Building Preservation

Of the nearly 30 commericial, industrial, and public buildings constructed in Fairwater during its period of greatest development between 1895 and 1925, only 11 remain. Of those constructed earlier, only a handful of homes remain. The FHS has targeted three structures for protection.

William Plocker's 1848 Stage Coach Inn
Having just been appointed postmaster for the village of Fairwater, Captain William Plocker, a Dutch immigrant, constructed a tavern and stagecoach stop at the junction of Wisconsin's Military Road and the road north from Watertown in 1848. For more than twenty years, the inn was a popular resting place for travelers.

In the 1870's, Captain Plocker sold his farm and inn to the Gottlieb Stelter family, German immigrants to the area in the 1840's. The Stelters made the inn their home until 1916, when they moved it to make way for a new farmhouse. The inn served the family as a storage building until the 1940's, when it was demolished. Of the original structure, only the parlor wing was saved, and it continues to serve as a storage building on the Stelter farm.

In May, 2008, the society moved the remaining wing of the inn to the museum grounds and is working with the Stelter family to ensure that the remaining structure is preserved. In conjunction with the project, the society is seeking information about the inn, Captain Plocker, early area transportation, and the formation of the Fairwater post office.

If you have information to share, please contact any of the society's current officers or directors. If you are interested in assisting with the preservation project, please contact Jerold Sanders at 920-346-5910 or Barb Vande Brink at 920-346-5140.

Captain William Plocker's Inn. The highlight indicates the location of the parlor wing of the building, now located on the museum grounds.

Photographs taken during the May, 2008, move of the parlor wing from the Stelter farm to the museum grounds.

Laper Electric Company Waterwheel, 1924
Spurred by his ongoing inability to generate sufficient electricity for the growing demands in Fairwater and its surrounding area, Jesse Laper turned in 1924 to the long unused water power of the Grand River and the Fairwater mill pond. Laper developed the plans for a massive, 50-foot water wheel fed by a half-mile of cedar pipeline and began construction the same year.

The wheel was completed in 1925, and for six months it generated 75 KW of power, until a night in 1926 when a tooth broke on one of the massive gears that regulated the rotation of the wheel. With the gear tooth gone, the wheel began to turn freely. Before Laper could shut off the water flowing from the mill pond, the axle failed. Because the wheel had been constructed around the axle, it was not practicable to replace it, and the wheel's brief history was over.

The supports the project to turn the wheel and associated Laper electric property into an historic park.

History of the Fairwater Waterwheel
Florian Laper's "The Big Wheel"

Fairwater Public School, 1910
The 1862 plat map of the town of Metomen indicates that a Fairwater public school was located just north of the Grand River in the area later known as Jim Town. Since 1870, however, Fairwater's public schools have stood on land purchased from Russell Kenyon for $100. The earliest confirmed evidence of a Fairwater schoolhouse after that date is a December 14, 1882, Brandon Times article announcing that J. W. Dame was teaching in Fairwater.

However numerous its predecessors may have been, the last of the village's schools was constructed in 1910 on the former Kenyon property and is still standing. The handsome, three-classroom building was in continuous use as a school until it was abandoned in the 1980's, its students transferring to the Markesan schools. Today the structure with its prominent bell tower has been targeted for preservation and restoration as a Fairwater area museum.

As a part of the greater restoration project, the Fairwater Historical Society is developing an application to place the building on the National Registry of Historic Places and is researching the history of the structure. The society is soliciting names and photographs of former Fairwater students and teachers and is seeking photographs of the interior of the building from all time periods.

If you have information to share, please contact any of the society's current officers or directors.

Fairwater public school and first classes, 1910