The Northern Wisconsin State Fair

In 1870 the Northern Wisconsin Agricultural and Mechanical Association was formed as group interested in promoting more efficient framing techniques and practices.  The association grew rapidly and every year held a convention in various cities, such as Berlin, Appleton, Ripon and Green Bay.  The officers of the group too were from many different locations.  In September the group held a fair and exposition in Oshkosh.  It wasn't long before the fair became an important event, attracting hundreds of attendees, and needed a suitable grounds and exhibition hall. 

 In 1879 the society had a large hall built on grounds just west of Jackson Street, north of New York Avenue.  There was a race course too, on the west side of the exhibit hall.  It's unclear who drew the plans for the building but similarities to other building of the time by architect William Waters suggest it was he who penned the plans.  It was truly a grand edifice with a towering belvidere at its' center, long wings stretching to the north and south and the corners of each wing, towers with peaked roofs and windowed dormers.  The building was the largest exhibit hall in the northwest out side of Chicago.  It was however a short lived grandeur as a fire reduced the building to ash and charred limber within a year.   A replacement was soon in the works with plans drawn by Mr. Waters.  The new hall was finished in 1881 and was slightly large than its' predecessor.  Still it bore a great resemblance to the former exhibition building with imposing central cupola, outstretched wings and corner towers.  The lighting was improved with skylights and dormers along the length of the vast wings, the corner tower had peaked roofs but with no windowed dormers.  The exhibition hall served for but a few years when in 1885 three tornadoes roared through town, leaving the fairgrounds littered with roof sections and other debris and no exhibit hall. 

There was no immediate news of a replacement and was not until the summer of 1891 that word came out of plans to build anew.  Mr. Waters submitted plans but there was a challenger, a contractor named Schneider, who’s plan was less expensive.   Architect Waters redrew the hall, removing ornamentation and embellishment.  In the end Mr. Waters modified design won as the Schneider plan although attractive was thought be “not so firm.”   Later in July came the news of an intended grand stand also planned by William Waters.   It was to 183’ long and seat 1,000 people with a roof to shield the audience from the sun.  By mid-August the papers reported that the exhibition hall was to be finished in the next week and that the grand stand would be ready in time for the fair in September.  The few newspaper accounts from July and August of 1891 seem to be the only record of those structures, there are no photographs or written records to tell what they looked like or what became of them.

Neoclassical in Neenah

In the late nineteenth century many small local insurance companies were formed.  The Fox River valley had several; Aid Association for Lutherans of Appleton, Oshkosh's Wisconsin National Life Insurance and The Fraternal Reserve Association and in Neenah there was The Equitable Fraternal Union which was founded in 1897.  All these companies would eventuality build large, impressive home office buildings.  The first to do so was The Equitable Fraternal Union of Neenah.  The fast growing company quickly out grew its' original office space and in 1908 turned to William Waters to design the “Home Office”.   A lot on the corner of Commercial and Doty Streets was acquired and by September of 1909 the Oshkosh Daily Northwestern reported on the nearly completed edifice, replete with a fine engraving of the building.  

The favored style of the time for building of that nature was neoclassical.  It was a style which projected strength and longevity and the Equitable Reserve building seems to have been the bell weather for structures to follow, such as; The Northwestern Mutual Life Insurance building in Milwaukee or the Wisconsin National Life Insurance building in Oshkosh.  The Equitable Reserve building was built of limestone and was three stories high and measured 68' x 102' with the front entrance on Commercial Street.  Above the front door was a colonnade of six ionic pillars supporting the frieze and cornice.  Atop the cornice was a parapet with decorative escutcheons at the corners and a pediment at the center.  In a history of Neenah published in 1958, architect Henry Auler described the building as…”one of the few remaining buildings of classical design that is true to the Greek method of construction.  It too is an example of what is expressed in the Parthenon in Athens, Greece.”  The building remains to this day unaltered and looking as it did the day it was finished.