Images From the Historic Cooksville Archives

The  Archives and Collections of the historic Village of Cooksville in Rock County, Wisconsin, have grown over the years, and contributions continue to accumulate. The items date from the19th, 20th and 21st centuries, with a couple from earlier centuries before there was a Cooksville. (Previous blog news stories illustrated some of the items.)

The local Historic Cooksville Trust, Inc., now maintains the collection and is in the process of creating a permanent home for the contents---photographs, paintings, books, family histories, furniture, et cetera--- in the basement "parlor" of the historic Cooksville Congregational Church built in 1879.

This new home for the growing "Archives and Collections Center" was made possible by generous donations of funds which will make items more easily available to interested visitors to historic Cooksville. 

Here are samples of the some of the photographs and documents:

1858 Map of  the Town of Porter with "Waucoma" (Cooksville) in the upper-left corner with the railroad line that was never built running near the village.

An 1858 map of  the  large Village of Waucoma platted  in 1846 next to Cooksville on the far left above, which was platted in 1842 by the Cook brothers. Names of early structures in the two villages appear on the map. The  two villages  are now known as "Cooksville." 

Double-sided Wisconsin Historical Marker for  the villages of Cooksville and Waucoma.

A burr oak tree on the Cooksville Public Square, drawn by Dorothy Kramer, local artist and potter, c.1930s.

 

Anna Belle Rice (1862-1915), seamstress, left, and mother Margaret Brown Rice (1844-1925) born in Scotland, in their Cooksville parlor.

 

Flora Brown Wardel (or Warddell), with her kitchen stove, c.1900.

 

The Gilley brothers, who farmed east of the village, photo c.1880.

Phoebe Porter (1861-1886), portrait, died in
Chicago after a cancer operation.

Good Templars Charter, Cooksville, 1894.

"Twelve Songs" by Carrie Jacobs Bond, 1902.

"The One Hundred and One Best Songs," 1915.

Electa Savage, children Paul and Avis, c.1880s.

Mabel Woodbury (1868-1922).

Ralph Warner's parlor, in the "House Next Door," c.1930

Ralph Warner in his garden with four friends, c.1930.

Frank Lloyd Wright's "Chapel for Cooksville" 

designed in 1934 and commissioned by the 

village's Newman farm family. Wright called

 it a "Memorial to the Soil." 

 Never built, for reasons unknown.

*   *   *
[Donations to the Cooksville Archives and
Collections are always welcome,
documents or dollars. 
Thanks. Larry Reed (608) 873-5066.]