Rusk County Historical Society Museum

05/13/2026

Extra! Extra! The Rusk County Historical Society Museum brick fundraiser is live! Honor the past. Build the future. Buy a personalized brick to honor a loved one, celebrate your family, or commemorate your business; and support the Rusk County Historical Society! Follow the link for details:
https://www.thatsmybrick.com/ruskcountymuseum

Your brick purchase lets you partner with the Rusk County Historical Society as we preserve and share the history of Rusk County through museum exhibits, historic buildings, and community education efforts. As we receive brick orders, you'll be able to come and see your brick lining the sidewalks at the museum.

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04/10/2026

04/10/2026

The Teacher's Cabin has needed work done on the foundation. The cabin has been lifted and moved so repairs can be done. When the repairs are complete, the building will be moved back on the new foundation. The handicap ramp will be reconnected and the building will have some siding repair and it will be repainted.

04/05/2026

03/24/2026

Our Curator Jim Woelfer, showing a recent series of memorabilia given to the Museum by Malon Heath.
The map showing much of the topography of the Town of Dewey including the Village of Tony, the Heath farm and the Development area to the north of the Flambeau River. All of his medals earned through his membership in 4H...his photos taken with prize winning cattle, along with two awards that Malon earned from his career as a salesman for silo companies.
Malon Heath, a farm boy raised in Tony, Wisconsin, who grew up proud of his school, his upbringing on the farm, and the farming way of life. His contribution of these artifacts will eventually be on display in the Farm Building at Rusk County Historical Museum. Thank you Malon for sharing your items and story with all of us.

03/21/2026

Congratulation to Mary Reisner. She is the winner of the "What is it" at the Spring Expo. Her name was drawn out of the 14 correct answers. The correct answer was Corn Cutter. You can come see it on display in the kitchen of the 20's House.

03/16/2026

Hope to see you this Wednesday, March 18 for our History Speaker series. Join us to hear Ron Weber present about the History of Conservation in Wisconsin.

03/15/2026

The Spring Expo was fun. The what's it was a vintage corn cutter. the winner will be announce later.

03/13/2026

An interest in history and the discovery, preservation and sharing of the stories, and the items that tell those stories, is an everyday part of the Rusk County Historical Museum.
If you have never been out to the Museum you're in for a treat!! There are 16 buildings that hold hundreds of displays and artifacts and an impressive library made up of historical books about the area, books that were written by well known residents, including doctors, newspapermen and teachers. Among these are the books written by John Terrill about Ladysmith and the Railroad which was his passion.
The 20s house that contains the furnishings of a house of that age. Contained in that house is a wonderful old piano that has hundreds of signatures on its wooden surface, put there by visitors to this gentlemans home. Each one of those signatures, a reminder of those wonderful hours spent in conversations, and the get to gethers, where those old keys played beautiful music.
The Vintage Building where the stories of Blanche Tiffany of Tiffany Studios, a well known photographer for the Ladysmith News back in the early days. An Iron Lung from the 40's used when Polio was on the rise. The history of our shopkeepers and well known barbers, historys and displays from churches and schools. Famous sons and well loved doctors are represented here.
The Logging and Farm buildings, full of the high tech from the 30s and 40's.
The Veterans building, with displays that remember the price paid by those who didn't make it home from the military and honoring those that served in all branches of the military.
The Wisconsin Plow Museum that houses the plow collection of Ed Tomasovich. Believe it or not there are many kinds of plows made for different areas of the US.
The Log Cabin that really does bring yesterday to life.
The Welcome Building that houses the library that I mentioned. Large oversized books of old newspapers from the area, plat books and autobiographies of well known residents.
The members and volunteers come from the strong group of people who homesteaded the area.
This is where I would like to introduce to you someone whose name you probably remember. She was the Curator for over 20 years and her name was Betty Silvernale. The Little Red Schoolhouse was one of her passions. She was there when the old school building first made its appearance on the grounds of the Museum. This schoolhouse, an authentic one room schoolhouse, was moved from the Glen Flora area, bringing to mind Miss Beadle, the school teacher on Little House on the Prairie. Inside you will see the teachers desk, black board and childrens wooden desks. Along with school books from that long ago era.
Right next to Little Red is the teachers cabin. These were small houses that were provided for the teachers that traveled from schoolhouse to schoolhouse.
Betty Silvernale was so much more than a school teacher. During the Second World War, Betty worked in the Shipyards in Sausalito cutting steel plates for the construction of Liberty Ships. After the war she came back to Wisconsin teaching first at the Kinnamon Indian School in Hayward, and in total 39 years in Rusk County Schools in Bruce, Progressive School Conrath and the School District of Flambeau. Betty made many friends in her career, through teaching, community work 4H and her work as the Curator for 20 plus years at the Museum.
The interest in history is a natural part of a teacher's job, so no wonder she became an active member of the Historical Society. When you open the 1983 Rusk County History book and look up Bettys maiden name LaBerge, you will find five or more pages that tell the stories of those first LaBerges. They were definitely early settlers of Rusk County.
A Curator of a museum is a job where you learn something new every day with the incoming stories and pieces that are donated to the Museum.
The Curator is also the storyteller, and a mystery solver. When people come to the museum with an object of interest, the conversation might start out "This was in my Grandma's attic. I'm not sure what it was for but I'd sure love to know more about it!!"
Those items are cataloged, cleaned and put on display after the complete story of the artifact can be told. The ability to tell these stories and the thousands of other stories, is the job of the Museum, and is only one part of the Curator job.
Because of wonderful people like Betty those stories were lovingly researched and every year when the Museum opened she was there to lead one classroom at a time through each and every building answering questions and holding the attention of every student. All of these stories are told in the wonderful exhibits, things saved by residents that wanted us to remember what was.
Curators like Betty Silvernale who worked tirelessly for 20 plus years and then Janet Platteter who took over the tasks for the following 25...improving each exhibit as the items were donated.
Today with Jim Woelfer as our Curator, the exhibits grow and change as he is puts his touch and expertise into the ever growing visual history book that presents itself when you open the doors of the Museum.
The Museum is the story of us, told by the citizens of Rusk County and the volunteers and Curators of the Museum. Come and see us during our 50 year birthday celebration of the Opening Ceremony and Dedication of the Little Red School House. We are open by appointment at the Welcome Building from Memorial Day to Labor Day. All Buildings will be open in the spring !! Call for more information at Jim Woelfers number 715 532 6576 and please leave a message..

01/11/2026

A History book is just a book after all. Like a diary that records names of people, names of places, dates, facts, photos, maps. The people mentioned, could be the ones that the places were named after. As years go by, those names are just names. But in fact, each and every name may still be written in stone on a building, might be the name of a road, a park, it might be the name of the person whose family still lives in the area that the History Book has written about. Those people who wrote that book are interested in giving credit where credit is due to those people.
Newcomers might wonder why the house is named the Lady Smith House. How Menasha Avenue got its name.
Back in 1955 Rusk County Historical Society was brought to life by a group of people who wanted to celebrate the history of Rusk County. These names included O.J. Falge... (you're right just like the park by the south east corner of Ladysmith.) Bob Inabinit (photographer and reporter for the Ladysmith News). Chester Burt who came from Nebraska just after the Dust Bowl days settled here and bought the Rusk County Reporter from Al Johnson. Chester's wife was a teacher at Tony Schools. Elmer Hill, Marilyn Hanson, Rita Berge (teacher at Flambeau School), Elna Mincoff, Irene Brown and Magdalene Serly.
OJ Falge was instrumental as he was the first President of the Rusk County Historical Society. Research into the history of logging and the building of railroads were of interest back in the early days of the Museum. Those trains which brought jobs and supplies into the area, also brought people who came here to homestead the cutover land left by the logging companies. Our Grandparents and Great-grandparents.
In the late 60s a new group of people like Bernice Dukerschein (Artisans), Norman Maxon (Maxon Road), Louis Hill (teacher in Flambeau School District, Don McEtheron, Jim McCabe (historian), Bob Miller, Phil Swentonowski and Bill Jipson, took over the former members positions or added their voices, stories and names to the history of the Museum.
This group was instrumental in the Historical Map of Rusk County, the moving of the Little Red School from rural Glen Flora/Tony area to Ladysmith, and restoring the Appolonia Church.
Their list of projects soon gathered objects that needed to be displayed where the public could see them. A place where people could access their history.
Henry Golat and others later initiated the building of the Welcome Center and the Log Cabin, and bit by bit year by year more buildings were added. The Veterans building, the Vintage building, the Farm and Logging building, the Twenty's House, the Plow Museum, the teachers cottage, and the Gates Court house.
John Terrill, also a photographer and reporter for the Ladysmith News, was the man who brought the history of the railroad in Rusk County in his books about the Soo Line and acquisitions of railroad memorabilia that are on display at the Museum. Curator's, Betty Silvernale, Janet Platteter and now Jim Woelfer have added wonderful things to the museum as they acquired and displayed each and every object that you see.
In 1983 a book was proofread and the final draft printed called "The History of Rusk County". In it are hundreds of stories submitted by first settlers of Rusk County, household names to those of us born and raised here. Not everyone was mentioned, some did not participate, but those that did told the stories of how they came to Rusk County, what their life was like, how many brothers and sisters they had, and added stories about their early days in the area.
Some came with the first settlers in the late 1800's, working in the logging camps, or on the railroad, or building dams. They set up homesteads, cleared the land built a barn for the cow and the horses. They plowed, tilled, raised crops, and ran trap lines. Later, they built one room school houses and sent milk from a barn that had more cows than just one to the Cheese Factories that dotted Rusk County. General Stores and Feed Mills sprang up in the landscape, blacksmith shops, gas stations. Many of these tiny towns had their own newspapers.
The History of Rusk County is preserved within the pages of that book printed in 1983, within the plat books and first hand accounts of Rusk County's first residents and within the walls of the Museum. The stories of those that served their country in the Civil War, the First and Second World Wars, Korea, Vietnam and Desert Storm, Desert Shield. We celebrate yesterday, show you where we started and how far we come...and honor those hearty souls that gave Rusk County the greatest of start's. Give our Curator Jim Woelfer a call at 715-532-6576 leave a message and let him know how we can help you find information about our area and stories about ancestors of yours that called Rusk County Home. We are open from Memorial Day to Labor Day and by appointment.