The Historic Cooksville Trust’s chairman, Larry Reed, has
been recognized by the Wisconsin Historical Society for his many years of
historic preservation volunteer work in the Village of Cooksville, Rock County.
The 2015 award was presented to Reed by Ellsworth Brown, Director of the
Wisconsin Historical Society, after approval by the Board of Curators of the
Society.
Reed was cited for his “Founding in 1999 of the Historic
Cooksville Trust and for Longtime Dedication to the Preservation and
Appreciation of Cooksville.” He has spent decades of work helping to preserve
the historic Village of Cooksville where he has lived for over 40 years.
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Ellsworth Brown, left, Director of the Wisconsin Historical
Society, presents the Society’s State Historic Preservation Award certificate
to Larry Reed, chair of the Historic Cooksville Trust, and longtime Cooksville
preservationist and historian.
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The charitable Historic Cooksville Trust with its ten-member
Board of Directors has successfully initiated or assisted about a dozen local
preservation projects in the Cooksville Historic District in the small Rock
County community and has received donations totaling over $200,000 so far. The
Historic District was listed in the National Register of Historic Places in
1973 and expanded in 1980.
The mission of the Trust is to help the Cooksville community
preserve, conserve, celebrate and enjoy its unique and valuable historical, cultural
and natural heritage by assisting with funding building rehabilitations and
restorations as well as education and publication projects in the village.
The small village, which is known by many as “A Wee Bit of New England in Wisconsin” and
as “The Town that Time Forgot” because a railroad never came to the community,,
was founded 175 years ago by the Cook brothers.
Reed says that preservation in the village really began
early, when Ralph Lorenzo Warner arrived in 1911. Warner restored his 1848 home,
the “House Next Door” to which he invited visitors to experience his historic
house and gardens and enjoy refreshments at lunches, dinners and teas. Local,
state and national media applauded his innovative work and brought attention to
his special preservation efforts.
According to Reed, “Warner’s project opened people’s hearts
and minds to the benefits of preserving and enjoying 19th century
Wisconsin life, using historic buildings, historic gardens, and his collection
of antiques. Besides receiving wide attention for his accomplishments, he
inspired others to do the same, such as his friend Edgar Hellum’s preservation
work in Mineral Point in the 1930s where he and Bob Neal created the Pendarvis
complex.”
Cooksville has about 35 historic nineteenth century
buildings and sites, including the state’s oldest operating general store, two
churches, a schoolhouse, a public square, and locally-made brick and frame
houses. Settled in 1840, the village was platted in 1842 by the Cook brothers,
and soon a second village named Waucoma was established next to it in 1846 by
the Porter brothers on land first owned by the famous U.S. Senator Daniel
Webster. Cooksville was once suggested as the site of an old world Wisconsin
outdoor museum because it was a well-preserved, early “wee bit of New England
in Wisconsin.”
The Historic Cooksville Trust, which Reed heads up, is a
non-profit, non-membership organization designed to raise funds and assist
various preservation and conservation projects in or near Cooksville in the
Town of Porter. Tours of the historic district are available, and community
events take place in the historic Schoolhouse, which now serves as the
Cooksville Community Center.
The Trust has also
established the Cooksville Archives to collect and preserve documents,
photographs, artifacts and other materials related to the history of
Cooksville, and it welcomes such donations.
The Archives are available to the public.
The Cooksville
Country Store has available a publication titled “Historic Cooksville: A
Guide.”
For more information about the village of the Historic
Cooksville Trust, Reed welcomes inquiries and can be contacted at (608)
873-5066.
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