| Additional Information: | Additional photo code: T 17/11. Distinctive local example of the Italianate style. The brick house features roundhead windows, paired brackets, bay window and etched glass doorway.
John Ringle was an early German immigrant (1859). He became an influential member of the community, serving as mayor, in the Wisconsin assembly and senate, and as leader of the Germain-American Alliance. He organized and served as president of the Ringle Brick Company.
2018 Wausau survey report: This two-story, brick-clad Italianate-style house is largely a gabled ell in general form; however, an additional two-story block is located at the rear and extends to the north, which results in the graduated three block appearance along its primary elevation. Topped with a hipped roof and featuring paired wooden brackets along the cornice, the gabled ell-type portion is largely fronted by an open porch with plain brick pier supports. Along the southernmost block is an entrance that is topped with a transom, next to which is a one-story, tripartite bay window projection. The second floor includes two, regularly placed, double-hung sash windows. A second door is located left of center along the second block and, like the other door, it is topped with a transom. All remaining regularly placed windows along this elevation feature a brick segmental-arch hood with corbeled ends and a plain stone sill. Historic photos and Sanborn maps indicate that the porch that currently exists on the home was added by no later than 1923.
This house was built in 1877 for John Sr. and Augusta Ringle. John Ringle Sr. was born in 1848 in Herman, Dodge County, Wisconsin but moved with his family to Wausau in 1859. In 1872, Ringle married Augusta Engel (of Wausau). That same year, he was elected county clerk; a position he retained for the next six years, during which time he built the subject house. As of 1880, John and his wife had five children, ages 7 to 4 months. Following three successive terms in the Wisconsin General Assembly, he served four years in the Wisconsin Senate. In 1884, he was elected mayor of Wausau, during which time the municipal waterworks was established. He served again in the General Assembly in 1892, after which he was appointed Wausau postmaster (1894-1898). Ringle was elected mayor for a second time in 1912. Aside from his political concerns, Ringle had, in 1889, established a sawmill. That sawmill was closed upon the discovery of clay deposits and a brick-making plant was established in 1893 as part of the Clay Lumber Company. It was later re-named the Ringle Brick Company. Production of Ringle brick ceased in 1943. John Ringle died in 1923. |
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| Bibliographic References: | (A) Central Wisconsin, June 6, 1877.
Citations for 2018 survey information below: John Ringle, Sr., Dies Suddenly,” Wausau Daily Record-Herald, 15 March 1923, 1/1-2; Ernest Robertson Buckley, The Clays and Clay Industries of Wisconsin, Bulletin VII, Part 1 (Madison, WI: Wisconsin Geological and Natural History Survey, 1901), 277-228.
City in the Pinery, A Guide to Wausau's Historic Architecture, The City of Wausau, 1983.
City in the Pinery, A Guide to Wausau's Historic Architecture, The City of Wausau, 1984. |
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