{"id":14,"date":"2011-10-11T21:26:32","date_gmt":"2011-10-11T21:26:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.vindustries.com\/racinehistory\/?page_id=14"},"modified":"2025-03-07T18:01:47","modified_gmt":"2025-03-07T18:01:47","slug":"home","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"http:\/\/www.vindustries.com\/racinehistory\/","title":{"rendered":"Home"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Todd<\/a>

Todd and Jason Wallace in the driveway of 1405 College<\/p><\/div>\n

I moved to Racine, Wisconsin in the summer of 1970 when I was six years old. We lived in a beautiful big white house on a brick street at 1405 College Avenue<\/a>, and I lived there until I was eighteen years old. Hardly a day goes by when I don’t think of Racine, even though I now live far away. <\/span>For some reason, Racine has a huge amount of history for such a small place, and I’ve enjoyed collecting lots of different history books, pictures, and stories. Now I’m putting as much as I can on the web in hopes of meeting other Racine historians.<\/span><\/p>\n

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Here is a nice postcard from 1914 of the lighthouse at the entrance to the harbor. I especially like how beaten up the boards are on the boardwalk level. I’m guessing that the upper walkway has cast iron frames with a wooden walkway up top. Why have two levels? Because the waves are so high at times?<\/p><\/div>\n

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A real photo postcard from E. A. Bishop of Monument Square dated 1906. I don’t remember seeing that many of these photos with the electrical wires going across, but I know there were a lot of wires for a long time. Here are the signs I can see on the stores from left to right: Clifford Dentist, something Shoe Store, 528 Page’s Cigars, Hahn’s something, Kearney and Thompson Law Offices.<\/p><\/div>\n

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Monument Square, 1952. Looking south.<\/p><\/div>\n

\"Hotel<\/a>

Hotel Racine, 1905<\/p><\/div>\n

\"Christiansen<\/a>

Christiansen family, ca. 1920, “Dalmatian dog”<\/p><\/div>\n

\"Father<\/a>

Father Matthew’s Hall, 1906. Postcard by E. A. Bishop.<\/p><\/div>\n

\"Train<\/a>

Train arrival postcard, 1907<\/p><\/div>\n

\"Fishing<\/a>

Fishing schooner in Lake Michigan, 1911<\/p><\/div>\n

\"Winslow<\/a>

Winslow School, 1910<\/p><\/div>\n

\"1920s<\/a>

1920s snow scene in Racine. The car’s hood ornament has an M on it — could that be a Mitchell Motor Car?<\/p><\/div>\n

\"Two<\/a>

Two young ladies in their buggy, Horlick Springs, Racine, Wisconsin, 1908<\/p><\/div>\n

\"Northwestern<\/a>

Northwestern Railway Station on State Street, 1913<\/p><\/div>\n

\"Swedish<\/a>

Swedish Carpenters, 15th & College, Racine, WI<\/p><\/div>\n

\"Looking<\/a>

At Racine College (Dekoven Foundation) looking west past St. John’s Chapel on your right<\/p><\/div>\n

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Beautiful picture of Sixth Street by Racine History reader @jentorres<\/p><\/div>\n

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Map of the Village of Racine, 1843, from Racine, The Belle City by Alice Sankey. Notice that “Fulton Market” appears to be where D. P. Wigley is now — seems like a good place for a big market building, doesn’t it?<\/p><\/div>\n

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Featured photo:<\/p>\n

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Leonard’s Studio advertisements and entryway<\/p><\/div>\n

Back in August of 1996 I was visiting Racine and was walking through the old downtown taking pictures. In the 300 block, I noticed a closed-up door with Leonard Studio set into the entrance way. Later on, I was looking through Ead\u2019s Illustrated History of Racine<\/em> and came across an advertisement for Leonard\u2019s Studio at the same address. Apparently it was a well-established photo studio with \u201cA Lady always in attendance\u201d to put the women of 1884 at ease. On a hunch, I looked through my 1940 Racine phonebook and found, at the same location, a Harry J Leonard doing commercial photography \u2014 specializing in work \u201cOut of Studio\u201d for legal purposes. So, over at least a 52 year span, someone in the Leonard family was taking pictures in Racine.<\/p>\n

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1974 picture taken on front porch of 1405 College Avenue. Back row: Terry Peterson (neighbor from across the street), unknown. Middle row: Chris Harris (my best elementary school friend), Jason Wallace (my brother) Front row: Wrye Martin, Todd Wallace, unknown. I think we were supposed to be pretending that we were cold.<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I moved to Racine, Wisconsin in the summer of 1970 when I was six years old. We lived in a beautiful big white house on a brick street at 1405 College Avenue, and I lived there until I was eighteen years old. Hardly a day goes by when I don’t think of Racine, even though…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-14","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.vindustries.com\/racinehistory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/14","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.vindustries.com\/racinehistory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.vindustries.com\/racinehistory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.vindustries.com\/racinehistory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.vindustries.com\/racinehistory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14"}],"version-history":[{"count":80,"href":"http:\/\/www.vindustries.com\/racinehistory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/14\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5698,"href":"http:\/\/www.vindustries.com\/racinehistory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/14\/revisions\/5698"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.vindustries.com\/racinehistory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}