The following article was submitted by Meredith Gadzinski, the Adult Services Associate at the Manitowoc Public Library.
As some of you may know, a few of the public services staff at Manitowoc Public Library enjoy local history. We’ve helped numerous people indulge in their passion for researching local history. We love to empower people to learn how to research and use the local history and genealogy tools that MPL has at our disposal for our community.
In 2019, MPL first offered its “Historic Manito-Walk” walking tours, which highlighted some of the buildings in the 8th Street Historic District. I mean, who doesn’t love a walking tour? Maybe I’m in the minority, but usually when I am traveling, I love taking-in a walking tour or two. I may be nerdier than some, so that might influence why I think they’re fun (by the way, they ARE fun!). You meet people that you normally wouldn’t while learning fun and interesting facts about both the community you’re visiting and its history.
What buildings will we be highlighting in the tour, you might ask? Well, we are going to start with a more recent historic structure—the current Manitowoc Public Library building—before moving north on 8th Street and across the bridge to the O. Torrison Building.
From there, we’ll go a little farther down North 8th to cover the Dempsey Building. For those who don’t know which building that is, it’s the building that now houses the Flower Gallery on its main floor. It has beautiful glazed terra cotta on the outside, which make this building unique from the other ones on the tour.
After that we’ll head back to South 8th Street to share some knowledge about one of the oldest jewelry stores in the state of Wisconsin, which for many years was known as Fehrs’ Jewelry Store and then Modern by Meagan. Now, unfortunately, it stands empty.
Meredith Gadzinski
We’ll continue south to the Historic Schuette Building, now owned by Doneff Companies and then it’s onward to the Manitowoc Savings Bank, which now houses Manitowoc County Human Services. Next, we’ll share the history of the Manitowoc County Courthouse with you before starting to move north again on 8th Street to the Williams Block, also known as the Odd Fellows Building. That’s the building with the Hearty Olive in it.
Next, we’ll stroll to the second oldest building on the tour—the Henry Berner Hardware Building, where currently you’ll find Mad Hatter and the Dead by Dawn “Dead & Breakfast.” Last, but certainly not least, we move on to the oldest building in the 8th Street Historic District—now known as Stage Door Pub, but for a long time it was the residence of Fred Schultz and the Schultz Family.
In a nutshell, those are the buildings we will be covering in our in-person walking tour this summer. Registration is required and space is limited. Secure your spot by heading to the “Events” page of the MPL website (www.manitowoclibrary.org). We are offering the tour four times in the months of July and August. The first tour is on July 1 at 3 PM. If you’re off a day early for the 4th of July Holiday Weekend, take a walking tour in Thursday afternoon at 3 PM! The second tour is being offered on Saturday, July 17 at 9 AM. Registration opens July 1 for this tour. Tour Number 3 takes place on Saturday, August 14 at 9 AM. Registration opens on August 2 for this tour. The final Manito-Walk for the summer strolls-out on Saturday, August 28 at 9 AM and registration opens on August 16.. We are excited to be offering these tours in-person this summer and look forward to sharing some of our community’s story with you.
