Wonewoc Lions Club

you

Welcome to our morning show today and WRC radio.

We are here to talk history, one of my favorite subjects.

And we have some history from right here in our area from oney walk.

We're going to talk about the hobo hotel restoration.

We have members of oney walk lions, Julie, Richard Kilmer and Alicia cosnahan are all here to talk about the restoration.

Also a big weekend coming up here, Julie.

I'm guessing the planning has been going on for a long time, but here we are this Saturday is a big day, isn't it?

This Saturday is the day, August 15th.

We're teaming up with the farmers market folks that typically are there every Saturday.

And the event starts at 9 o'clock in the morning, goes to about 2.

The actual raising of the Hillbow Hotel will start about 10 o'clock.

I'm not sure how long that'll take, but a group of men and women, maybe, from the heritage community.

We've hired them to do the work on it, the restoration pieces, and they came to us and said, how about if we actually do the old-fashioned lifting of the building, the structure, and move it down the street?

And I'm like, wow, that'd be pretty cool.

So there's going to be about 50 to 60 persons that physically lift it.

It'll be all braced up, and they have a dry run, I think, today or tomorrow to make sure it's going to work.

Um, and walk it about 150 yards, maybe, um, down the same street and place it, uh, and foundation that they've already, um, started with there along Washington street, which is how County double left and the 400 bike trail.

So it can be seen right from highway 33 and the bike trail and hopefully bring people into the village.

Now you wonder how this is physically possible to, to actually get this done, but you've got to figure it out.

It sounds like.

The Amish do it.

One of the workers is an ex-Amish person and they've moved these buildings before and where he was before.

So it was his idea to, John Lambright, it was his idea to do this and we were like, oh, that sounds really cool.

That would be a really good, even a good fundraising event because it's, you know, not cheap moving this building and restoring the chimney and moving it out of the floodplain because it was damaged so bad in the floods.

that it was going to be torn down.

But we did get a grant from Juneau County to fix the wall that was damaged, and it was a Love Your Block grant, so each town in the county got a grant, and we used part of our money to help start to restore this, and then to decide, well, if another flood comes, all that work's going to go to waste, so we're moving it out of the floodplain.

Can you give us a little background on the Hobo Hotel for those of us that didn't grow up around Waniwok, Richard?

Right.

Okay, so Waniwok was on the 400 line from Chicago to Minneapolis, where the midpoint, 200 miles from Chicago, 200 miles from Minneapolis, and the Chicago Northwestern trains went through there.

But during the Depression,

25% of the population was without work.

I mean, there were hobos before, but there were all these homeless people traveling the rails.

And Juan Iwak decided, oh, we need to do something for these people.

Because every family was affected.

If 25% of the population was out work, you know that most families had family members who were without work.

So they understood the plight of these people.

So they turned this shed into, it used to be the town jail.

into a place for them to stay, put in bunk beds, a stove, and provided food for them, like two loaves of bread.

And I mean, there was a whole list of the stuff that they would bring down their coffee, potatoes.

The hobos could get off.

They could wash their clothes on this, you know, heat water and wash their clothes.

They could have a good meal.

And it was really a very popular place for these people to stop.

But then after the depression was over,

people didn't want a memory of this.

So most of these places were torn down.

I think there's one other one that we know of in Michigan that still stands.

There's carvings in there from the hobos.

And so it's kind of an important part of history.

Why did the one he want choose to save the hotel or not tear it down?

Well, they use it as a shed.

You know, they stored stuff in there.

So, and it was just kind of

you know, there's these old sheds around everywhere.

So it's just, it was kind of a nondescript building.

People are like, oh, can I stay at the hobo hotel?

And I'm like, it's a shack, you know?

So it's not a very beautiful building because it was, you know, for homeless people to stand.

Yeah.

But again, applaud the community, Julie, because, you know, not a lot of communities probably open their arms to people that were, you know, hobos are traveling the rails, right?

Right.

The community back then and still is today very generous and working together to help people.

I mean, it's not just our Lions Club, but it's a development corporation and in the Legion group that we have doing things all the time that a lot of us wear different hats, but we're all together and we do things for the community.

Our logo is obviously with the Lions we serve.

So that's part of our service to our community.

And Alicia, this has got to be exciting for you as you look at the way your community is stepping forward to preserve the past, right?

Oh, yeah, for sure.

It wasn't just a few years ago that the village was actually still using it as a shed.

We had benches stored in it.

So when we were able to get this grant and to repaint the outside, make a new wall for that one wall that we had

We had gotten damaged in the flood.

It actually floated away, the wall did, and a farmer found it and brought it back to us.

And once we got the wall back, we were actually able to save about 13 carvings off of that wall by cutting them out of the old wood and preserving them too.

And like Richard said, the entire inside of the building is completely

covered with carvings or drawings or paragraphs written, and their names like Ohio Bob or Wendy Bill or Philadelphia Eddie, Spark Plug.

I mean, it's really, really unique and really special.

We invited some experts out from Seattle to come down.

They work with the historical graffiti project and they travel all over the United States documenting hobo graffiti and When they came here and saw the hobo hotel I mean they said it was like a dream like when it's something on their bucket list that they thought they would never actually find an intact like hobo hotel like this So it really I mean it's it's really come almost a home to American graffiti too

Um, you know, the idea of picking a nickname, leaving like where you came from and where you're going, leaving the dates, you know, ours are all dated with 1929, 1931, 1932.

Um, and even just the idea of like some of them are like, you know, it's not just somebody carved Bob into the wall.

Some of them are actually fonts that the people like

obviously seriously worked on to create like you know a very unique looking name and stuff or just the idea of having things like arrows pointing to your name to draw attention and stuff all those things are in this hotel and so and those are all aspects of a graffiti still used today so it's just really really interesting.

Then I see there was a Jay Dillinger I mean it wasn't

Yes.

Was it the John Dillinger or?

Well, so we've had people come, you know, we can't, we don't have anybody that can say that it's for sure John Dillinger, but we do know that it was carved back in that time.

It's not like some kid came and carved it in the 80s.

It was carved back then.

We do know he was traveling on the railroads in those areas back then.

And, you know, if you were

a bank robber traveling on the railroads.

I don't think you'd get a hotel room on Main Street.

I think you would probably find something like a hobo hotel to kind of hide out in.

You see

pictures of his signature, it is the same exact signature as that you would look up online, John Dillinger's signature.

We have found his driver's license paperwork and the writing of his name

When you look at it and then look at the wall, it almost gives you goosebumps.

How similar it is.

Yeah, it's really cool.

Gives me goosebumps

as you

described it.

That's really cool.

And then, you know, as you look at it, it was open during the depression.

Did it close shortly after the depression ended, Richard?

I think it probably didn't just became like a city shed, basically.

They took the bunk beds out and they used it for storage mostly.

Correct.

Are you guys putting some of that stuff back into the hotel then, eventually?

Is that the goal?

We are putting some, we fixed the windows, we fixed the wall, we painted it, Alicia painted it.

Alicia was, when I started working on this, it's like, she is the artist and she's like, oh, I want to help, I want to help.

I'm like, I hate painting and Alicia loves painting, so.

Here she is down there painting the new wall and

So and other people have been involved.

Several of the fire department people are the ones that went out into the swamp and found the wall and brought it back.

And so they saved all those carvings by bringing it back.

I mean, the wall wasn't saveable, but yeah, so the community's been involved in it.

And I don't think most of the community knew what a treasure we had here.

And up to this move, so for I'd say like the last seven months or so, it was restored back to the most like it was back then.

So we did put six beds back in.

We put an old stove back in.

We put an old table and chairs, old pots and pans and utensils.

Everything that we had read that

we knew was in there, we did put back in.

However, just right now, because of the move, we've removed it all.

But once it's in its new place, that'll all go right back in.

And hopefully, this will be like a destination place that people will come and visit.

And yeah, when you go into it, I think you will very easily be able to just imagine what it would be have been like.

Yeah, that's awesome.

So what is the plan then, Julie, for the future?

Is it going to be open all the time?

Are there going to be special hours or how do you look at it?

Hopefully it'll be open during the seasonal months, during the summer, during the farmers market times on weekends.

Alicia might have some classes down there because it'll be closer to the main street.

Christmas time we do a hopefully do another special Christmas decorating down there and light it up because one of the things from the love your block grant we are going to have power in there so we'll be able to that's been paid for it's not obviously hooked up yet so there's a lot of things left to do once we get it

Put in the in the permanent location.

There's still a lot of work to be done So it's an ongoing legacy project for the Lions group and anybody else that wants to

A celebration, like a hobo day celebration, where kids can dress up like hobos and maybe serve some kind of a hobo stew, or like an event, maybe once a year.

So it's kind of like a destination spot.

Actually, there is still a hobo organization.

The King of the Hobos is coming next week to dedicate the building.

And he's got a plaque for us that he's going to put in.

He wrote a song about Juan Iwak.

His name is Luther Jet.

And he's been elected King of the Hobos

two or three times, so it's amazing that they're still as a whole organization and actually he can't come to the move because they're having their annual convention that weekend in Iowa.

Okay, but he'll be here next week, so that's really cool.

So you want people to come out this weekend, Julia?

Yeah,

absolutely.

And watch this, so what's the time frame coming up on Saturday then?

Well, the start of the move, hopefully, is going to be at 10 a.m.

where the guys pick it up and start trucking it down the road there.

We'll have some traffic direction.

We have a lot of people from our Lions group in the fire department will help with parking and traffic and so forth.

So that's all taking place right around 10 a.m.

on Washington Street in double F by the Village Hall fire station.

Multiple news crews hopefully will be there, both radio and TV.

We're going to do a live feed from our Chamber of Commerce.

We'll be on their website there for the Facebook page.

We have the Knights of Columbus are coming to do a food stand.

They're doing their world famous brats and hot dogs.

Heritage markets, folks are going to do their treats and beverages.

We have a very nice market in town that they're going to come over and put a stand up down at the location.

We've got many other

folks that'll come and do their specialty treats and cookies and other bendings that they do, crafts, just different things.

I think we have probably a dozen or more vendors at this point.

If there is inclement weather, we hope to maybe move it into the fire station, which is real close by.

We have to make some arrangements yet, but we're still praying that it's going to be a great day.

People know the bike trail out there, Richard.

A lot of people will be able to see it now as they head down the trail.

Right.

They can stop right because we have a signage there and a little explanation of what it is.

And yeah, it'll be just, you know, just off of the right of way of the bike trail.

So it'll be very, very visible now.

One-Walk is very unique.

Is there a spot where you can see like all four counties that

surround you?

Not quite.

They all, four counties almost come together.

One-Walk is like, I can look out my window and I can see South County.

And the other way is Vernon and Richardson's not very far that way.

And Monroe isn't very, you know, so it's a really unique corner.

So it's always, people have always kind of been like, which county do we connect?

It's like, we're, oh, we do, a lot of people really connect with SOC.

because that's a huge part of it, because it just follows the border right there.

And a lot of people connect with

Vernon.

The

midpoint of the Driflus

area.

So yeah, it's a unique place.

It was the first county park in the state of Wisconsin is in Waniwok.

It's a spring that Alicia has painted a beautiful original sign there.

It used to be, Waniwok is one of the original circuses in one.

It was started in Waniwok.

Belcase, the Follett was born in Waniwok, fighting Bob the Follett's wife, who was a very famous woman in her own right.

So yeah, it's a very neat little town.

I hope people that are listening that play our trivia thong game on WRC or marking some of these things down because these are good, good trivia questions.

Alicia, as you look at it, what else do you look at as far as wanting to walk in and its uniqueness?

Well, like Richard said, we are home to one of the earliest circuses in Wisconsin.

I'm not sure if a lot of people know, but Wisconsin is actually like one of its nickname is his mother of circuses.

Over a hundred small circuses began in Wisconsin, but we're home to one of the earliest, and that's the Doad Fisk Great Combined Railroad Show.

The Fisk family was a huge family that donated a lot of land and did a lot of things.

Doedfisk started with the Dog and Pony show, but then grew his circus large enough that it was a 25 train car circus that went all over the United States.

We're home to the most educated horse in the world, Bobby.

That was his trick horse that he would go around with.

He could tell time.

He could work a cash register and give you change.

He could dance really well.

We're also home to a spiritualist camp that began in the late 1800s and is still running to this day.

It's open every summer.

You can go up there and experience it.

They have a hotel, a gift shop, and a whole place up there, 32 miniature homes in a circle, a tabernacle in the center.

It's very, very...

unique and different, very different.

Are there many of those

left?

I mean, there aren't too many left, are they?

I don't believe that there's many still working spiritualist camps to this day.

Yeah, and what they were saying is like the kids or people in town used to call it Spook Hill up at the top, because it's literally like at the top of our village, just this area dedicated to the camp.

But, I mean, Waniwok, I think it's the people that are there.

I think it's, we have a lot of public art now.

We have a couple of murals.

I mean, we have maybe five or six murals now in the village.

We've got sculptures along the bike trail.

You can hear live music in the summer times, like four nights a week in Waniwok.

We have free music on the lawns on Monday.

at the library and then just in town alone between the different venues.

Yeah, I mean, I think that's unbelievable.

I feel sometimes I feel like I live in a mini Austin, Texas, like with how much I can go out and just listen to live music.

Yeah, it's just a really, really, really vibrant town full of really unique people and special things.

Yeah.

And they talked about your painting, so you do some classes.

You're planning to maybe do some at the Hobo Hotel then?

Yeah.

So Waniwak is actually, we're in the process of opening our own historical museum and community art center.

So once that

is finished where we're redoing windows and you know lighting and ceilings and floors and stuff now but once that's done we'll be running all kinds of art classes out of the Warringawak Community Art Center but as of now you know we run we run art classes out of the library I teach with a lot of homeschoolers through the library systems.

and on the weekends at the farmers market I have a kid zone every weekend at the farmers market and that always includes projects and painting and soccer and double Dutch jump roping and

Things like that.

Yeah, we're going to have the zucchini 500 coming up.

So in the beginning of the summer, we planted zucchini with kids at the kids zone.

Richard runs the one in one community garden, which is a free garden.

If you don't have a garden space at your house, you can come and get a spot plot at our community garden.

So we planted the zucchini seeds at the beginning of the summer.

They were growing, and then we're going to harvest them, carve them, paint them, decorate them, and then we're going to have a race where we race the zucchinis.

Down the river?

No, down

a track that we've built.

So you got to have

wheels on

them?

Yeah, we had wheels.

Oh,

OK.

Yeah, we have the Barabua River, actually.

The circus actually used to own my farm, and they mortgaged my farm one night to buy an elephant.

And they made enough money the next day in sales to pay off the mortgage.

So it's a very, it's a unique little town.

It really is.

It sounds like it's a best kept secret because

we have these beautiful rock formations that are over 200 feet over the river.

You can look down on the river.

It's almost like a little Wisconsin Dells in that way with all the rock formations around the town.

Yeah.

And a lot of businesses, you know, still around.

Right.

Well, you know, we had a big plant there.

And when that closed, that was really, I mean, the town almost shut down because there were so many, they employed people from the whole area.

But it's really seen a rebirth now thanks to Julie and Alicia has been really helpful to bring things back up.

We have new businesses in town.

We have a corkscrew wine bar, which is very popular on the weekend with live music and a very nice restaurant there.

So yeah, it's definitely the town has, and luckily so many of these small towns, the buildings have burned, but Waniwok's Main Street is pretty much intact.

I mean, we had a huge fire in the late 1800s that burned quite a bit of the town, but it was rebuilt back up.

But almost all of the original buildings are still there from the 1800s.

Yeah,

very

nice.

I think we're one of the few villages that still has like our,

consecutive buildings in a row still, like a lot of towns, there is like a gap where there's just a building that was there and it's totally gone.

And we have consecutive buildings to still go together with no gaps.

I think that is something that's a little special about it too.

I think the businesses in our town are lovely.

A Farm and Hearth is a restaurant there, which he's talking about.

I mean, that's one of the best restaurants I've ever eaten at in my life.

It is so good.

Only all the food that they make

Cook with their come from local farmers from all around and you can just sit there and read the names of you know the people of where they got what and where they live The heritage market opened up a grocery store.

That's been really really nice For our village.

Yeah, we've got you know a couple of restaurants and bars.

We've got hair salon.

We've got we've got a lot

So, yeah.

And Wonnie Walk Center School District.

We get there

quite a bit.

Right, right.

Yeah, yeah.

Quite a few.

And I think they actually, they're having an upsurge in students at the Wonnie Walk Center School.

So, they have a great school district.

It's kind of a forgotten part of the county.

So it's in the far southwestern corner of the county.

It's like almost in Salt

County.

Beautiful country site.

We'll come back and talk a little bit more about Juan Iwan today and the upcoming move of the Hopo Hotel when the morning show continues.

You can be a part of One and Walk History this weekend, the Hobo Hotel Restoration.

They're going to be moving the hotel, and I think it's going to be a great thing for us just to stand and watch.

I don't plan to lift anything, Richard, but.

No, I don't think the heritage people want.

I mean, they have their insurance to cover their people who are moving it.

So other people really can't join in, but it should be quite a fun project.

It reminds you of Amish Barn Moveings.

Tell us why it's called the Hoover hotel or why it was

right during the depression the President Hoover was the president and they blamed the depression on him.

So all of the Hobo camps were called Hoover camps or they were all named after him as kind of a pun to to blame him for the depression.

So that's why it's called the Hoover hotel or the Hobo hotel both.

And there'll be signage up, I guess, eventually to kind

of drive people away.

There is a sign there now, but we'll probably have more.

And the king of the hobos is coming next week, and he's going to dedicate it.

And he has a plaque for us and all of that.

Have you heard the oney walk song yet?

No, he mailed me a copy, but I haven't gotten it yet.

So hopefully it'll be here by Saturday.

He would be here for the moving, but the hobo

The National Hobo Convention is in Iowa that weekend, so he has to be there because he's the king of the hobos.

But I didn't even know they were still kings of the hobos, but they elected him again last year as king of the hobos.

So he'll be in Iowa, then he'll just come up after he gets in Iowa, right?

And he has a plaque, and he wrote a song about Waniwaki.

He talked to the town historian, Daryl, and got a bunch of stuff about the town, and so I'm curious to hear the song.

Yeah, we are curious.

Daryl Handel, he's done a lot as far as history and finding some of its roots, hasn't he,

Alicia?

Yes, I'd say Daryl's dedicated probably the last 30 years of his life to researching, documenting, getting stories from people before they've passed.

He has an entire section at the Waniwaka Library of local history.

Um, different binders all about different subjects.

He's written a few books.

He's written quite a few, uh, papers on things.

So one of the papers he has written is one about the Hoover hotel, which we have, uh, printed and we'll have those that day at the move.

Um, yeah,

there's a picture right of it on your pamphlet, isn't it?

Yes.

And you get a good shot of it.

Um, you're going to have a lot of things for kids to do on Saturday too.

Aren't you?

Yes.

So this week, weekend with the kid zone, every weekend we have kids, kids zone at the market, but this week it'll be completely geared around the, the idea of the hobo in the hotel.

Um, so we'll be making pine needle soda with Andy ring quiz, a local, uh,

person who knows a lot about nature and the plants and the trees will be you'll be able to build your own bendal and the bendal is kind of like that pack on the stick that a lot of people can visualize when they think of a hobo and the kids will get their own sticks they'll get their own bandanas they'll get things to put in them like harmonicas and pencils and different things so we also have face painting

So hopefully you'll come out.

You'll have a good time and learn a lot about the history of hobo and kind of about their life.

You can learn about the hobo language.

They had like a language that they kind of used amongst each other with that were symbols.

They could tell you like, you know, a nice lady lives here.

She gives a hot meals or a mean, you know, person lives here.

Don't stop or

uh... you know mean dogs here run things like that and they still leave these little markings to each other to look just to let each other know uh... stuff so you can learn things like the hobo language when you come different things like that

who knew

that take

your own hobo nickname.

Yeah, there you

go.

I'm not sure what mine would be.

Lots of vendors there as well, Julie, on Saturday.

I think in terms of things that people can see and do and eat and enjoy, right?

Yep.

Food, crafts, music, like Alicia has talked about stuff for the kids.

Also, our fundraiser booth will be raising money still ongoing.

We have a GoFundMe page on the art museum.

Facebook site and also the Chamber of Commerce site.

We also have some banners and posters around town with the QR code on them.

If you need money, I mean, moving the chimney alone costs $8,000.

So I mean, we are in search of funds to help pay for the

and

move and the restoration and the restoration of the center

correct so that the story about the chimney itself there was a chimney right in the center of the built of the building and a local person also was able to come and help us out with that he took it out brick by brick from the top going down into it brick by brick preserving it took it to his location of his shop

cleaned these bricks up.

Some of them were not in great shape, obviously.

So he found a matching brick, the colors and everything in Chicago, drove down to Chicago, brought the bricks back up.

So they're ready to go when we get the structure back up and he's gonna put that chimney back in there.

And yeah, it'll be pretty cool.

It'd be the same as it was.

And if you can envision what it was then and the stuff we're putting into it now,

We even had, like Lurchard said, we've even had people that really do want to stay in one of these bunk beds, you know, overnight or something.

There's a bicyclist, a friend of mine from Madison that wants to stay there.

And I said, well, bring your own, your role because we're not going to provide any mattress for you.

So he might actually do that.

He's that kind of guy.

He's an outdoorsy kind of guy.

Sure.

You might have found something.

We might have found another business.

Exactly.

Yeah, that's awesome.

What are some other pet projects for the Oney Walk Lions than other than this one?

Oh, my goodness.

We've been existing since 2014.

So we just celebrated our 10 year, a little bit ago.

And actually our new pins that Alicia designed have the Hobo Tourists on our logos, our pins.

And we've done a lot of projects, the Ferrydale project.

We did a 2017 built a gazebo out there.

So that's right off the bike trail too.

And we've had people actually come out and have weddings there at the gazebo.

It's just a nice place to stop.

There's a fresh water right there out of a stream.

Artesian well stream, thank you.

People stop there daily, I mean probably dozens daily to stop there for water.

So we got another grant for that to also run power from the village to that location.

So there's lighting, there's dusted on lighting in that little gazebo as well.

We've done just a lot of projects for the communities around us, the little book libraries, the little food pantries.

We clean

the trail every year from one end to the other.

We've adopted the 400 bike trail between the high school and the wayside park.

We do

fall festivals every year in October.

This year it's October 10th.

held at the school each year, lots of raffles and vendors and stuff for the kids, Lego races for the kids, they love that.

So.

Well, you really stay active.

We are very, we're a very active group and we've been very privileged enough to, to, we must be doing something right because our numbers are gaining.

We're getting more members all the time.

We raise money for the schools, we raise money for people who, if they have a house fire, if they have an accident,

people with cancer who have to, we give them gift cards for, for gas because they have to go in for treatment.

So there's lots of other community things.

That's part of our

relief fund.

So our annual fundraiser, which is the fall festival, we have a separate account for the relief fund for.

People that are going through crisis like that like Richard mentioned and this year is no different.

We're gonna raise money for that So all the all the basket raffles that monies those monies go toward the relief fund

we do ice-creaming for all of the children in Wani walk and then last year we also Learned how to start doing hearing testing too.

So this year we started we did eye testing and hearing testing for all the children in the village

You're really living up to the motto

We serve, right?

We serve.

Really are, you know, promoting your hometown and everything.

What excites you the most about Saturday and people coming to one, you want perhaps for the first time, Alicia?

Well, I mean, the Hobo Hotel, it really is a really, really, really unique thing.

I mean, just to see the people's names carved into the walls and

uh... the drawings and things it it really is neat you know just to think of what that person is like you know year was like or life was like on the roads uh... i think it's uh... a really special part of history uh... it's not something that you can go anywhere in fine so you know i think it is really really special so i'm so excited that the building

you know looks the way it does now i mean the amount of work that we've put into it and how nice it looks now is incredible um and i'm just excited to get to share the history of it with people and kids and to just teach us uh much information as we can about you know the building and

in the history of it.

Right.

I think it's important, especially for the young people to know about what went on during the depression and the hard times that people had.

Yeah.

And hopefully, you know, they'll also see the kindness and generosity in the people's hearts then and see too that it's, they're still kind and generous people now.

And, you know, maybe people can learn from that too and go on and be more generous and kind, you know, in their lives in the future.

So.

Richard are you gonna breathe a sigh of relief when it gets actually sat down and on the foundation on Saturday?

I never thought that it would become such a big deal, you know I just wanted to save the building but you know with the help of these two and other people in town it's just become it's kind of taken on a life of its own and It's that that's really exciting to see Yeah,

you guys have done it.

Well Julie anything else that you want to add today?

Well just come on down on Saturday and and join in the festivities and the fun and moving yeah In moving the building Donate whatever you can if it's $10 if it's $100 will take anything I mean obviously it's gonna take some More monies to keep it going once what once is there obviously we've got the floor to keep going with there's gonna be a wood floor which is kind of rough wood from Richard's farm and

Of course, the lighting is paid for, but just a lot of things decorating around the ice outside, probably a bench or two.

Just decorated up flower beds, things like that.

So we want to make it a destination for people to come and see Waniwok for the first time or for those people that grew up in Waniwok.

Some of them don't even

knew, didn't even know about the history of the things we've been talking about today.

And they're revitalized.

Oh, we've got to see this.

We've got to be a part of this.

So it's just bringing a lot of energy to our folks and, you know, come on down and join in the fun with us and be a part of everything.

And lions too.

I mean, we're just always looking for help and we'll put you to work if you wanted to, you know, pitch in and help with that day and any other time too.

We're always open for

Um, new, new members and things.

So it's a very important group to us.

We're very happy to help our community.

Great.

Well, you all have done a great job representing today and, uh, makes us want to go to oney walk Saturday.

Uh, it started at 10, but, but anytime of the year, right?

So lots of things to see and do.

Thanks for joining us today.

Julie, uh, Richard Kilmer, Alicia Cosnahan joining us, uh, and all roads lead to oney walk, not only this Saturday, but, but through the year or down the 400 bike trail as well.

On a morning show from WRC radio.

We're talking to some members at Richland Center Drama Department.

We've got a really exciting fall coming up because it is musical year at Richland Center.

A. J. Clone is in the studio.

Ellie Boyarsky and Maddie Krausenberg.

A. J. I know you're looking forward to first of all trivia night coming up this Saturday night, right?

Yeah, I think it'll be a great success for the theater.

We need all the help we can get and we would just love everyone to show up this Saturday at 6pm.

It would just be great to see everyone's beautiful faces and it should be a fun night.

Are you one that's into trivia?

Oh yeah, I've always loved trivia.

You can ask any of my friends.

I always love trying to puzzle my brain any way I can and just putting more knowledge into it.

So what area is your area of expertise then with trivia?

I would go if I need, if someone put me on the spot, history would be one of my strong suits or math.

Okay, good.

How about Maddie Kratzenberg?

Are you looking forward to trivia night?

Um, I am I'd really wish I could go but I have some other conflicts that day So I'm really excited to hear from all my friends and family that are gonna attend for me and See how it goes.

You're really pushing that because you want a good amount of money going to the drama department Shab is pretty expensive to put on a musical isn't

it?

Yeah, it is with

all of our tech and our crew and learning how to dance.

Some of us already know how to dance and some of us are just learning this week.

We just finished our first, like many week of learning choreography and singing some of our bigger numbers.

I think it's gonna turn out really great and we're gonna have a great time.

What part do you have for this fall's musical?

I play Lisa, one of Sophie's friends and bridesmaids.

I'm just here to like bring life to the party and hope everybody has a great time.

Awesome.

And what about you, Ellie?

What part do you have in the

musical?

I play one of the leads, Sophie, which is super exciting for me.

I've never had a lead character before, so.

Are you a fan of the music of ABBA?

Yes, yeah.

I mean, I'm a mom of Mia.

I've got to be a

man.

I was going to say, so you've been practicing a little bit there and looking forward to trivia night.

What is your favorite area of trivia?

Oh, I don't know.

I would say probably TV.

A lot of people do TV related questions, which would probably be my strong suit.

Wonderful.

So, Maddie, is this the kind of trivia where you can't have your phone out or any kind of device or anything like that?

Um, yeah.

So when we play trivia, we like to play based off of knowledge and.

I have a feeling it's going to be a bunch of random knowledge, probably about movies, maybe on the little musical side, kind of keep it to theme.

I think it's going to be really fun.

Awesome.

And Asia, you just want people to get out there, get teams together, right?

Yeah.

We would love for you to bring your whole family if you want, or if you have about four friends that you think are smarter, just want to have fun and throw some answers out there, see if you're right or wrong.

Just show up with a group of people that you trust to make some smart decisions.

Do you need to pre-register for this event?

I don't believe so.

I believe you just have to show up to the door and it's a $10 admission fee and then you get in for the night.

But yeah, you just no need to pre-register at all.

You can just show up to the Phoenix Center at 6 o'clock and everyone's welcomed.

Will there be some other opportunities to help the cause that night as well?

Like bidding on some items or do you have anything like that?

Yeah, we do have a silent auction going

on that

night.

So I don't know all of what's in there, but we will have other things.

We'll have that trivia.

So you get $10 again to the door.

We'll do the trivia night.

And then there will be a silent auction either following or before.

What part do you have in Mamma Mia this fall?

I am playing Skye, so I am being the grooms to Sophie.

I am going to be marrying her, which if you don't know the movie, no spoilers, but you should watch the movie, and that'll tell you a little bit more about me.

You're a fan of Abba, are you?

Oh, of course.

I love Abba.

All of their music is just phenomenal.

Their beats and its upbeat, and that's just what I love in music, so.

That's going to be fun.

And so you guys have already been practicing a little bit before school starts.

Yeah.

So this past week, so Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday, we had nine a.m.

to 12 where we went over about four to five of like the principal songs.

We did some choreography to them and the singing as well.

Liz Niemeyer helped a lot with our singing.

She's our vocal director for that.

And then Miss Boyarsky had the part in directing it and then we had Trent Glias and

Mikaela

Barr, I see.

Thank you.

Who helped choreograph most of it.

And then Veronica, can't forget her, Veronica Carpenter.

She choreographed most of it as well.

Lots of work to be done.

Lots of work, yes.

What grade are you going to be in this fall?

I'm going into senior year.

Okay.

So boy, it's going to be an exciting start to the year.

Oh, yes.

Yeah.

And you'll be busy.

Are you involved in some other things at Richland Center High School then?

Yeah, so I'm involved in the football team.

I'll be involved in band and choir and then dance as long as well as everything else.

Boy, get your rest here now.

Try to.

Get ready.

How's football practice going?

All right.

Yeah, football is going good.

We're three days in.

This will be our fourth.

I just started shoulder pads yesterday in helmets and Troxel loves what the team's doing right now.

It's just looking great.

Wonderful.

Maddie, what about you?

What are some other things you're involved in this coming school

year?

This coming school year, all summer, I have been working on the homecoming parade.

Um, so hopefully that turns out really great this year.

Um, I will be in band and choir help supporting our football team at games along with the musical and dance.

Busy, busy, busy.

Always.

So you're a member of student council.

Then if you're working on the homecoming

events, correct.

Right.

Good.

Well, good luck with that.

And what about, and you're going into junior year,

senior

year, senior year.

My gosh, how fast the time

goes.

And what about you, Ellie?

What year are you going into?

I'm also a senior.

So we got a lot of seniors.

Wow.

Well, good luck with that.

And what are some other things you're involved in this fall?

I try to kind of help out wherever I can.

So sometimes people in student council will ask for help.

I do some stuff with the key club, which is just like charity work.

Then I'm an art club and we've gone to some art competitions for that.

So.

That's my involvement.

Good luck.

Well, school will hear you before we know it.

Will there be any Abitrivia on there, AJ?

I mean, you probably don't know for sure yet,

do you?

Yeah, so.

Sparsky hasn't really released any thing about that.

But if I had to guess, I would know a lot about ABBA.

We're

going Mamma Mia.

Here we go all the way.

So know your ABBA, know your music.

But like Maddie said earlier, I think a lot of the tree was going to be about movies and about music in general.

Should be fun.

Should be.

Yeah.

And then it goes to the drama club,

right?

Yup.

So all proceeds are going straight into putting on Mamma Mia this November for

the music department, everything's done by students, so all the help we can get would be amazing.

And how exciting is it, Maddie?

You're going to be in the auditorium.

It's going to be all refurbished and new sounds and everything.

I'm actually really excited to see it.

Everybody's been hyping it up and keep talking about it.

And I heard it's supposed to be done in the next couple of weeks.

And I'm so excited for when we start our complete practice schedule on the 17th.

It should be done by then, cross our fingers.

I'm really excited to see it and start working in new environment.

Awesome.

Favorite song for Abba?

Ellie, did I ask you that?

You did not.

I would say.

Fernando it's not really in the musical that much there's like a small snippet of it but that's kind of why I like it it's kind of under underdone

maybe an underrated Abbas on right good whoa

Best of luck to you guys.

I know we're gonna have you back as we get closer to the musical.

We'll look forward to that.

Next time, maybe we'll make you sing for us, right?

Oh, just got a deer in the headlights look here.

Enjoy Trivia Night this coming Saturday.

Thank you very much, Phil.

You bet.

Members of the Drama Club, A.J.

Klone, Ellie Boyarsky, and Maddie Crotzenberg on today's morning show.

you

Welcome to our morning show today and WRC radio.

We are here to talk history, one of my favorite subjects.

And we have some history from right here in our area from oney walk.

We're going to talk about the hobo hotel restoration.

We have members of oney walk lions, Julie, Richard Kilmer and Alicia cosnahan are all here to talk about the restoration.

Also a big weekend coming up here, Julie.

I'm guessing the planning has been going on for a long time, but here we are this Saturday is a big day.

Isn't it?

This Saturday is the day, August 15th.

We're teaming up with the farmers market folks that typically are there every Saturday.

And the event starts at nine o'clock in the morning, goes to about two.

The actual raising of the Hillbow Hotel will start about 10 o'clock.

I'm not sure how long that'll take, but a group of men and women, maybe, from the heritage community.

Um, we've hired them to do the work on it, the restoration pieces and they, they came to us and said, uh, how about if we actually do the old fashioned lifting of the building, the structure and move it down the street and like, wow, that'd be, that'd be pretty cool.

So, uh, there's going to be about 50 to 60, uh, persons that physically lift it.

It'll be all braced up and you're going to, they have a dry run, I think today or tomorrow to make sure it's going to work.

Um, and walk it about 150 yards, maybe, um, down the same street and place it, uh, and foundation that they've already, um, started with there along Washington street, which is how County double left and the 400 bike trail.

So it can be seen right from highway 33 and the bike trail and hopefully bring people into the village.

Now you wonder how this is physically possible to, to actually get this done, but you've got to figure it out.

It sounds like.

The Amish do it.

One of the workers is an ex-Amish person, and they've moved these buildings before and where he was before.

So it was his idea to, John Lambride, was his idea to do this.

And we were like, oh, that sounds really cool.

That would be a really good, even a good fundraising event, because it's not cheap moving this building and restoring the chimney and moving it out of the floodplain, because it was damaged so bad in the floods.

that it was going to be torn down.

But we did get a grant from Juneau County to fix the wall that was damaged, and it was a Love Your Block grant, so each town in the county got a grant, and we used part of our money to help start to restore this, and then to decide, well, if another flood comes, all that work's going to go to waste, so we're moving it out of the floodplain.

Can you give us a little background on the Hobo Hotel for those of us that didn't grow up around Juan Iwak, Richard?

Right.

Okay, so Juan Iwak was on the 400 line from Chicago to Minneapolis, where the midpoint, 200 miles from Chicago, 200 miles from Minneapolis, and the Chicago Northwestern trains went through there.

But during the Depression,

25% of the population was without work.

I mean, there were hobos before, but there were all these homeless people traveling the rails, and Juan Iwak decided, oh, we need to do something for these people, because every family was affected.

If 25% of the population was out work, you know that most families had family members who were without work, so they understood the plight of these people, so they turned this shed into, it used to be like,

town jail into a place for them to stay, put in bunk beds, a stove, and provided food for them, like two loaves of bread.

And I mean, there was a whole list of the stuff that they would bring down their coffee, potatoes.

The hopeless could get off.

They could wash their clothes on this, you know, heat water and wash their clothes.

They could have a good meal.

And it was really a very popular place for these people to stop.

But then after the

Depression was over.

People didn't want a memory of this.

So most of these places were torn down.

I think there's one other one that we know of in Michigan that still stands.

There's carvings in there from the hobos.

And so it's kind of an important part of history.

Why did the one he won't choose to save the hotel or not tear it down?

Well, they use it as a shed.

You know, they stored stuff in there.

So, and it was just kind of

you know, there's these old sheds around everywhere.

So it's just, it was kind of a nondescript building.

People are like, oh, can I stay at the hobo hotel?

And I'm like, it's a shack, you know?

So it's not a very beautiful building because it was, you know, for homeless people to stand.

Yeah.

But again, applaud the community, Julie, because, you know, not a lot of communities probably open their arms to people that were, you know, hobos are traveling the rails, right?

Right.

The community back then and still is today very generous and working together to help people.

I mean, it's not just our Lions Club, but it's a development corporation and in the Legion group that we have doing things all the time that a lot of us wear different hats, but we're all together and we do things for the community.

Our logo is obviously with the Lions we serve, so that's part of our service to our community.

And Alicia, this has got to be exciting for you as you look at the way your community is stepping forward to preserve the past, right?

Oh, yeah, for sure.

It wasn't just a few years ago that the village was actually still using it as a shed.

We had benches stored in it.

So when we were able to get this grant and to repaint the outside, make a new wall for that one wall that we had

We had gotten damaged in the flood.

It actually floated away, the wall did, and a farmer found it and brought it back to us.

And once we got the wall back, we were actually able to save about 13 carvings off of that wall by cutting them out of the old wood and preserving them too.

And like Richard said, the entire inside of the building is completely covered with carvings or drawings or paragraphs written.

And their names like Ohio Bob or Wendy Bill or Philadelphia Eddie, Spark Plug.

I mean, it's really, really unique and really special.

We invited some experts out from Seattle to come down

They work with the historical graffiti project and they travel all over the United States documenting hobo graffiti and When they came here and saw the hobo hotel I mean they said it was like a dream like when it's something on their bucket list that They thought they would never actually find an intact like hobo hotel like this So it really I mean it's

It's really almost a home to American graffiti too.

You know, the idea of picking a nickname, leaving like where you came from and where you're going, leaving the dates.

You know, ours are all dated with 1929, 1931, 1932.

And even just the idea of like some of them are like, you know, it's not just somebody carved Bob into the wall.

Some of them are actually fonts that the people like

obviously seriously worked on to create like, you know, a very unique looking name and stuff.

Or just the idea of having things like arrows pointing to your name to draw attention and stuff.

All those things are in this hotel.

And so, and those are all aspects of a graffiti still used today.

So it's just really, really interesting.

Then I see there was a Jay Dillinger.

I mean, it wasn't.

Yes.

Was it the John Dillinger or?

Well, so we've had people come, you know, we can't, we don't have anybody that can say that it's for sure John Dillinger, but we do know that it was carved back in that time.

It's not like some kid came and carved it in the 80s.

It was carved back then.

We do know he was traveling on the railroads in those areas back then.

And, you know, if you were, uh,

a bank robber traveling on the railroads.

I don't think you'd get a hotel room on Main Street.

I think you would probably find something like a hobo hotel to kind of hide out in.

You see

pictures of his signature, it is the same exact signature as that you would look up online, John Dillinger's signature.

We have found his driver's license paperwork and the writing of his name

When you look at it and then look at the wall, it almost gives you goosebumps how similar it is.

Yeah, it's really cool.

Gives me goosebumps as you described it.

That's really cool.

And then, you know, as you look at it, it was open during the depression.

Did it close shortly after the depression ended, Richard?

I think it probably didn't just became like a city shed, basically.

They took the bunk beds out and they used it for storage, mostly.

Correct.

Are you guys putting some of that stuff back into the hotel then, eventually?

Is that the goal?

We

are putting some.

We fixed the windows.

We fixed the wall.

We painted it.

Alisha painted it.

Alisha was, when I started working on this, it's like, she is the artist and she's like, oh, I want to help.

I want to help.

I'm like, I hate painting and Alisha loves painting.

So here she is down there painting the new wall.

So, and other people have been involved.

Several of the fire department people are the ones that went out into the swamp and found the wall and brought it back.

And so they saved all those carvings by bringing it back.

I mean, the wall wasn't saveable, but yeah, so the community's been involved in it.

And I don't think most of the community knew what a treasure we had here.

And up to this move, so for I'd say like the last seven months or so, it was restored back to the most like it was back then.

So we did put six beds back in.

We put an old stove back in.

We put an old table and chairs, old pots and pans and utensils, everything that we had read.

we knew was in there, we did put back in.

However, just right now, because of the move, we've removed it all.

But once it's in its new place, that'll all go right back in.

And hopefully, this will be like a destination place that people will come and visit.

And yeah, when you go into it, I think you will very easily be able to just imagine what it would be have been like.

Yeah, that's awesome.

So what is the plan then, Julie, for the future?

Is it going to be open all the time?

Are there going to be special hours or how do you look at

it?

Hopefully it'll be open during the seasonal months, during the summer, during the farmers market times on weekends.

Alicia might have some classes down there because it'll be closer to the main street.

Christmas time, we do a hopefully do another special Christmas decorating down there and

light it up because one of the things from the Love Your Block grant, we are going to have power in there.

So we'll be able to, um, that's been paid for.

It's not, uh, obviously hooked up yet.

So there's a lot of things left to do.

Once we get it put in the, in the permanent location, there's still a lot of work to be done.

So it's an ongoing legacy project for the Lions group and anybody else that wants to

keep it up.

a celebration, like a hobo day celebration, where kids can dress up like hobos and maybe serve some kind of hobo stew or,

you

know, like an event where maybe once a year, so it's kind of like a destination spot.

Actually, there is still a hobo organization.

The king of the hobos is coming next week to dedicate the building, and he's got a plaque for us that he's going to put in.

He wrote a song about Juan Iwak.

His name is Luther Jet, and he's been elected king of the hobos.

two or three times.

So it's amazing that they're still as a whole organization and actually he can't come to the move because they're having their annual convention that weekend in Iowa.

Okay.

But he'll be here next week.

So that's really cool.

So you want people to come out this weekend, Julia?

Yeah,

absolutely.

And watch this.

So what's the time frame coming up on Saturday then?

Well, the start of the move hopefully is going to be at 10 a.m.

where the guys pick it up and start trucking it down the road there.

We'll have some traffic direction.

We have a lot of people from our Lions group in the fire department will help with parking and traffic and so forth.

So that's all taking place right around 10 a.m.

on Washington Street in double F by the Village Hall fire station.

Multiple news crews hopefully will be there, both radio and TV.

We're going to do a live feed from our Chamber of Commerce.

We'll be on their website there for the Facebook page.

We have the Knights of Columbus are coming to do a food stand.

They're doing their world famous brats and hot dogs.

Heritage markets, folks are going to do their treats and beverages.

We have a very nice market in town that they're going to come over and put a stand up down at the location.

We've got many other

folks that'll come and do their specialty treats and cookies and other bendings that they do, crafts, just different things.

I think we have probably a dozen or more vendors at this point.

If there is inclement weather, we hope to maybe move it into the fire station, which is real close by.

We have to make some arrangements yet, but we're still praying that it's going to be a great day.

People know the bike trail out there, Richard.

A lot of people will be able to see it now as they head down the trail.

Right, they

can stop right because we have a signage there and a little explanation of what it is.

And yeah, it'll be just, you know, just off of the right of way of the bike trail.

So it'll be very, very visible now.

OneWalk is very unique.

Is there a spot where you can see like all four counties that

surround you?

Not quite.

Four counties almost come.

Waniwak is like, I can look up my window and I can see South County.

And the other way is Vernon and Richardson's not very far that way.

And Monroe isn't very, you know, so it's a really unique corner.

So it's always, people have always kind of been like, which county do we connect?

It's like, we're, oh, we do, a lot of people really connect with SOC because that's a huge part of it.

Cause it just follows the border right there.

And a lot of people connect with Vernon.

The

midpoint of the Driflus area.

Right.

So, yeah, it's a unique place.

It was the first county park in the state of Wisconsin is in Juan Iwak.

It's a spring that Alicia has painted a beautiful original sign there.

It used to be...

Waniwok is one of the original circuses in one it was started in Waniwok bell case the Follett was born in Waniwok fighting Bob the Follett's wife who was a very famous woman in her own right So yeah, it's a it's a very neat little town I

hope people that are listening that play our trivia thong game on WRC or marking some of these things down because these are good good trivia questions Alicia as you look at it What else do you look at as far as Wani walking and its uniqueness?

Well, like Richard said, we are home to one of the earliest circuses in Wisconsin.

I'm not sure if a lot of people know, but Wisconsin is actually like one of its nicknames is Mother of Circuses.

So over a hundred small circuses began in Wisconsin, but we're home to one of the earliest and that's the Doad Fisk Great Combined Railroad Show.

Doad Fisk, the Fisk family was a huge family that

donated a lot of land and did a lot of things, but Doadfisk started with Dog and Pony show, but then grew his circus large enough that it was a 25 train car circus that went all over the United States.

We're home to the most educated horse in the world, Bobby, that was his trick horse that he would go around with.

He could tell time he could work a cash register and give you change.

He could dance really well We're also home to a Spiritualist camp that began in the late 1800s and is still running to this day It's open every summer.

You can go up there and experience it.

They have a hotel a gift shop and a whole whole