Chippewa Valley Museum

Chippewa Valley Museum Looking for things to do in Eau Claire? Not just your every day attraction. Jack Arnold, president of the L.G.

Explore the history and culture of the Chippewa Valley through exhibits, events, and our research library at Chippewa Valley Museum. The Chippewa Valley Historical Society, founded in 1952, began to build support for opening a museum with a display in Eau Claire’s Public Library, followed by two “History on Display” exhibits in 1964 and 1965, and a display in the Barstow School in 1965.

1966 the

Chippewa Valley Museum opens its doors in the former Meader Candy Factory just north of downtown Eau Claire. Arnold Construction Company, housed upstairs, donates space on the first floor of the building for use by the museum.

1967 the building is sold, and the museum is without a home.

1968 – 1974 UWEC houses the Chippewa Valley Museum at 129 Chippewa Street in a house they had purchased for future development. While the museum had the use of three rooms they could only accommodate the displays and a total of 10 people at a time.

1972 ground was broken for the museum’s present location in Eau Claire’s Carson Park

1974 the Chippewa Valley Museum opens its doors to the public in its present location.

1976 the Anderson Log Home is donated to the museum

1977 the Schlegelmilch House, an example of an early 20th century merchant’s home in downtown Eau Claire, is donated to the museum

Today the Chippewa Valley Museum continues to gather memories, save ideas, and share stories to create a community that connects diverse audiences with all facets of the culture and history of the Chippewa Valley.

Marie Anderson, an Eau Claire resident, was born in 1888 in Denmark. In June of 1933, she was a patient at the Mendota A...
06/16/2026

Marie Anderson, an Eau Claire resident, was born in 1888 in Denmark. In June of 1933, she was a patient at the Mendota Asylum in Madison. On June 25 Marie was taken out of the asylum by George C. Jensen (her sister’s husband) and Anton Oleson for a ride to get ice cream.

Marie passed away at 4 am on June 26. She was buried two days later. Her cause of death was heart failure, but an investigation determined that there was white powder found in her organs. Dr. M.K. Green, Superintendent of Mendota said that she bought rat poison with arsenic and ingested it, so her death was a su***de. The committee wondered why her cause of death was heart failure and not self-ingested poison.

They committee wanted to talk with some of the inmates who knew Marie. Dr. Green sent all the patients back to Mendota before they could be interviewed, telling the committee he was not comfortable with them testifying until they had been cleared by their psychiatrist. The committee agreed, but they chose their own doctor.

After all the inmates had been questioned, the committee learned that at one point, Marie threw up and said she was too sick to clean it up, so the attendant beat her. One patient also said Marie was given epsom salts to settle down her stomach, but they accidentally gave her the powdered acid that was used to clean the bedsheets.

Sadly, it had been more than a year, and her autopsy was done so quickly the committee could not verify that the poison that killed her was the sheet cleaning acid solution or rat poison. They recommended that both Dr. Green and Dr. Sauthoff be fired but several months later, they were both still in their jobs.

There is a record of Marie’s funeral at St. Stephens Church in Camp Douglas but no record of her burial. Only her mother, brother, and sister attended the funeral.

The only thing that changed after this long investigation was that it was determined attendants working 12-14 hours got more abusive at the end of their shifts, so it was recommended they work 8-hour days. No justice for Karen Marie Hansine (Hansen) Anderson, which was her legal name on the funeral register. Diana, Editor

📷laviniagoodell.com

Chippewa Valley Museum's new exhibit is The U.S. at 250: From the Collections 1876-1926. “This is US at 250” social med...
06/13/2026

Chippewa Valley Museum's new exhibit is The U.S. at 250: From the Collections 1876-1926. “This is US at 250” social media series continues the exhibit theme. A Menomonie brick is the subject of today’s “This Is Us at 250.”

After the logging era moved west, Chippewa Valley towns and cities were diversifying their economic sources. After being bought and sold a few times, a local brick company in Menomonie was incorporated as the Menomonie Brick Co. in 1912.

Fires destroyed many local homes and businesses. The rich clay soil around Menomonie was turned into bricks that significantly shaped the regional architecture in the early 1900s. The Menomonie Brick Co. produced millions of bricks before it closed in the late 1960s.They sold bricks as far west as North Dakota and Minnesota. Diana, Editor

Menomonie Brick Co. brick, 2124-0001, 1910s

🧵 From Quilt to Video Quilt 🎥Back in 1976, Roosevelt Elementary 6th graders stitched America’s symbols into a bicentenni...
06/10/2026

🧵 From Quilt to Video Quilt 🎥

Back in 1976, Roosevelt Elementary 6th graders stitched America’s symbols into a bicentennial quilt — the Statue of Liberty, the flag, a settler’s wagon, parchment and quill, even Abraham Lincoln and George Washington.

Now, 50 years later, PBS Wisconsin is collecting voices instead of stitches. They’re creating a “video quilt” of people’s thoughts about America today.

📍 Chippewa Valley Museum, 1204 East Half Moon Drive
🗓 Wednesday, June 10
⏰ 9–11 am

Stop by, share your story, and add your square to the quilt of voices.

You are invited to a dinner party. One of your first questions might be: “Who else is coming?” One of our guests is Ralp...
06/09/2026

You are invited to a dinner party. One of your first questions might be: “Who else is coming?” One of our guests is Ralph Benjamin Pond.

If you are an avid baseball fan and think you know all the professional baseball players from Eau Claire, I might surprise you today.

Ralph Benjamin Pond was born in Eau Claire in 1888. Both his parents were born in Wisconsin. When Ralph was 9, the family moved to Maine. Ralph attended the University of Maine after high school and began playing baseball. In 1910 he was recruited by the Boston Red Sox as a center fielder. Ralph took the field June 8 with four at-bats, one single, and one error. Sadly, that was the extent of his career in the pros.

By 1911 Ralph was working for Allied Machinery Co. in Ohio. The following year he returned to Eau Claire where he played hockey for a short time. In 1913, he signed with an Eau Claire semi pro baseball team and worked for Cornell Wood Products. His parents had returned to Eau Claire, and he lived with them at 321 Lincoln Avenue.

Eventually Ralph moved to Chicago to work as an engineer. There he married Naoma Swearingen in 1917, but they were divorced after seven years and two children. Ralph started a construction company back in Ohio and in 1925 he married Bertha Grannis. They lived happily ever after until 1947 when Ralph passed away from a heart attack. Ralph was cremated but both his parents are buried in Forest Hill Cemetery. Diana, Editor

📷CVM #311620-0003-0001

Chippewa Valley Museum's new exhibit is The U.S. at 250: From the Collections 1876-1926. “This is US at 250” social med...
06/07/2026

Chippewa Valley Museum's new exhibit is The U.S. at 250: From the Collections 1876-1926. “This is US at 250” social media series continues the exhibit theme. We will be looking at museum artifacts through the end of the year. We have a fun artifact today: a folding, portable bathtub.

Moseley Folding Bathtubs were ingenious space-saving solutions for homes that lacked running water or bathrooms. They were made in the 1880s and 1890s in Chicago. Encased in wood, the bathtubs folded up to look like a cabinet. When unfolded, they became a full-size bath with a built-in kerosene heater.

Users filled the heater with buckets of water and waited 20 minutes for it to reach the correct bathing temperature. While they were convenient, there were safety concerns combining flammable materials and heaters. Because they were not attached to permanent plumbing they had to be manually drained into a bucket after each use. As indoor plumbing became more popular in the early 1900s, the era of the folding bathtub ended. Diana Peterson, Editor

PS, if you get a chance to visit the Chippewa Valley Museum’s Schlegemilch House, you can see this tub in person.

Mosley folding bathtub, CVM #444-0022, late 1800s

Then & Now: Laboratory School, 1952, Wisconsin State College at Eau ClaireBefore it was Campus School -- before it was ...
06/06/2026

Then & Now: Laboratory School, 1952, Wisconsin State College at Eau Claire

Before it was Campus School -- before it was Park Elementary -- it was simply the Lab School. Built by LG Arnold Inc., the Lab School was part of a campus cluster that once included Brewer Hall, Kjer Theatre, and Zorn Arena. All are gone now — and the Lab School building was the first to disappear in the early 2010s.

Created as a training school for future teachers, it featured state‑of‑the‑art observation glass so education students could watch real classroom interactions from kindergarten through 8th grade.

UW–Eau Claire ended the Campus School program in 1973, and the building was leased to the Eau Claire School District. ECASD named its new school Park Elementary (good name for a school on Park Avenue) and operated it until the early 1990s. After that, UWEC used the space until it was razed to make way for Centennial Hall which is still the center for teacher education.

And that's a wrap for the school year! Enjoy the summer. -- Carrie, Director

📷: Laboratory School, Park Avenue, August 1952 (Chippewa Valley Museum 867000-0040-001)
📷: Centennial Hall on a very quiet Saturday morning, 6 June 2026. Staff photo

Chippewa Valley Museum's mighty team of docents and educational staff gathered for a year-end ice cream social on June 2...
06/04/2026

Chippewa Valley Museum's mighty team of docents and educational staff gathered for a year-end ice cream social on June 2. Between March 3, when Meadowview Elementary kicked off the ECASD 3rd grade tour season, and June 2, when Caddie Woodlawn 4th grade wrapped things up, this team—plus a few more not pictured—served more than 2,500 students and 700 adult chaperones.

Wow!! That’s hundreds of individual tours.

These are the folks who bring history alive for kids, and they’re all beautiful people. Thank you. 🙏

And an aside—after weeks and weeks of storytelling, John still had one more tale in him… because of course he did. 😉

June 3 is World Bicycle Day but hey, any day can be bicycle day. Pick up a Bicycling into History guide at The Local Sto...
06/03/2026

June 3 is World Bicycle Day but hey, any day can be bicycle day. Pick up a Bicycling into History guide at The Local Store or Chippewa Valley Museum on your next bicycle day and discover a bit more about Eau Claire's past.

But don't be a "scorcher" like this guy. Scorchers were bicyclists who shot past pedestrians at dangerous speeds. Remember your bicycling etiquette. That's our mom advice of the day.

📷: Unidentified bicyclist modeling a "scorcher" pose, 1897 (Chippewa Valley Museum 507000-0006-001)

There have been people who made a big impact on the Chippewa Valley without living here long. Sister Superior Calista wa...
06/02/2026

There have been people who made a big impact on the Chippewa Valley without living here long. Sister Superior Calista was one of those people. Sister Calista was born in Germany but lived in the United States for more than 35 years. She arrived in Eau Claire in 1919 and was the Supervisor of the Operating Rooms at Sacred Heart Hospital. Three years later she found herself being summoned to Decatur, Illinois, where she worked for sixteen years.

In 1938, she, now known as Sister Superior Calista, returned to Eau Claire to assume charge of the entire hospital. She was only in that position for three years before she passed away, but she accomplished a lot in those three years. She oversaw a remodel of the maternity ward, adding an additional labor room, updating lighting, and constructing quarters for doctors on call. This remodel also upgraded lighting in the operating rooms and installed a paging system to locate doctors quickly throughout the hospital. She organized the Sacred Heart Hospital Guild and oversaw the Golden Jubilee celebrating the fiftieth anniversary of Sacred Heart.

Sister Calista was well respected, and upon her death, she was “praised for her high attributes of character, her great charity, her motherly heart, her ability and energy, all which contributed to the success of her administration of affairs of the hospital.”

Although she suffered from heart disease, she devoted long hours to managing the hospital. She went off duty at 6:30 one night in February 1941 and passed away at 7:30 the next morning. Her funeral was held at the Sacred Heart Chapel, and then Mother Magdalene traveled to Eau Claire to transport Sister Calista to Springfield, Illinois by train on the 400 where she was buried at the St. Frances Convent, one of the largest in the US. Her contributions in Eau Claire continued to benefit families for decades after she was gone. Diana, Editor

📷Sister Superior Calista, Eau Claire Leader 2-7-1941

Address

1204 East Half Moon Drive
Eau Claire, WI
54703

Opening Hours

Tuesday 5pm - 8pm
Wednesday 12pm - 5pm
Thursday 12pm - 5pm
Friday 12pm - 5pm
Saturday 10am - 5pm

Telephone

(715) 834-7871

Website

Alerts

Be the first to know and let us send you an email when Chippewa Valley Museum posts news and promotions. Your email address will not be used for any other purpose, and you can unsubscribe at any time.

Contact The Museum

Send a message to Chippewa Valley Museum:

Shortcuts

Share

Category