. When the building was finally demolished in 1978 it was known as the Schumacher Hotel.

Marathon Sponsorship

from 1946 Nicolet

 

What better place to advertise job opportunities for high school graduates than in the back of the yearbook?  However, I don't know many high school students who would have poured over the sponsors' ads to even find such a declaration.  Still, from this vantage point, it was reassuring that the ol' hometown might have had a place for you, if the college route wasn't your fancy.

Henry C. Tate

In 1908, P.V. Lawson's book, History, Winnebago County, Wisconsin: Its Cities, Towns, Resources, People, he detailed how a Mr. Henry Tate (Tait) established the first hotel in Menasha, when it was a mere blip on the map.  The ad below from an Oshkosh newspaper from 1849, details the wonders of this new village and beckons all "seekers of fortune or pleasure" to come north and make his fortune. 

 

July 18, 1849, Oshkosh Free Democrat

George Stein House

This house at 712 Broad Street was built by German immigrant George Stein; however, the date of construction varies from source to source. Stein was born in Limburg, Germany in 1818 and came to the United States and, according to census information, settled in Menasha by no later than 1860. A number of construction dates have been cited for the house, beginning as early as 1858 (when the property was purchased by George Stein from the Doty family), to as late as between 1870 and 1874; another cited date of construction as 1863.

This two-story house is of Italianate design and is constructed of stone and topped with a hipped roof with overhanging eaves; a cupola rises from the center of the roof.

Family lore that has passed down from generation to generation is that the house was built with stone that was dredged from the Menasha Canal and the mortar was mixed by Stein himself. Also, Stein had reportedly originally contracted with a construction firm to build his home, but was unhappy with their work and did it himself. The 1860 census does identify Stein as a carpenter.

Stein died in 1896 and, thereafter, the house was passed on to his unmarried descendants who lived there until 1981.
                                   ----------------------------------------------------------------------

Compare this to the Mitchell house, also known as the Rosch house, which sits at the northwest corner of Chute and Tayco Streets.  It is one of the oldest houses remaining in Menasha and is also of an Italianate renaissance design.  The house was built in 1854 by John Mitchell, owner of a door, sash, and blind factory.  In 1890, the house was purchased by John Rosch, one time mayor of Menasha and local druggist who brought the first soda fountain to the city . 

 

 

Looking Northeast Towards Tayco

Despite the backwards language written on the photo (it says Whiting Paper Mill 1886 if held up to a mirror), this photo is the opposite direction from Whiting's.  I can only think the text rubbed off from another photo before it had dried.  Which would also explain the smear....  The foreground of the photo is the Wooden Ware stave drying yards. 
from Neenah History Flickr site, under Creative Commons license

St. Mary's, Co-starring Best Bakery

 

Somewhere along the line, I obtained this photograph.  And I know we've seen St. Mary's a hundred times before, but it isn't often I have a piece of Best Bakery in the shot. 

As a student of St. Mary's for 12 years, I saw so many of my classmates come and go outside that bakery, be it for a questionable lunch or just a place to grab a smoke. Best Bakery was THE hangout for that school. 

No message here, no history lesson today.  As I await a 40th reunion with those "kids" next summer, the image just makes me smile.  

Adolph Wahle

This house at 98 Broad Street was built between 1870 and 1874 by Adolph Wahle

ADOLPH WAHLE, a well known flour and feed dealer of Menasha, was born in the city of Niedermarsberg, province of Westphalia, Prussia, September 4, 1838, son of Anton and Frederica Wahle. His father and mother were natives of Prussia, in which the former died in 1861, and where the latter is still living. He attended school between the ages of six and fourteen, and soon after quitting school he began to learn cabinet-making. At the end of three years he passed a successful examination, and at then age of nineteen he began to learn the trade of a millwright. He worked at this in summer and in winter was employed at architecture and draughting, and continued in that way three years. This brought him up to the year 1860, when he returned home, and for a period of seven years operated a grist mill which was owned by his father, and which was left by him when he died, in 1861. In 1867 he emigrated to America, and after a few weeks spent visiting friends in New York city and Buffalo, N. Y., he came to Wisconsin and joined his brother, Frank Wahle, at Stevens Point. A few weeks later he accompanied his brother to Oshkosh, where the latter built the present Union brewery of that city. Our subject, however, did not remain at Oshkosh, but in the course of a few days he went to Menasha and there became employed in a grist-mill. At the end of three years he became one of the owners of a grist-nill at that plce. His partner's name was Alexander McGinty. After renting a mill two years, they purchased the Coral Flouring Mill at Menasha, and operated it until the fall of 1881 when they sold it to Alexander Syme. That same year,  Wahle, along with McGinty, would receive a patent for an improvement in roller-grinding milling of cereals.  In the meantime in the latter part of 1879, and the early part of 1880, they built a grist-mill at Marinette, this state, to which place Mr. Wahle, moved and took charge of the property in the fall of 1881. In 1886 he sold his interest in that property and at once returned to Menasha. On July 1st, 1887, he opened up a flour and feed store in Menasha, which he has since conducted. He was married in June, 1868, to Matilda Muelenbein, who is also a native of the city of Niedermarsberg, Prussia, born in 1839, daughter of Bernhard and Gertrude Muelenbein. Mr. and Mrs. Wahle were acquainted in the old country, and were engaged to be married before the former eame to America. It was arranged by them that Mr. Wahle should find a home for himself in America and then send for his future wife, which he did. They have had three children: Minnie, Katie and Rosa, of whom Rosa died in childhood. Mr. and Mrs. Wahle are members of the Catholic church. He belongs to the Catholic Knights, and in politics is a staunch democrat. He possesses industry, honesty and integrity, and other qualities which are necessary to an upright and successful life. He is a genial, sociable man and a first class citizen.

 

Wahle died in 1901.

 

from Randall, Geo. A. / Illustrated Atlas of Winnebago County, Wisconsin : containing outline map of the county, map of each township in the county, with village and city plats. (1889)

 

US Patent Office graphic of Adolph Wahle's patent

Menasha Assembly?

This pre-1907 postcard shows the imposing high school on Racine Street with the student population out of doors, ringing the building on an overcast day.  Were they told the postcard photographer was coming, so get ready?  If the students were expecting more, I'm sure they were disappointed at the results, as the edifice was definitely the subject here.

The Vigilant Motorcycle Officer

 

It seemed kind of a stretch using a motorcycle cop to sell bread wrappers, but Menasha Products eventually gets its message across in this trade ad.   It used a phrase in its copy I wasn't familiar with:  "Bread protected by Super Seal stands the gaff-...." 

 

Stands the gaff?   My friends at Merriam-Webster tell me it is an Americanism from 1895-1900 meaning "to weather hardship or strain; endure patiently."   Okay, then.  But for my money, it sounded like some of that "hard-boiled" slang from 1930s and 40s movies, the ones with Jimmy Cagney as a gangster or Humphrey Bogart as a private eye.

City Pool

With summer upon us, it's time to enjoy this color postcard which touts the recently opened Menasha Municipal Pool in the 1958-60 timeframe.  All the ladies have on their mandatory bathing caps.

Lawson's Canal Revisited

The body of water out of the north branch of the Fox River just west of the street known as Riverway in Menasha is the Lawson Canal. It runs behind the former Banta Company and continues on south to the old Gilbert Paper Company.  It was constructed in 1882 by P.V. Lawson- mayor, attorney, businessman, and city leader. 

We first acknowledged this canal in May of 2012 on the blog where we described it: "... its purpose was to add eighteen new power sites.   It was to be about 2,000 feet long and 200 feet wide and of the uniform depth of four feet below the bottom of the river to the north."

This colorized postcard from the early 1900's makes an idyllic scene.

The Place to Go

The ad above is from one of the Menasha high school yearbooks, circa 1946.  Yes, we've seen this 1943 photo before but it reinforces where the Valley Theatre was located.  And the photo below from roughly 30 years later really puts the whole before-and-after view in perspective.  I love the classic cars- the Chevy with the tail fins in front of the bank and the Corvair across the street in front of the Left Guard.

Hello Robert, Why Don't You Write?

 

This 1907 postcard reflects the format of its day; later that year, US postcard regulations would change where writing would hence forward be allowed on the reverse, instead of on a reduced photo side, as portrayed here. 

 

This scan doesn't show it well, but the message is to one Robert E. Jennings of Menominee, Michigan from his Aunt Addi.  She writes: "Hello Robert, why don't you write?  You know we like to get letters.  P.S.  Edith says, when are you going to send the puppy?"

 

Today, Aunt Addi would have texted Robert, or perhaps email him.  But still, there's nothing like sending familial guilt, whatever the media and whatever the era. 

 

And as for the P.S., how DOES one get a puppy from Menominee to Menasha in 1907? 

Swift's Pride Soap and Washing Powder

True to the advertising dictum that no flat surface goes unexploited, the sign facing the camera, if magnified significantly and shaded darkly, reveals itself to be a billboard, of sorts, for something called Swift's Pride Soap and Washing Powder. My research shows that this was, more or less the Comet cleanser or Dawn dishwashing liquid of its day.  For all I know, these could have been as plentiful as the Mail Pouch Tobacco or the See Rock City signs painted on barns across the country.  Still, it seems a bit incongruous to have one placed here in the middle of the Fox River.

 

1908 print ad for Swift's Pride