WHS Celebrates Its 70th Anniversary!
Since 1953, the Waupaca Historical Society has been collecting, preserving, and sharing the stories of the city of Waupaca and the Chain O’Lakes area. And on April 27, 2023, the Waupaca Historical Society will celebrate its 70th anniversary with an ice cream and pie social at the Holly History and Genealogy Center.
The community is welcome to attend the free event, with free refreshments, information on the Society’s history, and self-guided tours of the Holly Center. The ice cream social will take place from 6-8 p.m. in the lower level of the Holly Center at 321 S. Main Street.
The Waupaca Historical Society met for the first time on April 27, 1953 in the former city hall/fire department on North Main Street. The Society took on its first major project in 1956 when it purchased and moved the Hutchinson House to South Park in 1956 and opened it as a museum in 1957 for the city’s Centennial Celebration.
The Society went on to the move the King Cottage to South Park in 1974 and then purchased the former Carnegie Library building in 2001. Today, the building serves as the Holly Center, the Society’s main location with offices, exhibits, research area and meeting room.
In 2004, the Waupaca Historical Society saved the historic Waupaca Depot on Oak Street and has since restored the building and opened it as a museum. In 2021, the Society purchased property on Balch Street along the railroad tracks with plans to build a storage building for large implements and artifacts in the future.
For more information on the ice cream social and the history of the Waupaca Historical Society, check out www.waupacahistoricalsociety.org or visit the Holly Center during open hours, Wednesday-Friday, 10 a.m. to 2 p.m.
Our Capital Campaign is in full swing and we've hit $150,000! Thank you all so much for your donations! Our second Capital Campaign project is in the works as we renovate the lower-level meeting room at the Holly Center. Our goal is $400,000, and we would love to reach that goal for our 70th anniversary in April 2023. Want to donate to the Campaign? Visit https://www.waupacahistoricalsociety.org/capitalcampaign and click on "Donate to the Capital Campaign!"
Keeping History Alive
Waupaca and the Chain O'Lakes
About 100,000 years ago, much of North America was covered in glaciers. As these glaciers moved, they carved hills, bluffs, lakes and rivers into the landscape. By 10,000 BCE, the first people—ancestors of the Menominee—had reached Wisconsin, with some settling around Waupaca and the Chain O’Lakes.
The Waupaca area, along with the Chain O'Lakes, were long home to the Menominee Indian tribe and are the ancestral homeland of the Menominee peoples. The Menominee and Ho-Chunk, as well as others of the 12 American Indian Nations of Wisconsin, cared for the lakes, rivers and forests of our state. The Waupaca River's falls and the nearby lakes provided an abundance of water, vegetation and wildlife for peoples here and traveling through. For many years, the Menominee moved around the area as the seasons changed, traveling from their villages, likely on Taylor and Otter Lakes, to camps on the Waupaca River.
By the 1830s, the largely uncharted lands in Wisconsin had attracted the interest of white settlers. In a series of seven treaties, the Menominee ceded their lands to the United States. The final treaty, in 1848, relinquished the last of the Menominee’s land, which included Waupaca.
In June 1849, the first white settlers--five men from Vermont--traveled from Plymouth, Wis., to Waupaca, looking for "the falls." The men claimed land along the Waupaca River at what is now North Main Street in the city of Waupaca. These early settlers came to Waupaca looking for the "The Falls" that they'd heard so much about. Eventually the settlement took its name from a Menominee word “Wāpahkoh” meaning, “Place of Tomorrow Seen Clearly.” The word also denotes a place in the Menominee language, not a person’s name or title.
Waupaca steadily grew around the water, harnessing the power of the falls and welcoming many more settlers, including many Danish and Scandinavian immigrants. At the same time, settlement on the Chain O'Lakes--in the townships of Dayton and Farmington--began, largely first as a farming community. Before long, residents and visitors alike discovered the beauty of the 22 interconnected spring-fed lakes, and tourism took off on the Chain O'Lakes.
The Waupaca Historical Society, located in downtown Waupaca on Main Street, strives to preserve the rich history of both Waupaca and the Chain O'Lakes while educating and informing the public.
Visit one of our four historic buildings today and let us help you discover Waupaca's past today!
Waupaca Historical Society's 70 Years
