Cooksville Community Center 2013 Calendar of Events with some annual Cooksville Lutheran Church events

Clean Up Day at the Center,                           

 Saturday, May 4, 9:00 – 12:00 a.m.

Come join the crew to shine up the Center for a new season. We will tackle both the interior and exterior part of the Center. Bring a rag, sponge and bucket, broom and dustpan. We will sweep up the bugs, mop floors, clean bathrooms and kitchen, and wipe flat surfaces.  We will also clean the basement. Treats will be served. Location:  Cooksville Community Center.

      

Stoughton Chamber Singers Concert                     

Wednesday, June 12, 7:00 p.m.

The Stoughton Chamber Singers under the direction of John Beutel have chosen "Music and the Human Experience" as the title for their June performance.  The concert program will include music that is representative of how every day lives are connected to music.  Many composers will be represented: G. F. Handel, Johannes Jeep, John Blow, a 13th century plainsong, a Bruckner motet, a gospel hymn, two African songs of Famine and Freedom, several folk songs, and music by the Association "Requiem for the Masses": "Skylark", a ballad by Hoagy Carmichael; a Lennon/McCartney Beatles Medley; and the rousing "Up The Ladder To The Roof." Admission is $5 per person. Location: Cooksville Church at the corner of Highways 138 and 59. A reception will follow at the Community Center, two blocks east on Hwy 59.

Independence Day Family Potluck Picnic with music               

 July 4, 12:30 p.m.

Come and socialize with friends and neighbors, and eat a communal meal about 12:30 p.m. on the Commons. Bring a dish to pass and your own plate, silverware and liquid refreshments to this annual event. Cooksville native, Jeanne Julseth-Heinrich, an accomplished accordion player, will begin entertaining about 1:15 p.m at the Center. Some members plan to kick up their heels and dance! Location:  Cooksville Commons and the air-conditioned Community Center, in case of rain and/or extreme heat.

SPECIAL:  Christmas in Summer                         

Saturday, August 10, 4:00 p.m.

Former student Jeanne Julseth-Heinrich will orchestrate and direct a Christmas party from her memories as a student at the one room Cooksville Schoolhouse. There will be roles for children and adults to perform in skits, recitations, singing, a short Christmas play, and perhaps a visit by Santa Claus. Christmas is being scheduled in August as the Center does not have heat or water in winter. This could be the first event for a summer theater at the Cooksville Community Center. Please notify Jeanne of your interest in participating in the event: jeannesingsalto@gmail.com Location: Cooksville Community Center. 

Cooksville Lutheran Church Fall Festival      

 Tentative: Sunday, Sept. 8, 11 a.m.

Activities will begin directly after the worship service: arts & crafts, collectibles, antiques, produce, fall mums, Silent Auction, and more. Home cooked meal prepared by church members to begin serving at noon. Sponsored by and proceeds to benefit Cooksville Lutheran Church. Watch newspapers and church bulletin for specific details re. date/time.

Cooksville Community Center Annual Meeting    

 Monday, September 23, 7 p.m.

Learn what has happened this year and what is on the agenda for the future at this annual event.  This is your opportunity to voice your opinions about the Center. We want your input to help us manage the Center. Location:  Cooksville Community Center.

“Remembering Cigar Eddie”                                

 Sunday, October 6, 11:30 a.m.

The Center has decided to organize another memorial service for one of its patriarchs, Eddie Julseth, who died two years ago. October is the month of Eddie ‘s birthday. This will be a potluck with story telling. He loved apples so consider bringing an apple-based dish to supplement your main dish. Plates, silverware and drinks will be provided. The event is sponsored by the Cooksville Community Center and the Cooksville Lutheran Church. Location: handicapped accessible Cooksville Lutheran Church by the Cemetery.  

Annual Halloween Party                                     

Saturday, October 19, 6:30 p.m.

Join us for our annual Halloween tradition. There will be games and activities for kids and a bonfire for adults.  Bring your own beverages and a snack or dessert to share. Flashlights are strongly encouraged for all -- the Commons and schoolyard can get very dark, especially around Halloween!  You are also welcome to get into the Halloween spirit by helping to decorate for the Center at 12:00 noon on the same day. Location:  Cooksville Community Center.  

 

Cooksville Lutheran Church Harvest Dinner            

Tentative date: November 10, 12:00 – 3:00 p.m. 

Enjoy a home cooked Thanksgiving meal prepared and served by members of the Cooksville Lutheran Church. Proceeds from the event will benefit the church.  Location: Cooksville Lutheran Church.

The Historic Cooksville Cheese Factory by Larry Reed

The prize-winning Cooksville Cheese Factory was established in 1875 adjacent to the village on the present State Highway 59 (then called “Union Road”), just to the west of William Porter’s farm. The multi-talented Cooksville resident Benjamin Hoxie bought the land that was part of the large Dow farm and erected the small building, obtained the necessary apparatus, and began manufacturing and selling cheese on May 10, 1875.

Hoxie had tested the interest in the Cooksville area for a cheese cooperative business with meetings in the schoolhouse and by canvassing the community in March of 1875. The results were favorable with many “patrons” willing to send their milk to the new factory.

 

Hoxie House etching 1873

Hoxie was, among other things, a very active architect, carpenter and builder of a number of houses and structures in Cooksville, including the Cooksville Congregational Church, as well as buildings and churches elsewhere in the area. He was also a maker of bee hives and butter churns and had a keen interest in agriculture and horticulture.

The Evansville Review reported on Hoxie’s venture into cheese-making as follows: “Cooksville Cheese Factory. This Institution commenced operation Monday morning with even better prospects than what it was expected it would have. The building is 18 x 28, two stories high, with an ell 20 x 26 one-story high.  The main building is provided with a fine basement which can be kept at good temperature for curing cheese at any season, when the weather is not suitable for the two upper rooms. The building is well made—closely boarded, papered and sided, which gives a substantial effect, and preserves a more uniform temperature for the business.  The pumping is done by hand; but the heating is done with steam apparatus.”

To ensure “a perfectly fine flavored cheese, the factory’s walls were double-thick and plastered, and the basement had stone walls and ‘cemented’ floors, with every precaution taken to have an even temperature in the curing rooms.” Probably a well-cured “English” cheddar cheese was produced or perhaps the new Wisconsin brick, or maybe a purely local variation.

George H. Kemp, an Englishman and “a gentleman who has worked at the business a year or two…thoroughly experienced…will have charge of the business.” The newspaper continued:  “A meeting of the patrons was held at the Factory Saturday and resulted in the election of the following officers. Harrison Stebbins, President; J. T. Dow, Secretary and Treasurer; B. S. Hoxie, salesman; W. M. Porter, Isaac Wright, Josiah Sperry, Associates. B. S. Hoxie, Proprietor.” The farmers’ cheese cooperative was up and running.

Benjamin Hoxie (1827-1901)

 The Cheese Factory initially received about 3,000 pounds of milk each day, and samples of the cheese were ready to be distributed locally in June. Over 200 wooden cheese boxes were made in Evansville and delivered to the factory in August, and business increased rapidly.  Near the end of October, the factory closed for the season, the patrons were paid off, and the remaining cheese was moved from the factory to the cellar of William Porter’s nearby farmhouse.

The next year, after hauling in many loads of wood in March (“A big wood pile at the cheese factory, means business again this summer…”),  the Cheese Factory opened for the season on May 1, 1876, having been “overhauled  and put in thorough trim for business, and looks as neat as a maid’s parlor,” the Evansville newspaper reported.  “There is certainly not a neater looking, or more thoroughly appointed cheese factory, for its size, in the State than the Cooksville factory.” 

The first shipment of cheese was sent to St. Paul, Minnesota, where the local St. Paul Press newspaper gave “the Cooksville cheese a marked notice, for its excellent qualities.” Later in the summer, a Montreal, Canada, cheese buyer shopping in the area gave “especial praise of the curing rooms of the Cooksville factory—being so cool that July cheese are about as mild in flavor as ordinary August cheeses are,” according to the Evansville paper. “Wisconsin butter and cheese stands as high in the market as any made at the east.” The cheese did “not become old and hard.”

The factory was now using about 4,170 pounds of milk a day. In an experiment with the milk at the factory, it was discovered that it took 26 ¼ pounds of milk to make one pound of butter, and with the cost of milk at 90 cents per hundred pounds, it put the cost to produce butter at about 24 cents a pound.  Cheese was selling at about 7 cents per pound; more could be produced; and cheese could safely be shipped long distances without refrigeration.

In 1877, the little Cooksville Cheese Factory won second prize at the Wisconsin State Fair—but only after a tie vote that was settled by the toss of a penny, giving the top prize to a Sheboygan factory.  The prize was won competing with over twenty other more established factories from throughout the state.

The Cheese Factory flourished for the next few years, with cheese shipped to such places as Chicago, New York, and Lawrence, Massachusetts. Wisconsin was becoming famous as a quality cheese producing state, and the new Cooksville factory was contributing to the state’s early prominence in the growing agricultural enterprise of cheese-making.

In 1878, Hoxie added another vat and during the year used 1,189,081 pounds of milk to make 114,242 pounds of cheese.  At the beginning of 1879, the cheese factory closed out its entire lot of last season’s cheese at 7½ cents per pound, and at the end of that season, cheese was selling at ten cents a pound. Mr. Kemp, the cheese-maker, called one of his products “Young America” cheese, each of which weighed about eight pounds.

 But by 1880, although there were favorable prospects for a good supply of milk and efforts to ensure that “the reputation will be maintained” were favorable (“Wisconsin cheese is commanding a better price in New York’s market than New York cheese”), some of the cheese-makers—as well as some of the dairy farmers—began moving west to the Dakotas.  George W. Kemp leased the factory from Hoxie for the season, and although he had to temporarily close it down in mid-season for lack of milk, the local newspaper reported that he intended “to buy the cream and fresh butter from the farmers as soon as suitable arrangements can be made for regular delivery.”  Business declined; there was greater competition for milk from other local cheese makers. At the end of 1880, Kemp married Mary, the daughter of Hoxie, but that didn’t help his business prospects.

In January 1881, Hoxie placed the Cooksville Cheese Factory up for sale.  “He will also sell his house and lot in connection with the same, if desired,” reported the Evansville Review.   By the next year, the cheese factory was “used as a dwelling house by two families.”  Larger cheese-making operations elsewhere diminished the supply of milk. Hoxie, it seems, was headed for retirement, as was his cheese factory.

“The Dakota fever has broken out afresh,” reported the Evansville Enterprise, and cheese-maker George Kemp (who had been making cheese in Lodi by 1882) and Frank Newman left Cooksville to visit the “beautiful land” of Dakota, the new Western Frontier.

The Dakota Territory had been established in 1861, and the federal Homestead Act of 1862 (160 acres of free land if you remained for five years) made farming prospects there rather appealing.  The Black Hill Gold Rush of the mid-1870s made Dakota even more appealing to the adventurous.  But what ensured a more massive exodus of people to the new Western frontier of Dakota was the completion of the Chicago and North Western Railroad and the Chicago, Milwaukee and St. Paul Railroad in 1880 to the Dakota Territory.

 Early in 1883, Kemp and Newman went for another visit to Dakota, this time joined by several other Cooksvillians.  By the middle of 1883, the Stoughton Hub newspaper reported that the wives of Kemp and Newman “expect to ship their household goods to Dakota this week, for the ‘boys’ write they have the shanties ready…”

A rumor was reported, both in 1883 and 1884, that the Cooksville cheese factory might be started up again, either for cheese or as a creamery.  The Stoughton Hub hoped “the farmers will look to their interests and be ready for their patronage. Dairying will pay and must be the measure of our success in Wisconsin.”  But in March 1884, Hoxie sold all his cheese fixtures to a Mr. Fish of Lone Rock in Richland County.

The Hub also reported on April 3, 1884, that “Mr. B. S. Hoxie has sold his house and lot in the village to Julius Savage, and has taken a temporary residence in his factory building until he decides for a change of location or business. He will sell his fruit farm of fifteen acres, with the building, which can be made into a fine residence at a trifling expense.”  Hoxie retired to Evansville in 1884, and in 1886 he sold the cheese factory building, but he kept his hand in his design business and in his horticultural interests.

Hoxie had been very active in the Wisconsin State Horticultural Society for many years, and in 1893 he managed the Society’s exhibit at the World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago. Many years later, Hoxie’s unusual apples from his fruit farm behind the cheese factory would be re-discovered and re-cultivated. Apples and cheese must have been an especially tasty combination for him.

Today, the prize-winning Cooksville cheese factory has become a simple residence and survives                                  as one of Cooksville’s historic structures.

The Cooksville Cheese Factory

ORGANIZED SOCIAL LIFE: COOKSVILLE’S CLUBS by Larry Reed

Formally organized groups and clubs abounded in 19^th century America, even in the Village of Cooksville. These organizations provided entertainment, amusement and sometimes intellectual stimulation for the residents in this small, isolated village by-passed by the railroad — “the town that time forgot.” 

Wilder Newell, c.1880, farmer

The Cooksville Debating Society spoke out on a number of subjects. For instance, on February 27, 1860, the debate at the schoolhouse by six local men was on the subject, “Secret Organizations are contrary to the spirit of Free Government,” which was decided in the negative. Another debate on March 5, 1860, was on the subject, “Woman’s Rights should be identical with Man’s”; six men and women debated, but the records do not indicate which side prevailed. The debate still goes on in some circles.

Dinner party: Margaret Rice, daughter and dressmaker, Anna Belle, and friends, c.1890

On February 16, 1864, the Stoughton Reporter announced, “The young ladies of Cooksville have a ‘Grand Leap Year Party’ [planned] at the Masonic Hall in that place, Friday evening. The tickets read ‘yourself and gentleman are respectfully invited.’ Room managers, Ellen Galt, Stella Savage, Melvina Howard, and Electa Johnson. Music by Love’s Band. Tickets 25ȼ.”

The Masonic Hall above the General Store was the scene of many such social gatherings, as was the Schoolhouse and the new Cooksville Congregational Church and its basement. Van Vleck’s Hall (the Opera House) on the second floor of the meat market was another venue for certain events, but the record of its use is sparse, except for the Kickapoo Indian Medicine Troupe—which was performing there when the Opera House burned down in 1893.

Fred Miller, farmer, Evansville hotel owner, c.1895

The Cooksville Dramatic Club was a very active cultural institution.  Its first productions, presented at the schoolhouse on Saturday evening, January 25, 1873, were “Miriam’s Crime,” a “glowing comedy,” and “The Irish Tutor,” a “laughable farce,” according to the handbill. Performances began promptly at “7½” and admission was 15 cents, 10 cents for children. So well-received were the plays that the Club had new “scenery painted in Evansville, which will aid in rendering their life-like plays more real still,” and took the productions on the road to Eagle School (Porter Township), and to Stoughton and Fulton. “Down by the Sea” was performed at the Cooksville Congregational Church in 1882, at which “Anderson’s Band will furnish the orchestra music and also for a dance which is to follow at Masonic Hall,” all this after an oyster supper in the church basement. The newspaper reported that the event and “social hop” dance raised “over 60 dollars… towards the church debt.”  Other plays performed were “The Irish Tutor,” “Lost in London” and “Nevada, or the Lost Mine,” which were taken on the road to Stoughton, Brooklyn and the Stebbensville Church. A very busy group of local thespians.

Myrtle Dow, actress, Buenos Aires, London, c.1895

In early 1881, the Cooksville Glee Club gave an entertainment in the new Congregational Church that consisted of “a concert of vocal and instrumental music to conclude with that inimitable play ‘Cool as a Cucumber!’” Later in 1881, the Glee Club, assisted by Porter’s Orchestra Band, presented another concert which concluded “with that mirth-provoking play: “Who is Who? or, All in the Fog.” Most of the funds raised by the ticket sales went to pay for the furnishing in the new church built in 1879, the first and only religious structure in the village for almost 20 years.

The Jolly Club of Cooksville (about which little is known, unfortunately) gave “a rousing New Year’s Party at the Masonic Hall” in early 1886, with about thirty couples in attendance at its first dance. The Evansville newspaper reported it was “a very pleasant party” and also announced that there would be another dance party in February at the Hall and that “arrangements are in progress for the laying of a new canvass so the ladies can wear their Cinderella slippers. Music by the Albion Band, four pieces.” (Rough wooden floorboards with splinters may have been a problem for the dancers.)

Avis, teacher, and brother Paul Savage, farmer, c.1900

In November 1893, the Kickapoo Indian Medicine Troupe arrived in Cooksville for a three-week stay at the Cooksville Opera House, otherwise known as Van Vleck’s Hall, located on the second floor above Van Patten’s and Newkirk’s meat market on the corner of Main and Dane streets. Led by Dr. Red Wolf, the Medicine Troupe performed a series of lectures and entertainments, with “a crowd of small boys are on hand every time,” according to the Evansville Enterprise newspaper.  Dr. Red Wolf had a large display of “old and rare coins, medicines, paraphernalia, etc.” as well as musical instruments used by himself and his two assistants.  Unfortunately, a fire broke out on December 5, 1893, and the Cooksville Opera House and Meat Market burned to the ground. Not one article of Dr, Red Wolf’s paraphernalia was rescued from the devastating fire.

Joseph B. Porter, farmer, c.1884

Beginning in 1901 and for fifty years, Old Settlers Reunions were formally organized and took place on the Public Square in June of every year, weather permitting. (Previously in the late 19^th century “Pioneer Reunions” had taken place now and then.) In addition to the picnic food—“tables decorated with choice flowers and fruits, and loaded with the most delectable achievements of the culinary art” —the Old Settlers Reunions featured entertainments with fond reminiscences shared by the descendents of the old pioneers and with tributes to those who had passed on. Poetry was composed for the occasion and recited, and short plays (such as “Grandmother’s Story” and “Why the Cannon Wasn’t Fired”) depicting Cooksville events were performed.  Music was an important element in the festivities. Jack Robertson provided his award-winning fiddle music as well as tricks with his violin in the 1930s; the Cooksville Lutheran Quartette and the Janesville Male Quartette sang; Webster Johnson played his bagpipes; Eloise Eager played the violin; June Porter sang vocal solos; and a Drum Corps composed of men from the Town of Porter, Evansville and Janesville got feet tapping with their rousing rendition of “Marching Through Georgia.” By the 1950s, the descendents of the 19^th century pioneer settlers had mostly marched on to other locales, and the Reunions ceased.

Later, in the mid-20^th century, the Cooksville Mothers’ Club and the Cooksville Community Center continued the tradition of providing the village with social events, educational programs, and organized activities, in the old Schoolhouse and in the old Congregational Church, as well as in the Cooksville Lutheran Church, which had been constructed in 1897.

Anna Graves, teacher, c.1888

All in all, the Cooksville community embraced their pleasures, enjoyed their leisure, and had a good time. In fact, in 1885 the Evansville Enterprise newspaper concluded that, “The Cooksville people seem to enjoy themselves about the best of any community we know…they have had some delightful gatherings where all joined together as one family without any jealousies or hard feelings, and no scandals or brawls have their starting place there. As a progressive, literary, talented people we think they are above the average.”

[These bits of Cooksville life and history—and many more— are found in the diaries, written memoires, newspaper clippings, letters, personal interviews and stories told to me, all of which are contained in the Cooksville Archives. The Archives is available to interested persons. Donations of photographs, clippings, anecdotes, family histories, etc., are welcomed. Contact Larry Reed, (608) 873-5066 or email lreed@chorus.net.]

Cooksville’s Blacksmith Shops By Larry Reed

Besides grocery stores and meat markets, blacksmith shops appear to have been the most popular businesses to inspire the entrepreneurial spirit in 19^th century Cooksville.

Indispensable in their time, Cooksville’s many blacksmith shops were operated in various locations and for various lengths of time in the village, although in some cases the records are not clear as to the exact location or duration of the businesses. With their red-hot forges and anvils, blacksmith shops were the all-around manufacturing and repair shops— for farm equipment,  wagons and carriages, for horse shoes and harnesses, for household objects and metal work of every kind—and the shops served their purpose on into the 20^th century.

Robertson’s Blacksmith Shop, c.1895

Frank Lloyd Wright’s Chapel for Cooksville By Larry Reed

It’s a little-known fact that in 1934, Frank Lloyd Wright designed a chapel for Cooksville, which he named the “Memorial to the Soil Chapel.” The chapel was commissioned for the Gideon Newman family of Cooksville, one of the early families to settle in the village.

According to Wright, the small Prairie School style family chapel was to be a “Chapel Cast in Concrete” that was inspired by Walt Whitman’s poem, “Pioneers! O Pioneers!”

Wright’s Cooksville Chapel drawing

However, the project was never built, and its exact proposed location is unknown. The only existing evidence of the chapel is an exquisite prospective elevation and plan drawn by Wright, as well as several brief mentions of the project in the Madison Capital Times newspaper in 1934.

Wright’s plan for the Cooksville Chapel became better known in 1992 when it was featured on the cover of the catalogue for an exhibit in Milwaukee celebrating the 125^th anniversary of Wright’s birth. The exhibit was titled, “The Wright State: Frank Lloyd Wright in Wisconsin.”

Apparently, the chapel was designed for the side of a small hill, and, as a Milwaukee newspaper described it in 1992, “[The chapel] breaks from the brow of a hill—a smooth-walled, flat-roofed jewel of parallel lines. Molded from cast concrete, the building both accentuates and pays tribute to the land it embraces.”

On the only existing drawing of the chapel, Wright wrote a description of his design as a “Memorial to the tiller of the ground making the earth a feature of the monument or vice versa.” The plan is a Wrightian design, very horizontal, with very simple geometric shapes inside and out.

Frank Lloyd Wright

Unfortunately, not much more is known about the project. The proposed location near Cooksville is not known, nor is the story behind the Newman family’s commission known. And the reason it was not built is likewise unknown.

The family of Gideon Newman commissioned the chapel. But which family member(s) actually dealt with Frank Lloyd Wright is not known. And the “Gideon Newman family” was a large family that included two “Gideon Newman” members: one, the original pioneer settler of Cooksville and the second, his youngest son with the same name.

The elder Gideon Ellis Newman (1823-1911) and his family settled in Cooksville in 1850, where he lived in what is now the Cooksville Farmhouse Inn on the northwest corner of State Highways 59 and 138,. Newman was a prosperous farmer on land northwest of Cooksville and north of the Badfish Creek.

His youngest son, who may have instigated the project, was also named Gideon Ellis Newman (1860-1944). He attended the University of Wisconsin in the 1880s, taught at the Cooksville School, and owned the family farm for a while and was a lawyer in Nebraska, a banker in northern Wisconsin, and an operator of an orange grove for a time in Alabama. He also lived in Chicago, Dallas, Janesville, Evansville, and San Francisco, where he died.

This younger Gideon Newman may have known Frank Lloyd Wright at the University of Wisconsin, where both were in attendance in 1886, and Newman most likely knew of this famous architect by the 1930s. It seems very likely that he initiated the 1934 Wright commission for the family. (Of course it is possible another member of the “Gideon Newman” family—children or grandchildren—may have played a role in commissioning the design of the “Cooksville Chapel” for the pioneering “Gideon Newman family.”)

And it seems reasonable that the proposed location for the Cooksville chapel may have been on the old Newman farmland north of the village on the north side of the Badfish Creek.

Unfortunately, the “Memorial to the Soil Chapel,” was never built in or near Cooksville. It would have been a unique addition to the architecture and the history of “the Town that Time Forgot.”

A Wright-designed window

COOKSVILLE’S SOCIAL LIFE: PARTIES, PICNICS AND PRANKS (PART TWO) by Larry Reed

Cooksvillians found many ways to entertain themselves, according to newspaper clippings, diary entries and remembered anecdotes found in the Cooksville Archives.

Jack Robertson, award-winning fiddler, c. 1920

The Centennial of the U.S.A. in 1876 was celebrated in several ways. In Cooksville a 100-foot flag pole was erected on the Public Square with appropriate patriotic music, songs and speeches. Also, in 1876, as the Evansville Review reported, the people of Cooksville were “celebrating the 17th of June, in Mr. Dow’s beautiful grove, with some appropriate national jollification ….with a fine breeze, excellent music…They always have a good time over there.”

An “Apron and Necktie Supper” party in Cooksville scheduled for December 11, 1886, was announced in the Evansville Review by its Cooksville Correspondent: “The Good Templars [a temperance group] will give an Apron Sociable in the basement of the [Congregational] church Sat. Evening, Dec. 11th. Each lady will please make an apron leaving six inches unhemmed and a necktie of the same material as the apron. The neckties will be placed in envelopes and sold. Each gentleman is to finish hemming the apron like his necktie. Two prizes will be given, one to the best hemmer, and one to the poorest hemmer. Each lady will provide supper for two. Apron, necktie and supper all for twenty-five cents. It is astonishing how patiently and perseveringly the boys are practicing sewing in preparation for this event. There promises to be quite a strife for the best prize—and for aught your humble correspondent can tell, the prize may be the neatest little housekeeper in town, providing of course, that the winner is not already married, in which case a wig may be substituted.” (Two weeks later it was reported in the newspaper that, “The first prize at the Apron Social was a moustache cup, and a young fellow won it who hadn’t a sign of down on his lip!’)

In 1888, an unusual kind of party popular in Cooksville was reported in the Evansville Tribune of Feb. 4, 1888. Apparently, folks would burst into someone’s home, unannounced, to instigate a party. “They call ‘em surprise parties, one came to our house last Tuesday as we were gathered around our evening meal, with our favorite dish of raw onions and vinegar for desert (sic). We ‘riz right up’ and made them welcome, then we played all the kissing games from Copenhagen to ‘spat ‘em out’ and finished up with a good old fashioned codtillion (sic), while the good Deacon looked on and wished, alas, that he was young and could trip the ‘light fantastic toe’ its way home to the music of the ‘bells, bells, bells.’” Wild times in Cooksville, with this party probably at the home of one of the Danish Hansens. (Maybe you had to be there.)

Pony cart on the Square with the flag pole, c. 1900

The Cooksville Public Square was the scene of many community events, especially picnics. In 1889, a race track was constructed around the perimeter, “which when completed will be very handy for those who have horses to train.” Tickets to use the track could be purchased at the Post Office (in one of the Stores) or at the Broom Factory across Webster Street on the west side of the Square. And in the same year, according to this Evansville newspaper article, “there will be a base ball ground laid out and all league clubs including Evansville and Chicago will be invited to play on this ground.” The ball games on the Public Square brought the men and boys of the village together on Saturday afternoons. A 1900 photograph shows the Cooksville Cornhuskers baseball team posed for a group picture. And in the winter, “The boys had fine sport skating on the mill pond.”

The Cooksville Cornhuskers baseball team, 1900.

There was even a wrestling match in Cooksville reported in 1858: “The contest between Graves of Cooksville and Lane of Fond du Lac came off at Cooksville Tuesday—Graves won the stake of $100. Everything went off pleasantly.” In the late 1880s, the circus came to Cooksville—or, at least, it passed through the village. As a child, Lillian Graves remembered it: “Circuses would perform in Stoughton and then travel overland to Evansville by way of Cooksville. My father would get us up at 4 a.m. on circus day, and we would line up on Main Street to see the animals and circus wagons as they went by. The calliope would play in parade and horses, elephants and camels were led on foot with the wagon cages displaying the more ferocious beasts. It never occurred to us that we might attend a circus performance, and this brief glimpse of circus life was quiet sufficient. We would talk about it for days.” Another form of entertainment, occasionally presented at the Cooksville Schoolhouse for the children, was the ‘panorama show.” This was an early form of a “picture show” in which a series of scenes or pictures, sometimes of Civil War battles, that had been painted on large, rolled-up canvases were slowly unrolled in panoramic succession before the audience, like a moving mural. In 1886, the children eagerly watched the pictures unfold before their eyes, although the adults apparently were not so fascinated by this old-fashioned “class of entertainment.” “Play Day” was an exciting and eagerly-anticipated event for the Cooksville School children and for the kids from the other Town of Porter schools who came to the Public Square to compete in sports and other events, and those happy Days were fondly remembered long after all those one-room schools closed in the early 1960s. In the mid-20th century out-door movies arrived in Cooksville. In 2012, when the Cooksville General Store was being re-painted, it was reported that, “Jerry [Julseth] is enjoying watching the store being painted and now that they are painting the north side, he plans to go over and tell Mr. Imhoff [the painter] about how the Cooksville store showed movies on that side of the store on Saturday evenings in the summer. The village kids remember going into the store and getting pop corn and watching Roy Rogers and other cowboy movies which were projected on the side of the store. They would bring their blankets along and enjoy the show.” Life in old Cooksville also included its share of “fun” pranks that amused the village, or at least pleased the pranksters. One of the more “popular” and frequent pranks reported was the stealthy late-night opening of the gates on the mill pond, which lowered the water level and left the Cooksville mill inoperable and the miller unable to grind that day.

Making apple cider with Ralph Warner, 1917

Other pranks recorded included the Halloween-night tarring of Ralph Warner’s front stoop—sticky steps that may or may not have amused the owner. At another time, the rope was taken from the flagpole on the Public Square and stretched across the road and broken into pieces (either by horse-drawn carriages or Model-T Fords). And William Porter’s water pump got filled with sand, and Mr. Newell’s hay-mower mysteriously ended up on top of his blacksmith shop one night. “Who did it?” The answer given in the reports was often, “The Boys.” Asked one reporter, “Is it ‘The Boys’ that lower people’s woodpiles in the night?” Another prank—really, a turning of the tables on young Halloween pranksters who loved tipping over outhouses— was the moving of his out-house by Mr. Van Wormer himself, about three feet off its foundation and away from its hole-in-the-ground, so that the nighttime pranksters who approached the outhouse, no doubt to turn it over or steal it, had an unexpected and unpleasant “drop-in” down the hole— much to Mr. Van Wormer’s great delight, no doubt. In the 1890s, village boys played an elaborate prank on William and Marshall Ray. The Rays were two middle-aged bachelor brothers who lived on the Square and owned farmland outside the village, which they worked with a pair of mules. The ownership of mules was unusual at the time. The Rays brothers were well-liked and the local boys would often visit them. According to Lillian Graves’ reminiscences, one evening, village boys, including her two younger brothers, Wayne and Willie, “managed to get the two mules out of the barn and changed their colors from brown to white by administering liberal coats of whitewash. Then Wayne and another boy went to call on the Ray brothers who were sitting on their front porch. Two other young pranksters had been delegated to hitch up the mules and drive them by the Ray home. As they came into sight, one of the [Ray] brothers remarked with some surprise, ‘Other folks have mules as well as we.’ This simple yarn was repeated over and again in Cooksville, and almost became a folk legend.” Even Cooksville’s young pranksters helped to entertain the village.

[These bits of Cooksville life and history—and many more— are found in the diaries, memoires, newspaper clippings, letters, personal interviews and oral histories, all of which are contained in the Cooksville Archives. The Archives is available to interested persons. Donations of photographs, clippings, anecdotes, family histories, etc., are welcomed. Contact Larry Reed, (608) 873-5066 or email lreed@chorus.net.]