Preservation Racine: The 2026 Tour of Historic Places

All right, we're going to talk about Preservation Racine right now.

We've got two people in here who know everything about it, right?

Yes.

Okay.

You'll get a little closer, Beth.

Okay.

Beth, wrestlers here, and it's not spelled anything like you think.

Beth, wrestlers here, it's got Leonard from Preservation Racine.

You've got it at the end of September every year, the tour of homes.

Now, before we begin, I always wondered, how do these people let you into their homes to let people schlep through there all day long?

And with their dirty feet and sometimes you got to put little booties on.

I know that.

But sometimes you don't.

They don't require it sometimes.

And plus they let people walk through their bedrooms and everything.

And I don't know.

It seems kind of creepy to me.

But every year people do it.

And I'm glad they do because some of these homes are just gorgeous and we get to go through them.

So how do you convince these people to let people slept through their homes?

Well, some of them need some convincing.

That's when we call out a guy named Rocco.

Rocco,

we need some convincing here.

You want to talk to those people on Main Street?

But I think, to a big degree, it's people who have lived around Racine for a while and have been on the tour themselves or their neighbors have been on the tour.

So they sort of already know what it's like.

I remember I was on the tour and I went to the home on Main Street that was built by Frank Lloyd Wright, his designed home.

Hardy House.

Yeah.

I'm surprised, you know, I'm at six foot three and I'm surprised how low the ceiling

is.

And I have to do it in my basement, too.

My house is about 110 years old.

And I don't know, people are shorter back then or what, but I'm always looking.

That's when I hit my head on the ceiling.

But in that house, too, I had to be careful.

Beautiful house is just things are low in that house.

So how do you pick out a house to get on the tour of homes?

Well,

I think in years past they tried to go for a theme and we picked a theme this year which is honoring service and home front heritage because we thought that fit in very well with the 250th anniversary of the United States.

So we have some military in there, some not military.

It's a loose theme.

But I'll tell you 90% of the time it has to do with

who's actually interested in having their home on the tour and who we can get.

We try to get a little geographic spread around town.

We try to wear a possible pair, houses geographically.

It's in walking distance, yeah.

Some of the homes are in walking distance.

Some of them, yeah.

Yeah.

Some you have to get.

I went to a firehouse once on the tour of homes, and you had to get into your car for that one.

But some of them were walking distance.

You just walk a few blocks, you were on the next one, get online, and

Yeah.

And go through the house and it really is good.

We love waiting for the tour of homes every year.

And it's Sunday, September 27th from noon to 5.30 p.m.

Rain or shine doesn't matter.

That's right.

But you do have booties.

You put on people's shoes so they don't...

At the homeowner's request.

Yeah, and it

should be because you're going through somebody's home and when the tour is over, you don't want to say, look what they did to my house.

And especially if it's raining.

Oh, yeah.

They don't want any mud being drawn.

brought in.

So before we go to this year's tour of homes, who picked out the homes?

Who did you have a whole committee on planning?

A few of us get together this year, particularly because of what we decided to do.

And we have Memorial Hall on the agenda.

But at the same time, Memorial Hall also turned 100 years old this year.

And Trinity Church also

turned 100 years last year.

So those two items became top priority for us.

And then going along with the theme we also had, and we had the camp at Lee sign that we dedicated this year.

We also got the VFW slash Foxhole lounge on the tour.

And that's the history of our soldiers and our sailors.

Yeah,

we

also turned 100 years old this year.

WRJM.

WRJM, yes.

And the first broadcast was December 6th Memorial Hall.

They just opened up and we had an orchestra on stage and we broadcast the orchestra.

See?

First

thing, see everything kind

of goes together.

We're gonna have an exhibit and we're putting it together now at the Racine Heritage Museum.

Working with Chris Paulson and his crew down there and we're gonna have a nice exhibit set up and this should be fun.

They're gonna keep it up for a couple of years and you get to see the history of WRJM.

Right.

Yeah, 100

years old.

I think about what an exciting time that must have been to grow up with no form of broadcasting in your life and then suddenly radio is everywhere.

Well, the

thing was when it first got started, nobody had radios.

Yeah.

You're broadcasting to a bunch of people that maybe had a radio.

Yeah.

But it's not like today where everybody's getting listened to anything anywhere anytime.

Yeah.

Let's talk about some of the homes on here.

I'll tell you what, we're going to take a quick break.

Then we'll do the, I don't want to interrupt you during this.

But there were one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, seven homes.

And you look nice on here.

By the way, the Camp Utley thing we mentioned, I was there when you dedicated the little triangle there, the Camp Utley.

And then I went to the cemetery to find Colonel Utley.

Is it Colonel?

Colonel.

Colonel Utley.

We had mound cemeteries.

It was a mound.

Yeah.

Very difficult to find because it's not straight lines going all around.

We found a map, the officers club, they leave maps outside.

still couldn't find it because the signs around there, what lot and numbers, it was very difficult.

So after an hour, we gave up, we get in our car, and then my wife says, look over there.

And there it was, right?

We parked

right in

front of it, but we didn't see it because we weren't looking for it.

It

was a

big, tall, Utley Memorial, and we found Colonel Utley right there.

And it was interesting after we heard the story you guys presented at the plaque site, then they actually go there.

and stand in front of the man who was responsible for all that, Camp Utley, Civil War.

I still wonder if there are Civil War shells, you know, the balls they used to fire at.

I wonder if they're still there in the lake.

They've got to be.

They've got to be.

Yeah.

They're probably under so much silt and dirt you can't find them,

but... Also, there were two artillery ranges in different parts of town where they did their training, and there must be some underground in those places.

There's got to be somewhere, but how do you align them?

Yeah,

you can't be digging up people.

Come over to the shovel.

We're looking for cannonballs.

We're talking to my preservation.

We're seeing this morning.

Beth Restler is here and Scott Leonard from preservation.

We're seeing.

Let's talk about the tour of homes and what we have on the tour this year.

You bought me a nice poster.

Very nice.

Who did this?

Who did the sketch renderings?

Don Rickio does those sketches.

Whoa.

Yeah.

They're very detailed.

Yes.

Excellent job.

Yeah.

Okay.

First one is the Trinity Lutheran Church on Geneva Street.

Why that place?

Well, as Beth said earlier, they had their centennial recently and they still had a committee together to that was interested in the history of the building and we thought it was a good opportunity.

I don't think we've ever been there before

in

50 years.

And they came to us.

Yeah.

Okay.

That's nice.

That's nice.

You don't have to argue with them then.

You

can

sign them up.

Next one is the Taylor McClurg House and Veteran Center.

That's on Main Street.

I know where that is.

Yes.

Right across from the convenience store.

The Odd Fellows, yes.

Yeah, Odd Fellows, yeah.

That's right there.

And I've been there before.

They actually have like a, not a restaurant, but they, they have like a... Oh, it is a restaurant.

It is a restaurant.

Yeah.

The Fox Hole.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I've seen that, yeah.

The Good Fish Fry.

Yeah, we've been there before.

Margaret and William Walker House at 406 16th Street.

I think I

passed that.

It's the corner of college.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Well, I go to work in the morning.

I pass there.

I go down 16th sometimes and I'll pass it.

That one that one is in its second location.

It was moved 40 years ago this year.

Move the house?

The house partly with preservation resins involved back then.

How do you do that?

Jack it up and put it on a big

trailer.

Whoa.

Yep.

That's got to be a lot of work.

Okay.

The is it the cozy and Henry C. Miller house?

Yes.

1110 Main Street.

I think I passed that all the time.

They got a lot of mansions there in that section of Main Street.

Yes.

Did you see that new house?

It was built on a very skinny lot.

It's on the corner of, um, I want to say 14th Street.

14th and Main.

Yeah.

14th.

And I said, how are they going to build that?

How the thing is all skinny.

I can lay down and I'm bigger than the lot.

They built a really nice house on that a lot.

I saw them do it every day because I pass it twice a day.

That turned out really how they built that thing on that skinny little lot with a garage and they just built it up.

Yeah, that's right.

It's kind of tall.

Yeah.

Wow.

Yeah.

That was very nice the way they did that.

And someday, Andre, you and I won't be here, but we'll be on the tour of homes.

Somebody made sure.

Yes.

Yeah.

Wow.

That is.

I'd like to go in there and see what it looks like from the windows, but they're always doing the yard work out front, getting it all gussied up.

And yeah.

Wow.

That was really nice.

I don't know how they did that.

So anyway, we've got the Cozy and Henry C. Miller House at 1110 Main Street and a lot of mansions there.

How about the May and George?

Is it Arbridge House on Park Avenue?

Yes, that's also a new one for us this year.

They recently turned 100 as well.

And there's a young couple living in there.

He's a contractor and he's been doing a lot of the work himself and is very proud of

it.

Very good.

You know my house is about I told you about 110 maybe 112 years old we went to the Yeah, we went the place we get away with the white gloves to go through all the documents that we went through there and we found an old phone book or to actually list the occupation of the person Which the way did back then and our house was built a guy lived on Chatham Street He was a Lake, Michigan sea captain built the home It wasn't called Racine at the time though wasn't seen it wasn't that far up

up on Main Street on North Main and he built a home and no garage because I'm sure he didn't have a car back then.

But we had to get a wall torn down a couple of years ago in the living room because it was buckling him.

He took it down.

It was the old wall with the plaster and the slats.

So I said, I wonder if he hid any treasure.

There's only permission to see captain.

Who knows?

Maybe he had gold balloons in the wall.

You take a look.

Never know.

So as soon as the guy took the wall down,

And before he took the slide, he didn't remove the slats, but I took a flashlight.

I had nothing in there.

I

thought maybe a treasure map.

So here's what I want to do.

I want to make a fake treasure map.

Put it in there with a skeleton from the party store.

Put it

in

there.

60, 70 years from now, somebody will tear this wall down and they'll find the skeleton and I'll put the map in his hand.

That goes nowhere.

I don't know.

It's I won't be around, but at least I'll, you know.

When I die, sometimes I have a good laugh knowing that somebody's coming up.

That's right.

Think of it like planting a tree.

If you plant the tree, you're not going to be around long enough to enjoy it.

You won't be around long enough to enjoy that joke, but it'll be a good one.

Yeah, I'll get a good

laugh.

Somebody will get a good laugh someday when they see it.

I'm going to put it in his hand, and the guy who put the word saying, you have to win that.

Not like you put a skeleton in the wall with a fake treasure.

But, you know, who knows what's in the house and the walls?

I mean, Lake Michigan City happened

to be.

Oh,

yeah.

Maybe it is treasure in the walls.

I don't know.

You never know.

All right.

We also have on the list here Memorial Hall.

You said that turns a hundred.

And that's a beautiful, beautiful hall.

We put on some concerts there before.

And it's just a beautiful place.

So has the balcony seating and so forth.

And if you look around the ceiling, you could see all the the military markers on there and.

It's very nice, very nice place.

That's still used in this day.

People use it for weddings and graduation.

They do everything in that place.

They do.

And that, I told you, that was the very first broadcast WRJ never did, Memorial Hall, December

6th,

1926.

I'll add that to our script.

Yeah.

Okay, we got the Camp Utley marker.

That's at 1805 Wisconsin Avenue.

I was there for the dedication of that.

That was very nice.

And I learned a lot.

I learned that they were shooting cannonballs out there for the Civil War, but it was a practice area for the Civil War, and it went back quite a ways.

It's bigger than I thought.

I can't picture an acre in my head.

So we actually checked out the actual streets.

We had to go down, and it's a huge area.

It was 75 acres,

and

it's hard to picture an acre when there's houses sitting on it.

It's hard to picture

75 acres, period, in my head.

I know I live on a quarter or a half acre.

And so I'm trying to multiply 150 times that I can't do it.

So we actually took a ride, my wife and I, around the entire perimeter and it's big.

And people live there, that's where they got ready for the Civil War.

Yeah, they had tents at first and then wooden barracks.

Now, even when they got done with getting trained for the Civil War, that was a long haul to get to where the fighting was in the Civil War.

It took you days to get there.

because it wasn't fought over in Illinois.

I don't think it was.

No.

And then you've got the Jim Bissier exhibit of hair clippers, manufacturing, and we're seeing Jim Bissier comes in here all the time.

Yeah, we need to mention Jim.

Yeah,

he

does a great job.

He's got that place on the old, what's the name of the old factory building?

Oh, on 16th Street?

Yeah, that's what I'm gonna

ask.

What's the name of that place?

I don't know,

yeah.

I can never, it's got, it's painted on the side of the building.

Call it the 16th Street.

Now it's an art place where artists are there.

You should have a restaurant that we used to go to.

Jim also is supplying some artifacts to two of the houses that have to do with the industries that the families were involved in.

So the house at 1110 Main was built by the Millers who had the shoe factory downtown.

So he

has some shoes that they

made.

He mentioned that.

That went out early.

They didn't last very long.

I saw something online.

He has a Facebook page and they mentioned that and it didn't last long at all.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And then the one on 16th in college was, they started with building wagons here in Racine.

And so he has a wagon spring.

Talking to Scott Leonard and also Beth Restler there from Preservation Racine.

We talked about the big historic tour of homes coming up on Sunday.

September 27th from noon to 5.30 p.m.

Do you need tickets for that or anything or just show up?

Yes, we have all kinds of ticket outlets, the milligers, the on-h's.

You can buy them in advance and they're reduced price.

They're $15 in advance.

If you buy them the day of, they're 20.

And you get to see all these wonderful buildings.

What if we say we know you too?

We don't have any, Paul.

The keyword is Beth and Scott.

Oh, that is double.

Yeah, then we'll charge you double.

Let's talk

about the history of Preservation Racine.

How did it get started?

Who started it?

And why did you start it?

Well, it's 50 years since Preservation Racine has operated under that name.

It grew out of a committee of an organization called Racine Aesthetics Incorporated, which in turn had grown out of a project of the Racine Junior League in the early 1970s.

It was a time

There's always been buildings being torn down in Racine in all decades, but it seemed to accelerate really in the 60s and 70s, especially downtown and going down Main Street.

And some very key buildings were lost at that time.

And so forming Racine Aesthetics Incorporated and forming Preservation Racine was a reaction to that and a way to educate people about what was happening.

At the same time,

our own Blake House, which Preservation had seen his own for 20 years at 936, Maine, Italian 8, a building with a central tower, very noticeable.

It also was under threat of being demolished.

And that spurred a lot of people into action as well.

I've

been there.

How did you stop people from demolishing a building?

And I'll give you a quick story.

In Manhattan, the Rivoli Theater, which had been up there since the late 1800s, early 1900s, it's one of the old movie palaces.

The Rivoli Theatre where they had the world premiere of Hello, Dolly Lawrence of Arabia the sound of music West Side Story had all their world premieres there with the stars and everything and if you looked at the the Rivoli Theatre they had big columns going up like the Roman columns and a court order was about to go through to declare it a landmark except the demolition team came in one o'clock in the morning and knocked down the columns before the

court had a chance at that eight o'clock that morning to determine if it was going to be a landmark.

They knocked it down.

They snuck in in the middle of the night at the Manhattan and knocked, but just knocked down two columns and that was enough.

And now they tore the whole building down.

Now it's nothing, just an office building.

But that's how sneaky people are about getting these buildings demolished.

We did.

The group was working on trying to save the Capitol Theater here in Racine on Washington Avenue.

To no avail

that became the park and then it became it was that the one getting there became

a

lot East school.

Yeah,

and now it's I think they don't have a roof anymore.

It's gone.

They knocked it down.

Oh, wow.

Yeah, they did they determined that the roof was not Feasible to save

yeah,

and the rain was coming in but we had an assessor come in and look at it as well and

They said it was fine.

And they ever hear of umbrellas?

I mean, we can... Is this a new invention?

It

makes

the seat cushion squishy, though.

Yeah, it feels good in

the summer when it's nice and hot.

And I understand not every building can be preserved.

You have this building new.

I understand that.

But how do you stop a guy who bought the building, and he has the right to demolish it if he bought it, I guess, unless it's declared a landmark?

It depends on which kind of

landmark.

Okay, so what does that mean?

So everybody is probably familiar with the National Register of Historic Places.

And there are a number of districts in Racine that have that designation and individual buildings that doesn't put any onus on a property owner who wants to change the building or to tear it down.

It makes you eligible for certain types of tax credits if you want to improve the building.

It protects you from certain types of federal investment.

If federal money is being used to tear down your building, there's a public hearing process for that.

But if I live in a historic house in Racine that's on the national register, I can tear down my building if I want.

I just need the demolition permit.

Local landmarks are the ones that have a level of protection where if I live in a locally designated landmark, I have to go before the Planning Heritage and Design Commission and make my case for why I think I need to tear that building down and then they can approve it or reject it.

The problem in Racine is that there aren't very many of those right now.

And I do understand sometimes

You know, you have to tear.

Like you said, the Capitol Theater was couldn't be repaired.

Yeah, it just had to be demolished.

Now, is it Park that's got all the cobblestone?

Which streets got all the cobblestone college college?

Is that written into some rule?

That's got to be a pain to snow plow without ripping up those bricks when the plows come through.

Because I didn't know somebody.

My my wife's cousin lived on college.

And it's nice, really.

little rocky to drive on sometimes.

But when it snowed, I know how they plowed it without ripping up the bricks because, you know, the plow drives just grab stuff as it goes by.

Yeah, I walk that street a lot in the winter and and I haven't seen any particular

problem.

Yeah, I just don't know how they do it without ripping up the bricks.

Yeah.

But is that written into something that can never be paved over?

Is that I don't believe that's the case.

It

Is that an historic district?

It's in the Southside Historic District, which is part of the National Register System.

And the Brick Streets and College Avenue are named as a structure, so to speak, in that district.

But it's not a locally protected landmark.

I think anytime there's a change that's proposed to that, like when they were rebuilding the intersections a few years ago,

There was enough local support to keep it the way it was to communicate to the alders and to the mayor to keep that design in place.

And so it was.

But that was more of a lobbying type of effort and not a legal protection.

It looks nice when you're traveling on it.

It's a little bumpy.

But the street looks very nice.

A lot of historic homes there and just to drive through it.

Especially in the summertime you get the trees going over it.

It looks really nice.

And again, my wife's cousin lived there for many, many years.

And I'm sure it's a nice visiting and stuff on

college.

There would

have been lots of streets like that and we're seeing it one time and that's the last one.

Yeah, you gotta hang again.

You gotta change with the time sometimes.

You can't save everything.

We'll be living in a

dilapidated.

We'll be living in, like, Dodge City in the western days, if you want to save everything.

And nice to look at, but not practical to live in Dodge City, Kansas, the way it was.

Although they did preserve a lot of Dodge City, Kansas, because that's their tourism.

But in a way, individual homeowners make the same decisions as communities do.

If you're a homeowner who has a very old house, you make some compromises as to what

what should be kept and what improvements

you need to make.

The Racine Concert Band, Del Ige put out a book once, and it was about the history of the band.

And there's all pictures of them marching.

And on one of the pages, I see my house, 1962.

Some guys sitting on my porch.

And I said, who's that guy?

1962.

And Del printed a black and white picture in the book, but he had the color photo and he gave it to

me.

And there's some guys sitting on my porch watching the parade go by.

And it doesn't look too far from... I mean, we had the porch redone a couple of them because the wood rots and everything.

But it looks pretty much the same as it did back in 1962.

I don't know what it looked back in 1914, but I don't have a picture of it back then, but I'm sure it didn't look that different than it

does today.

The greatest gift to an owner of an old house is to come across a truly old photo of it.

Or gold doubloons hidden in the wall.

Well, maybe, but I live in an old house myself and finding a photo like that is like gold because then you can see what it really looked like.

Yeah, that's the earliest one we've seen in 1962.

Doesn't look like money mowed the lawn.

He edged it and looked pretty nice.

Well, the tour of historic homes is coming to tour of historic places, you call

it.

It's not everything's a home.

That's

right.

Tour of

historic places coming up from we're seeing the preservation.

We're seeing Sunday, September 27th from noon to 5 30 p.m.

Get your tickets and again, you can get them where?

All kinds of different ticket outlets in advance.

We will also have a ticket outlet at Memorial Hall the day of.

Is

there a place online?

Yes.

You can

go and look at all these places.

So

the website is PreservationRecine.org.

One of the hats I wear is Webmaster.

And I try to keep it up to date.

But if you go to PreservationRecine.org, click on Events.

You'll see the event for September 27th.

It will tell you which are the businesses that are selling tickets for us.

And it will also tell you how to buy a will call ticket online.

And

just so you know, there's no money in this.

The profit margin is nothing when you do this.

So you do that love of what you want to do and preserve and bless you people for doing this kind of stuff because it takes a lot of work.

And there's really the only reward is you get to see the homes.

That's right.

We have a we have a very good group of volunteers that will stand and tell you the history of each section of the area.

Our docents are wonderful.

Are you impressed?

I

knew that word.

Yes.

They stand up every single, they come up every single year for us and they're truly, truly rewarding people just to be there for us.

Well, and you can see everything where the homes are this year again, September 27th.

It's coming up, what is today?

September 20th.

It's Tuesday.

22th, all right,

it's coming up.

Just as a side, Bill May, who was Colonel Utley at our signing board.

Yeah, yeah.

ceremony is also the curator of the VFW Foxhole Lounge.

And he will be on site that day telling you all about that.

I pass it every day on the way home.

I pass it every day on the way to work as a place.

The real interesting when you had the Colonel Utley, the monument, they monument, the marker dedicated.

They were women dressed in the original Civil War-type dresses.

Yes.

And it kind of ruined it when one pulled out a cell phone.

Well, yes.

We were very lucky to get involved with the Sons of Union veterans of the Civil War from Milwaukee to come down in costume that day and participate.

It looked so realistic till the cell phone came out,

as

you thought.

Kind of ruined the whole thing.

Well, thank you guys for coming in.

I do appreciate it.

Beth Restler and Scott Leonard, you guys are welcome here anytime.

Preservation Racine, again, the Tour of Historic Places is coming up Sunday, September 27th, noon to 5.30 p.m.

Go online to preservationracine.org.

And you'll find that all the information, everything we talked about.

Plus, you can go listen to this podcast in case you missed any of it.

We'll have it up at wrgn.com, civicmedia.us, Spotify, Apple Podcast, wherever you get your podcast.

Just look for my name and you'll see it on there.

Thanks again.

Thank you.

We appreciate it.