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Elkhart Lake Wisconsin

Boise Delivers in Elkhart Lake?

The population of Elkhart Lake is approximately 1019. The approximate number of families is 513. The amount of land area in Elkhart Lake is 2.95 sq. kilometers.

Located in the heart of scenic Kettle Moraine, the Elkhart Lake area is recognized as a bountiful natural resource. As with many towns, our rich history started with the introduction of railroad transportation. Originally, Elkhart lake catered to the Chicago trade arriving by train in neighboring Plymouth. Providing wealthy city folks with a summer in the country, the village quickly grew to be the home of seven lake resorts.

In contrast to these quiet times, the Roaring 20's brought gambling, gangsters and prohibition liquor. The notorious Dillinger and others found the village to be an inconspicuous getaway.

Courtesy of the County Sheriff, these wild times soon ended and the community turned its attention to the singles set of the 1950s. A major attraction for the village visitor was the introduction of road racing in 1955. The opening of the Road America Race Track added another facet to our already rich recreational gem. The following decades brought a return to family vacations.

Port Washington Wisconsin

What more do you need besides a power plant and a brewery?

Port Washington (circa 1910) is located on the west shore of Lake Michigan, 25 miles north of Milwaukee, and 110 miles north of Chicago. The population is 5000.

Port Washington had twenty factories, including a large chair factory, three foundries, two gasoline engine works, plow works, table factory, flour mill, three first class hotels, numerous hotels and boarding houses, two public parks, several private parks, including Columbia Park, a favorite resort, one bank, two brick yards, five churches, excellent public and parochial schools, a brewery, malt house, five newspapers, -- and a few saloons.

The Chicago & Northwestern Railway passes through Port Washington, and the Milwaukee & Northern Railway, an electric interurban line, connects with the metropolis of the state and Sheboygan and Fond du Lac. The latter company has the largest power house operated with gas producer engines in the United States, located at Port Washington.

First you make the beer..... Brewing in Port Washington

Given the fact that written and spoken German was even more common then English in Port Washington it should come as no surprise to learn that the brewing industry made an early appearance in the village. The first beer brewed in the city was a homespun operation done by an old Englishman named J. Arnet who built a log cabin in the village and brewed the city's first beer in iron kettles outside.(8) The first commercially made beer, however, was produced by a brewer named Wittman, who built his brewery on N. Harrison St. some time between 1850 and 1883. This nearly square plan building (539 N. Harrison St.) is still extant and it is two-stories in height and has cream brick walls that are founded on a stone basement story. Wittman built this building next to the Front Gable form cream brick building (551 N. Wisconsin St.) that he built about the same time as a saloon with family living quarters above. Wittman's brewery stayed in operation until at least the early 1880s, but Sanborn-Perris maps show that this usage was discontinued by the turn-of-the-century and the brewery building was eventually converted into apartments.

Other related enterprises also existed by the beginning of the 1880s. ·-- The brewing interests [in Port Washington] are taken care of by Mrs. Wittman and [by] Messrs. Dix and Kemp and the Port Washington Malt Company. The last named company have erected a new malt-house [non-extant] near the depot, 100x120 feet, two stories high. The building is built of brick manufactures in the village, and was completed October 1, 1881, at a cost of $16,000.

The Port Washington Malt Co. was an impressive enterprise for a village of Port Washington's size, but it has now been completely demolished. An even larger enterprise was the brewery built at the foot of the north bluff fronting Lake Michigan on what is today the west side of the 400 block of N. Lake St. Today, only a single greatly altered building from this brewery still exists and it is now used as the American Legion Memorial Post No. 82's meeting hall (435 N. Lake St.). The exact date when this brewery was begun has not yet been identified but by 1883 it was known as the Lakeside Brewery and was owned by G. Biedermann, proprietors. Biedermann still controlled it as late as 1900, but in 1903, the company changed hands and was renamed the Port Washington Brewing Co., makers of Premo beer, sold under the slogan "the beer that made Milwaukee furious." The new proprietors of the firm, Louis and C. F. Labahn and George Blessing, rebuilt and enlarged the brewery in 1909. The firm managed to survive Prohibition and was again producing beer in 1935 and was known as The Old Port Brewing Corporation. Since then, however, all but one of its buildings have been demolished and this sole survivor has now been greatly altered.

Then you make the Power....

This massive power plant building dominates the view to the south of the downtown and has been one of the landmarks of Port Washington since it was built. Now a part of the Wisconsin Electric Co., the plant was begun in 1930 and the first portion, having a steel frame and clad in brown brick, was opened in 1935. This portion is a fine example of the kind of the "stripped classical" type of Neoclassical design seen also on the Port Washington Post Office. Subsequent additions were built in 1943 and 1948-1950. These additions were designed to match the original portion and they combined to create what is now by far Port Washington's largest historic building. This building is still very much in use and is largely intact today, although the four tall smoke stacks that were originally associated with it have since been replaced by two even larger ones. Besides its architectural distinction, the power plant is also of even greater significance because of its importance to the history of engineering. For many years after it was first opened, the Port Washington plant was "the most thermally efficient plant in the world" thanks to the pioneering work done by its designers on the use of pulverized coal as fuel. In recognition of this status, the plant was designated a National Historic Mechanical Engineering Landmark in 1980 by the American Society of Mechanical Engineers.

Fond du Lac Wisconsin

The French traders who first visited this region referred to it as the fond, or farther end, of Lake Winnebago -- hence the name Fond du Lac. Before improved transportation enabled industry to replace the declining local lumbering and milling enterprises, the economic stability of the young town was precarious. Today, mansions of industrial barons line Division Street; Fond du Lac offers a diversity of industry and business, including the headquarters for one of the largest tool manufacturers in North America and world headquarters for Mercury Marine. Self-guided 'talking house' tours of historic homes are available as well as detailed maps of rural Fond du Lac County.

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