Wisconsin Stories

Wisconsin Stories: Passing Through

2WIS0307 Passing Through Transcript

Airdate 2002

Wisconsin Stories is a partnership of the Wisconsin Historical Society and Wisconsin Public Television.

Debbie Kmetz: In the 1870s, photographers were few and far between. People had to rely on them to pass through their communities to have their portraits taken.

Tracy Will: Andrew Dahl traveled the roads of southern Wisconsin photographing families and their possessions. He left behind this incredible collection of photographs. I’m Tracy Will.

And I’m Debbie Kmetz. Travelers of all kinds have been through our state sometimes entertaining, sometimes educating and sometimes providing a service. We’re going to take look at some of the people who journeyed through Wisconsin and some of the places that they passed through. Some travelers provided only a passing thrill while others transformed entire communities leaving a lasting impact.

So, tonight, stories about “Passing Through” on Wisconsin Stories.

Funding for Wisconsin Stories is provided in part by an advised fund of the Community Foundation of Southern Wisconsin; the Estate and family of Lois Backus; the Halbert and Alice Kadish Foundation; and Philip J. and Elizabeth B. Hendrickson encouraging you to support history on Wisconsin Public Television and to visit Wisconsin’s treasured historic sites.

Will: As the frontier days in Wisconsin began to fade a new feature began to appear on main streets throughout the state– the Opera House. In the days before movies and radio when the word “theater” was an objectionable term Opera Houses were centers of entertainment and education.

And the people that passed through them provided a vital link to the outside world. In 1878, Allanson Partridge built a large meeting hall on the second floor of his carpentry and furniture shop in Argyle. Like most opera houses Partridge Hall underwent many changes over the years becoming a silent movie house, the Star Theatre before eventually turning into the Argyle Chick Hatchery and feed store. The current owners painstakingly renovated the building which now serves as a restaurant bed and breakfast and once again, a community hall.

Will: This was built in 1878, I think we were told?

Jim Draeger: That’s right.

Is there a period where opera houses proliferate where a lot of them begin to be built around the region in the Midwest?

This is really the boom time for opera house construction in the Midwest. The railroads are extending out into small communities like Argyle. These touring shows would travel all through the United States going from small town to small town brought by the railroads.

Mary Pickford came here. At the time she came here she was one of the most famous celebrities in America. There would have been traveling acts coming through here, like the Ringling Brothers brought their dog and pony show here in the early days of the Ringling Circus. So, it brought a wide variety of people musicians, people doing ethnic comedy. All sorts of different things. So, you get minstrel shows you get lyceum speakers, individuals coming in giving lectures? Their favorite local son, Bob Lafollette spoke in this very room for two hours in 1889, as part of a Republican event.

The cost of your admission here also bought you livery service across the street for your horse, too. So, a lot of people came in from the countryside.

Will: In 1983, a group of Stoughton residents raised funds to renovate the City Hall’s second floor Opera House which had sat unused since the 1950s. The hall was once a focal point of the community providing a stage for traveling entertainers an audience for temperance speakers and a showcase for many a class play. Volunteers supplied the elbow grease to start the clean-up and raised funds for a new fire escape that allowed the hall to host events. Eventually, they secured a generous foundation grant and raised enough funds from local residents to completely re-plaster and refinish the interior.

John Vorndran was one of the leaders of the restoration effort in Stoughton that returned the opera house to its original luster including a fire curtain from 1915.

John Vorndran: The only thing that saved this place was the high school graduations and the plays they had. They had graduations up to 1938 and the plays up to 1953. So, there were a lot of people from Stoughton that had wonderful memories of this place.

Will: Oh, look at this! 1944, ’34. . .

What’s this one? ’46 junior class? Junior class of ’46. Are some of these the names of people that contributed to fix this place up? Yes, absolutely. The main reason I got into it is I want the city of Stoughton and the downtown to live, not to die like a lot of small towns. And I think this opera house will bring it alive and will bring in a lot of people. Bring the heart of Stoughton back to life. That’s right. It’s a beautiful place, beautiful.

Will: In Oshkosh, architect William Waters modeled the Grand Opera House after the opera houses of Europe. What kind of city is Oshkosh at that time? Oshkosh was the second city of Wisconsin back in 1883. It was thriving. There were eight major lumber mills here a huge lumber business. So, the local businessmen, lumber people got together and decided they wanted to embellish their cultural world here and built the Grand. It opened in 1883 with an opera called “The Bohemian Girl. ”

They had an opera in an opera house?

Oh, absolutely. The early management brought up operas that played in Milwaukee. And they played in Oshkosh, also. As those shows weren’t available we had things like Mark Twain coming along.

Mark Twain was here?

Oh, absolutely. He gave lectures here. And he was known as a humorist back in those days.

Will: Oshkosh became a destination for some of the greatest artists and entertainers of the day. Legendary actor Sarah Bernhardt and singer Enrico Caruso each played the Grand. And later, comedians like Charlie Chaplin and the Marx Brothers ushered in an active Vaudeville era that also featured Wisconsin’s own Harry Houdini. There was a circuit back in those times of grand opera houses where these traveling troops would come through and fit on these small stages. And it was a spectacle to behold.

Will: The Opera House became a movie house that featured occasional performances of local theater groups. But By the 1950s the once posh theater began to deteriorate.

And by the 1970s, the damage was almost beyond repair.

Nebel: The building was a wreck. Bricks were falling out all over. Eventually, it was slated for destruction, or demolition.

Will: In 1979, Nick Nebel and a group of concerned citizens launched a new effort in the 20-year fight to save the Grand Opera House.

Nebel: Eventually, it was put to referendum. And by an overwhelming majority of 80 percent the people of Oshkosh decided to purchase and restore this building. I think we’ve done a pretty good job of putting this back into the Victorian era. Mark twain could come walking through the door. You’d think he never left it.

In terms of performers that you bring in they’re still packing it in bringing their equipment, setting up in the dressing rooms moving through, putting on a show? Exactly like it was in 1883 only they’re coming by truck instead of horse and buggy.

Will: One of Wisconsin’s most famous athletes was a barnstorming wrestler from Nekoosa named Ed “Strangler” Lewis. In the 1920s, Lewis became an unbeatable champion and a national celebrity. On the road for over 30 years “Strangler” Lewis wrestled in over 6,000 matches. And during his long career was a key player in pro wrestling’s change from a sport to a spectacle. At the International Wrestling Institute and Museum in Newton, Iowa wrestling historian Mike Chapman has pieced together artifacts that tell the history of the sport including a special room devoted to the early days of professional wrestling. He’s reserved one corner for Ed “Strangler” Lewis including one of Lewis’ “head lock machines. ” The spring-loaded head carved from wood was a crowd-pleaser and became one of “Strangler” Lewis’ trademarks. He squeezed it to practice his signature hold a crushing and inescapable head lock that helped him wrestle his way into sports history.

According to almost everybody there’s only two people who are considered the greatest professional wrestlers of all time. Frank Gotch of Humbolt, Iowa and Ed Lewis.

Will: Lewis was born Robert Friedrich in 1890. A tremendously strong and gifted athlete he was influenced by other champion wrestlers from Wisconsin including Evan “Strangler” Lewis from Madison who was the original “Strangler” Lewis. And in one of his first professional bouts he was soundly beaten by Marshfield’s Fred Beell, a wrestling veteran who had once beaten the national champion, Frank Gotch. But it was Gotch who inspired Lewis the most in his wrestling career.

Chapman: After watching Frank Gotch draw 33,000 people in 1911 at Comisky Park for a wrestling match which at that time. . . It was an incredible event. It was the largest crowd ever to see an athletic event in America other than a horse race.

And I think Ed Lewis wanted to pattern himself after Frank Gotch saying this is what a Midwestern farm kid can do. “I’m good. ” “I can rule the roost here for 15-20 years. ” Make a lot of money, travel the world travel the United States, have a lot of fun and also become a sports icon. And that’s exactly what he became. But to get there, what’s the travel like? What’s the schedule like for a guy like that? It’s a tough life. It’s a very tough life. I saw an estimate that there were like 2,000 wrestlers in America in Ed Lewis’ day. And they were crisscrossing the nation and showing up in towns of 60, 80, 200 people. Wrestling on Saturday afternoons in impromptu matches.

A lot of them were real matches. They’d come to a local community and they’d say, “Hey, you’re pretty good? Well, the kid down the street can whip you. ” The whole town would show up to watch. Ed learned the hard knocks that way. I’m sure he won a lot more than he lost but I’m sure he lost a lot in those days, too. These guys were warriors of a bygone era. And Ed Lewis is the epitome, the personification of that kind of athlete. I mean, Ed Lewis was just a tough human being.

Will: Lewis combined his physical skills with a deep knowledge of the sport and wrote a series of books about the various holds and wrestling moves.

Chapman: A lot of the wrestlers in that era weren’t interested in pinning somebody.

They were interested in making him say, “Uncle. ” There were probably 20 or 30 joint locks that they could throw on. . . Show me one. Well, here’s one where you take the arm like that. And it always is how you go against the joint. It was a sport. At that time it’s really a sport, right? It was a 90-percent true sport. It wouldn’t be in Ed Lewis’s best interests to go out and flop the guy in a minute and a half and have the spectators go home disappointed and say, “I came to see Ed Lewis and I saw a minute and a half.” So, Ed was so good that Ed could make those kind of decisions as he got in the ring, and make a match out of it for 15 or 20 minutes. But then, he’d get you in his head lock. Sure. The head lock was one of his big moves. There are several ways to do the head lock. One’s here, and across the neck, then into the jaw. That’s called a jaw lock. Another one is the get the arm in. You see this in amateur wrestling. This is legal in amateur wrestling.

I can try to throw you with this because I’ve got the arm, and I can’t choke. In the early days of pro wrestling this is how Ed Lewis did it. ( laughs )

Will: The “Strangler” won the Heavyweight Championship Belt in 1920 and toured constantly. Once claiming there wasn’t a town of more than 5,000 population in which he hadn’t appeared. He wrestled for purses large and small and often returned to Nekoosa to visit his family and put on wrestling exhibitions.

Chapman: For a 10-year period there wasn’t a wrestler in America that could last with Ed Lewis. For a 10-year period, maybe 15, Ed Lewis ruled supreme. He hobnobbed with all the great celebrities of his day– Jack Dempsy, Babe Ruth, Douglas Fairbanks, the actor– Everybody who was anybody knew who Ed “Strangler” Lewis was. They all enjoyed being in his company because he was gregarious, outgoing, charming and fun to be with.

Will: Ironically, Lewis’ domination of the sport began to take a toll on his popularity.

With little chance of defeat, crowds began to dwindle turning instead to baseball, football and boxing for their sports entertainment. According to legend, promoters convinced Lewis to inject some excitement into the sport by losing his Championship Belt to a popular Nebraska football star named Wayne “Big” Munn, who hurled Lewis from the ring. The match marked the beginning of the end for traditional professional wrestling.

Chapman: When you look at the history of wrestling it’s really hard to understand exactly how it changed from a true athletic contest into more of a theatrical event. So, with “Strangler” you’re beginning to get a change. I think you can make the case that Ed “Strangler” Lewis is the pivotal character in the history of wrestling’s transition. He helped introduce the showmanship into wrestling and with no regrets, I would say.

Kmetz: In 1898, Congress authorized the printing of postcards by private businesses, which started a postcard craze. Collecting picture postcards became a popular hobby. And photographers fanned out across the country taking shots for the big postcard companies.

But at the same time, two local postcard photographers L. L. Cook and Sherwin Gillette roamed the Wisconsin countryside and left behind a photographic record of the state. I talked with photo archivist Andy Kraushaar about what made their postcards special.

Well, these are what postcard collectors now refer to as “real postcards. ” They’re actually printed on silver gelatin onto real photographic paper, rather than offset. So, each one of these postcards even if you’d have multiple copies of it each one would be individually printed? That’s right. Individually printed and then sold to the customer.

Sherwin Gillette and L. L. Cook both would concentrate on the main street view. They would come into town and plunk their camera down right in the middle of the street and at least take that shot. Who was L. L. Cook? L. L. Cook was a commercial photographer from Lake Mills. And the photographic work concentrates both on main street views but also Northwoods resorts which is really kind of a lot of fun in the images that we have here.

These are some nice interiors. They’re very clean. They are very clean. Both of these photographers used professional equipment so they were using 4×5 cameras or 5×7 cameras which give these photographs this wonderful clarity. And you can see most of these are taken with daylight, natural light which gives them this sort of ambience.

Yeah, it’s a very, very nice feel. Let’s talk about Sherwin Gillette because he’s in a different part of the state. And where did he go? Well, Sherwin really concentrated very heavily on the southwestern part of the state. What’s so valuable about it is that he really documented every little town in that part of the state from 1905 to 1935.

And I did prepare this map, here that shows how extensively Gillette covered the southwestern part of the state. You can see here that he’s really hit every small town. Lots and lots of places. Lots of little towns.

There are some fascinating views. These are just wonderful. Look at this one. Oftentimes, when he would come into town he would try and get a good overview of the entire town. And that’s what this is. It’s a bird’s-eye view of the town. Here’s a main street in Glen Haven. It’s two different years, maybe 15 years apart. And look at the difference.

What I’m struck by is the automobile in this lower photograph and the horse-driven wagon in the top. You’ve got a water pump there next to the sidewalk and just a line of buildings. But later, you’ve got a gas pump not too far from the water pump. And now there are cars. But a wonderful record of change in Glen Haven. Still a dirt road but now the tree has grown another ten feet, perhaps. Tell me about this one. This is a swimming pool the municipal swimming pool in Richland Center. That’s a great one. This was an artificial pool, but just alive with life, here.
You can even see somebody coming right off the slide. Here’s an interesting one. Would you say that that looks casual? It’s a little bit disheveled. It’s hard to tell. It does look like it’s an active Post Office based on the sign. Lots of posters on the wall of the building or on the wall of the addition. Bloomington Fair and a State Fair. What year is that? I can barely see a date. I think it says 1908. Now, here’s one.

“Lovers Lane. ” What about this? Well, this seemed to be a popular subject in this time period. Sherwin Gillette documented “Lovers Lane” in practically every town that he went in. So, I’m not sure how many of these the townspeople thought of as “Lovers Lane” or whether Gillette gave them those names. I like this one, too. I like it because it shows a time when farmers were bringing their own milk to the creameries. And creameries, literally, were located at crossroads there were so many of them in Wisconsin because they were serving a small area. And a well-used and popular creamery as evidenced by these tracks in the mud. Yeah. Andy, when I look at this now I can’t help but turn it over and see that it was a postcard.

It seems like something that would’ve gotten thrown away. Has the attitude about this image changed?

Oh, I think absolutely. The way in which we use these now they really are historical records. They go far beyond their original intent. I mean, now we look back at these photographs sometimes it’s the only documentation we have of these small towns. These offer a lot of internal evidence about what life was like at that time. And they give us a glimpse into the past.

Kmetz: The town of New Diggings in southwestern Wisconsin was once a thriving lead mining boom town. On a hill on the edge of town stands St. Augustine’s Church unchanged since it was built to serve the lead miners and their families.

Mary Montgomery: This church was built in 1844 by Father Samuel Charles Mazzuchelli. He was an Italian missionary, who, from 1830 has worked in the Wisconsin and tri-state area building churches and forming parish communities. So, this is the one remaining church of his that has not been altered in any way. It is as it was used by the people.

Kmetz: The legacy of Father Samuel Mazzuchelli’s work as a church-builder, school-builder and community organizer lives on to this day. Father Mazzuchelli was born in Milan Italy within a few blocks of the impressive Milan Cathedral. As a young man, he gave up the chance to go into business with his wealthy father choosing instead to become a Dominican priest. While studying in Rome Mazzuchelli was recruited to travel to America and become a missionary priest. Bidding farewell to his family and friends he embarked on the 45-day journey and finished his studies in a log cabin in Ohio. In 1830, Mazzuchelli was sent to a mission on Mackinac Island.

His territory, which included what is now Wisconsin covered some 52,000 square miles. He traveled regularly to Green Bay and the surrounding area ministering to the Ho-Chunk and Menominee Indians. Mazzuchelli created a prayer book in the Ho-Chunk language and later, an Almanac in the Ojibwe language– the first book printed in Wisconsin. In 1835, Mazzuchelli passed through the hills of what is now southwestern Wisconsin where a great lead mining rush was on. He made his way through the hard-drinking frontier baptizing and hearing confessions.

Eventually, he received permission to minister to Galena, Dubuque and the surrounding area. So, he would go from area to area? Tell me how he would form people into a parish? He would start with a Catholic family. And word would get around that there would be Mass in that house in that family’s house. And so, other Catholic families would come. And that would go on for a while. And then he would, if possible and if it seemed like a good thing to do he’d start talking to them about building a church.

Kmetz: Father Mazzuchelli took no salary eating at one house and sleeping in another. He organized over 40 parishes and began a long period of church building. How many churches was he responsible for their construction? I believe there are about 24 churches that he built. He either built them with the people or he had them pre-fabricated. Some were shipped from Prairie du Chien and some were shipped from Cincinnati down the river.

Kmetz: During construction Mazzuchelli served as fund-raiser and money collector receiving donations from Catholics as well as non-Catholics who wanted to build up their frontier communities. He also served as architect general contractor and stone mason. And the interesting thing is he never had an architectural class. Never? Never.

We have a list of all the classes he’s taken and not one of them had to do with it. But you know, he lived in Milan. And he saw beautiful beautiful things. He always wanted them to have a beautiful church.

Kmetz: Father Mazzuchelli traveled constantly through the roadless lead region– Gratiot’s Grove, Shullsburg, New Diggings Snake Diggings, Hardscrabble and Mineral Point– Organizing parishes, giving sermons and gaining signatures on pledges of abstinence from alcohol. He carried with him a portable desk so that he could write while on the road.

Montgomery: He had a horse named Napoleon a big white horse. And then, he bought a buggy and a horse. So, they said on the way to New Diggings– There’s a hill not too far out of town that the people who had gathered here could see him coming and would get in church and be ready for when he got here.

Kmetz: Because of his relentless energy some friends took to calling him “The little steam engine priest” while others in his mostly Irish congregations referred to him affectionately as “Matthew Kelly.”

In 1844, Mazzuchelli convinced George Wallace Jones Wisconsin Territory’s Representative to Congress to sell a mound of land the Indians had called “Sinsinawa” or “Home of the young eagle. ” There, Mazzuchelli established a Dominican community including a new order of Dominican Sisters. He then turned his attention to education and built a college for local men. In 1852, a time when most women received little education Mazzuchelli and the Sisters from Sinsinawa moved to the nearby town of Benton and established a school for girls. Who were the young women who came here?

Montgomery: Oh, they were daughters of lead miners. They were daughters of the merchants and the families here from town and from the countryside. So, they would come from all over. One of the outstanding things about the academy was the science equipment that he brought from New York out of a catalog and put here, electromagnetic experimental machines that, even the University of Wisconsin admits at that time they did not have the quality of science equipment that Mazzuchelli provided. He expected them to be teachers eventually. That was his goal for them.

Kmetz: Father Mazzuchelli died in 1864 contracting pneumonia while on the road visiting an ailing parishioner. He is buried in the cemetery behind the church in Benton. Eventually, the Sisters at Benton moved back to Sinsinawa Mound where they established a high school for local girls. And in 1881, the Sisters received 55 acres of land in Madison where they founded Edgewood College.

Montgomery: This is where Edgewood College Sisters got their training. Governor Washburn became acquainted with us and gave us the 55 acres for the college.

Kmetz: So, Father Mazzuchelli’s vision of educating of educating people, really lives on. Continually, continually.

Funding for Wisconsin Stories is provided in part by an advised fund of the Community Foundation of Southern Wisconsin; the Estate and family of Lois Backus; the Halbert and Alice Kadish Foundation; and Philip J. and Elizabeth B. Hendrickson encouraging you to support history on Wisconsin Public Television and to visit Wisconsin’s treasured historic sites.