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State Register of Historic Places — New Listings
The State Register of Historic Places is Wisconsin's official listing of state properties determined to be significant to Wisconsin's heritage and is maintained by the Society's Division of Historic Preservation-Public History. The State Historic Preservation Review Board meets quarterly to review and approve nominations to the state and national registers of historic places. Listings include sites, buildings, structures, objects and districts that are significant in national, state or local history, architecture, archaeology, engineering and culture. In January the board approved the following properties for listing in the State Register of Historic Places:
- The Jane and David W. Curtis House was constructed in 1885 and is one of Fort Atkinson's finest examples of Queen Anne-style architecture. It was designed by noted Milwaukee architect Henry C. Koch. The house retains virtually all of its exterior and interior features, including ornamental fish-scale shingles and sunburst gables. A wraparound porch on the main south facade with an extending entrance balcony and a projecting bay on the east side contribute to the architectural quality of the building. Many of the features unique to the Queen Anne style are found throughout the house, from the large marble fireplace to the prism glass windows. The Curtis house has a vibrancy of color and character in every room that tells a story about the Curtis family and the city of Fort Atkinson.
- The Fountain Inn is a remarkably intact, early 20th-century tavern located in downtown Beaver Dam. The J. Philip Binzel Brewing Company built the tavern in 1911. The building has been in continuous use as a tavern except during Prohibition when it operated as a soft drink parlor. The tavern appears to have been designed and built together with the neighboring Masonic Temple building by the Milwaukee architectural firm of Leiser & Holst and constructed by D.B. Danielson. Although it is a modest structure, the Fountain Inn is nicely detailed and possesses many architectural elements typical of early 20h-century "Main Street" architecture. The original storefront has a recessed entry, plate glass display windows, and a transom made of Luxfer prism glass tiles, which were popular at the time to refract outside light farther into the interior of a building. The building's flat roof is hidden behind a decorative roof of green ceramic tiles with ornamental rafters and a copper gutter. The interior is also largely original with an ornate oak bar, brick walls and a ceramic tile floor. Like many other early 20th-century commercial buildings, the Fountain Inn has an apartment on the second floor.
- The George Griswold House (pictured above) is one of the earliest of Columbus' unusually large number of Italianate-style houses. Griswold moved from New York to Columbus in 1850 to open a dry goods store after failing eyesight prevented him from pursuing his legal practice. His store's success allowed him to bring two of his brothers from New York to join him in business and enabled him to build one of the finest and largest houses in Columbus. Local historians have stated that the design of Griswold's house was dictated in part by his deteriorating eyesight and a desire for a house with the familiar floor plan of his childhood home. If true, this may explain why the house has such a formal, symmetrical design unlike Columbus' other asymmetrical Italianate-style houses. Griswold's choice of an architect also may have played a role in the house's design. E.D. Baldwin was the first architect known to have established a practice in Columbus after previously working in the eastern United States and Canada, where he would have been exposed to the more formal Italianate style. Griswold's choice seems to have served him well. Though he would go completely blind soon after the house was built, he and members of his family continued to live there until at least the 1920s.
- The Adolphus and Sarah Ingalsbe House, originally constructed in 1853, is another early and fine example of Columbus' Italianate-style houses built by Yankee settlers from New York. In 1853, Adolphus Ingalsbe had just spent three years in California's 1849 gold rush, and it has been suggested that his gold rush success paid for his new house in Columbus. He went on to become the city's largest farmland owner and stock breeder. Looking at the Ingalsbe house today, one would never guess that it is a typical, if somewhat larger example of the piecemeal way in which many houses of that day were actually built. The original 1853 portion of the building built by Columbus builder Robert Quickenden consisted of a two-story, clapboard building with a shorter, two-story wing attached to the right of the house. In 1875 Ingalsbe hired Columbus contractor Richard D. Vanaken to move the attached wing to the rear of the house and build a new and larger wing in its place, creating the irregular plan house standing today. In addition, the entire house was re-clad in cream brick at this time.
- The Zion Evangelical Lutheran Church has a 125-foot-tall steeple that has been a prominent visual landmark in Columbus for 130 years. This cream- and red-brick church is an excellent example of the High Victorian Gothic style and is representative of the ecclesiastical work of Milwaukee architect Edward Townsend Mix. Mix was one of the most important architects practicing in Wisconsin in the last half of the 19th century. Although his best-known work is located in Milwaukee, he was also active in designing buildings in other Wisconsin cities and in other states. Both the church and the adjacent parsonage have served the Zion Evangelical Lutheran congregation continuously since they were built.
Other properties approved in January by the State Historic Preservation Review Board were Harmonia Hall, town of Waumandee, Buffalo County, and the Byron Shipwreck located in the vicinity of the village of Oostburg in Sheboygan County. All of these properties will be forwarded to the National Park Service for approval and listing in the National Register of Historic Places. You can discover other Wisconsin properties listed in the state and national registers from your community on our website, where you can also find more information about how properties are nominated to the registers.
:: Posted February 26, 2009
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