Gegan School

 

March 10, 1968 Appleton Post-Crescent 

A peek back at the Post-Crescent from 47 years ago today yields the story of this open house at the first new Menasha school in eight years.  Although a product of the Catholic school system, I was only too familiar with Gegan as my grandparents lived on Airport Road and I was quite interested in its construction from the get-go.

The Daylight Store

Fred Peterson's Daylight Store

We first encountered The Daylight Store, one of Menasha's many groceries, last year in the blog: 

http://menashabook.blogspot.com/2014/06/daylight-store.html

Located at 198 Main, this building still stands today, at the traffic light on Main Street.  Or, to put it in a 1970s perspective, right next door to the east of the old Hidde's Pharmacy. 

photo courtesy of Steve Krueger, from the booklet, Illustrated Menasha, The City of Opportunities (1913)

Badger Highways Matchbook

Let's end the week with this colorful Badger Highways matchbook. Seeing it aroused my curiosity about the business' current status.  A Google search turned up a July 8, 2014 news item in the Post-Crescent which stated:

                             The equipment was auctioned off in April and the business
                             closed. The quarry property at 936 Appleton Road in Menasha
                             was sold. An online auction notice said, "After 60 successful years
                             of business, Harold and Steve have decided to retire."  Bucklin Tree
                             Service is now leasing the Appleton Road property. It moved from
                             Racine Street, said owner Chris Bucklin, to get more space. "We are
                             still selling gravel, stone and mulch," he said.

We first addressed Badger Highways in 2012: http://menashabook.blogspot.com/2012/12/badger-highways.html .            
Happy retirement, guys! 

"Autotrails" Map of 1924

Rand McNally & Co.'s Commercial Atlas Of America. Fifty-Fifth Edition, AutoTrails Map, Wisconsin, Northern Illinois, Northern Michigan, 1924
from David Rumsey Map Collection via oldmapsonline.org

Back when extensive travel by car was in its infancy, Rand McNally, among other publishers, developed and published maps for use by car travelers.  This zoomed view of the Fox Valley section of the Wisconsin map shows that even back then, there was a State Road 114.  Notice Hwy 15 to the west of town, which eventually morphed into US 41.  In 1926 with the debut of the U.S. Highway system, all of Hwy 15 north of Milwaukee was replaced by the new US 41 designation, all the way into Michigan's Upper Peninsula.  In later years, the Hwy 15 designation would be used again, most recently in a 15 mile stretch west of Appleton at US 41 to the south of New London, near the southern end of the "New London Bypass."   The "1" in the black box refers to the highway's designation as the "Yellowstone Trail" highway.  (Don't ask me how that fits.) 

We first visited Hwy 15 in a blog post from 2013:  http://menashabook.blogspot.com/2013/05/highway-15-opening.html

History Passed This Way

April 4, 1948 Milwaukee Sentinel

In Wisconsin's centennial year of 1948, The Milwaukee Sentinel carried weekly articles about the towns and cities it deemed vital to the development of Wisconsin.  This is the entry about Neenah-Menasha from that year.

 April 3, 1948 Milwaukee Sentinel

Wisconsin 1845

from: Wisconsin.  A new general atlas, comprising a complete set of maps representing the grand divisions of the globe, together with the several empires, kingdoms and states in the world; compiled from the best authorities, and corrected by the most recent discoveries. New York, Published at Tanner's Geographical Establishment, 1845. Written and engraved by Jos. Perkins.

Courtesy:  David Rumsey Historical Map Collection via oldmapsonline.org

Zooming in on Winnebago County in 1845 reveals a mysterious naming of "Mishwauka,"and the more familiar "Winnebago," as in "Winnebago Rapids," the original name for Neenah.  Obviously, refinement of place names would occur later.  Notice "Oskosh," "Manitoowoc," and "De Pierre" to name just a few.  (This map is my first and only exposure to the name, "Mishwauka" so more research is definitely in store.) 

Governor Visits Menasha

May 16, 1927 Appleton Post-Crescent

 

As the winter trudges on, a weary man's attention turns to that end of Winter event- spring training baseball games (at least this weary man).  So, while entertaining the notion of an eventual Spring, let's go back some 88 years to when Menasha was enraptured with baseball (it was, after all, the national pastime) and used the upcoming season to entice a certain public official to come to town to throw out the first pitch. (Still not sure why he'd tell the adoring crowd that he hoped our opponent, Oshkosh, would win though.)