By Michael Skubal - Daily News Staff

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The Oneida County Courthouse is celebrating 100 years in 2008. Events have been going on since the first of the year, beard growing contests, poster contests involving the area’s fourth graders as well as an essay contest involving high school students.

Two Centennial quilts have been fashioned and there was a float in the 4th of July parade.

The Centennial culminates with two significant dates: Saturday, Sept. 20, and Saturday, Nov. 8.

Guy Hansen, Co-chair of the Centennial Celebration, talked about plans.

“On Sept. 20, we’ll be celebrating by recreating 1908. On Nov. 8, the focus is the re-dedication of the courthouse, with a reenactment of the laying of the cornerstone by the Masons, as was done in 1908.”

September 20 activities include reenactments in period dress on the courthouse square, horse and buggy driving, an old-fashioned picnic, guided tours of the courthouse, a quilt display, food booths, live period music and guided tours of City Hall, also celebrating 100 years, by Mayor Dick Johns.

At the same time, events will be taking place at Pioneer Park. The Logging Museum Complex, featuring staff in period dress, will serve a lumberjack stew dinner from Lynn’s Catering at 11 a.m. with sawdust pie made in the kitchen of the Brown Street Brewery.

There will be two short plays by the Recurring Theater Company, A Meeting of the Rhinelander Women’s Club in 1908 at 10:30 a.m. and The Gift Shop, at 1:30 p.m.

Music by Bill Kaul and friends can be heard throughout the day. A baseball game with 1908 rules and dress will be played on the Pioneer Park ballfield and horse drawn wagon rides to the courthouse and city hall will be offered.

On Nov. 8, a full day is planned that includes a pancake breakfast at the Masonic Lodge, guided courthouse tours, ongoing live music in the courthouse rotunda, a laying-of-the-cornerstone ceremony, birthday cake and the quilt raffle drawing.

An ongoing event is the walking tour of area homes, researched and developed by Joy Vancos. The walking tour brochure is a compendium of information about homes in the courthouse square area of downtown Rhinelander.

According to the brochure, “the majority of the houses in the area were built before 1894 and many families retained ownership for over fifty years; children inherited property or built or purchased homes near where they had been raised.

By 1920, many of these grand homes were occupied by single women, widows of the early pioneers, who took in boarders to fill the empty rooms. After WWII, when the trend turned to smaller, one-story homes, a large number of these houses were remodeled into apartments.”

A complete list of the Courthouse Centennial’s upcoming events and photos of the historical building can be found at the Oneida County website:www.co.oneida.wi.gov under quick links. For more information or to find out where to find a walking tours brochure, call Guy Hansen at 282-5810 or Co-chair Bob Bruso at 369-6144.

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Artwork wrote on Aug 6, 2008 7:53 PM: " There will also be a new large mural at City Hall. The planning has been going on for months and the painting is getting underway. It will feature many historical and cultural community things related to Rhinelander - from the past and for the future! " The comments above are from readers. In no way do they represent the views of the Rhinelander Daily News.

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