Museum Hours

The Wild Rose Pioneer Museum is open on Wednesdays and Saturdays from mid-June to Labor Day from 1 to 4 p.m. Last tour starts at 3 p.m.

Admission

Adults      $1.00 ~ Children  50¢

Gift Shop

Open weekdays from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.

Located on State Highway 22 in

Wild Rose, Wisconsin.

[click on map for a better view]

    In the early 1850's Welsh, Norwegian and English immigrants walked into the wilderness of central Wisconsin that had "never known the mark of an axe." In the Pioneer Museum you visualize those people and the way they lived by seeing their tools, arts and crafts; and feeling their hopes and dreams as they subdued the wilderness. Their land cost $1.25 per acre.

     The Pioneer Museum is owned and operated by the Wild Rose Historical Society of Wisconsin. The Reuben Thwaite Trophy for outstanding achievement was awarded to the Wild Rose Historical Society.

Elisha Stewart House

     Visualize the way the family lived in 1884 when Elisha Stewart, a cobbler, and his wife Jane built their home in the new village of Wild Rose. The house is furnished in the 1880 period, when family entertainment consisted of playing the reed organ and looking at the photograph album and stereoptican slides.

Barn and Blackmith Shop

    The open door is an invitation into the little barn to see the implements used in felling the forest, breaking the land, planting, cultivating and harvesting the crops. And there is a cobbler's bench where shoes were made for pioneer families. Now, follow the curved brick walk to the blacksmith shop to see how the smithy made the tools and implements with which the pioneers built their cabins and broke the virgin soil.

The Gift Shop

    This building was once a cobbler, harness shop, and the country store where calico could be bought for 12 cents a yard and soap for 5 cents a bar. It now houses a gift shop where handmade gifts are sold. This building is also used as a spinning room where the process of making homespun cloth from homegrown flax and wool can be demonstrated. Of special interest are the coverlet and quilt exhibits. Also on exhibit is an old time wooden loom.

Carriage House

    Have you ever ridden in a horse-drawn sleigh or gone with a bucket to the street to get the day's supply of milk from the milk wagon? Have you ever seen firemen running down the street pulling a fire cart? Step into the Carriage House to see the vehicles of long ago.

Pioneer Hall

     In the back room of this one-time bank is a drug store where patent medicines to "cure diseases of the stomach, liver and kidneys" could be purchased. Among the many interesting exhibits of local history shown in Pioneer Hall are antique dolls and toys, old photographs, a bank vault, newspapers telling of a bank robbery and a century-old map, plus many other exhibits.

Country School

    The country school was built in 1894. In 1983 it was purchased and moved to the museum grounds where it was restored and authentically furnished by the Waushara County Retired Teachers who now act as guides.

The Smoke House

     Step inside the smoke house and smell the smokey fragrance from over a century of meat curing. Look up to see the handmade hooks and nails from which the meat was hung.

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