Main Street Historic District

About this property

The Main Street Historic District in Fort Atkinson, Wisconsin, United States, was placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1984. The district is composed of 51 buildings on or within a block of Main Street. Although many of the storefronts have been remodeled over the years, the original decorative brickwork is still visible on the upper levels of most buildings. Main Street is the oldest street in Fort Atkinson. It was originally part of a military road that connected Fort Dearborn to Fort Winnebago. The first white settlers arrived in the 1830s and settled on both sides of the Rock River. Soon after, a wooden bridge was built linking North and South Main Streets. From the 1840s to the 1870s, Main Street had mostly wood-frame stores with wide shingled canopies resting on wooden posts. In the 1880s these small frame shops gave way to the buildings that exist today – two- and three-story brick buildings constructed with local cream brick, and adorned with fancy cornices and dentils. Canvas awnings replaced wooden canopies. There have been three bridges crossing the Rock River at this location. Prior to the building of the first one in 1843, people and wagons would attempt to ford the river or were ferried across. City founder Dwight Foster operated the first ferry service using rafts and dugout canoes. The first bridge was a flimsy wooden structure built by local pioneers with material that were at hand. In 1870 an iron bridge costing $9,400 replaced it. A second iron bridge was built in 1881. In 1909 this structure was widened, with an elevated bandstand in the shape of a stockade constructed in the center. The present concrete bridge was built in 1917. The Albert Winslow Grocery at 131 N Main St was built in 1857, three-story brick Italianate-styled, with fancy metal lintels over the windows. It housed a grocery store at street level and a Good Templar hall on the third floor. Winslow's brother had a doctor's office in the building and Lucien Caswell started the first bank in town on the second floor. The Reuben S. White Building at 101 S Main St was built in 1871, a two-story brick corner building with round-arched windows and a molded brick cornice. It initially sold drugs and groceries. Later shoes, variety, hats, and women's clothes. The Langholf Hotel and Saloon at 225-229 S Main St is a two-story cream brick building with a molded brick cornice, built in 1875. It also housed the Farmer's Home Hotel and served as a boardinghouse. It is Fort Atkinson's only hotel building left from the 1800s. The Hoard Block at 228 S Main was built one story tall in 1883 by John Becker and served as the Hoard printing plant until 1908. In 1914 a second story was added. It housed a hardware store from 1936 to 1980.

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Property data from the National Register of Historic Places, National Park Service (public domain).

Description adapted from Wikipedia under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

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