Racine Heritage Museum

09/01/2026

Remember a couple weeks ago when we told you about our 1888 Bohemian Schoolhouse? Well guess what! We do educational programs there. Your group, whether they be history enthusiasts or students, can book a day to go to the schoolhouse and experience what it was like to go to school in 1888. This program dives into the history of bohemian settlement in Caledonia, rules and discipline for students, and lessons in reading and arithmetic.
Visit www.racineheritagemuseum.org to learn more about our educational programs!

08/29/2026

Its that time of year again! We are celebrating Racine County's athletic prowess with our Sports Hall of Fame event. Over the next several weeks leading up to the event, we will be highlighting the skilled individuals who are being inducted this year.

First up is James Abbott, a powerful wrestler at Park High School. In 1969, Abbott had the distinction of winning all 28 of his 112-pound matches, capped with Wisconsin Interscholastic Athletic Association state championship

08/27/2026

We're back at it with our second post giving a final send off to our Factory for the World artifacts. Pictured here is a car heater designed by A.B. Modine. Modine of course was well known for manufacturing heating units and radiators, so he knew his stuff when it came to transferring heat. The story behind this artifact is that Modine installed a heater by this design in his own car which used the engine's heat to warm the air in the cab. He took his good friend Charles Nash for a winter drive one day and Nash was so impressed that he bought the design.

Keep following along with as we show these artifacts some love before they return to storage. And stay tuned for an announcement about the new exhibit we have coming!

08/25/2026

Did you know that there are 3 Egyptian mummies in Wisconsin and one of them is at RHM? When William Horlick purchased this mummy (a surprisingly easy thing to do in 1902) the story he told was that it was a scorned ancient Egyptian princess. After much study, we do not know much about this person's identity or origin, but we do know that he is male, approximately five and a half feet tall, and was in his mid twenties when he died. Far from the stirring tale told by Mr. Horlick. One day we hope to do more research and perhaps learn more about the man that many have named "Malty".

08/21/2026

Its back-to-school season! Think about how much education has changed over the past century. Pictured here is our 1888 One-room Schoolhouse. In this classroom, children of all ages learned together under one teacher. This particular school house was built by Caledonia's Bohemian community as an ethnic school. The children of Bohemian immigrants would attend this school on Saturdays to learn Czech language and culture. Take a look at these photos and comment down below with some things that you notice are different or the same with classrooms today. Have a great school year!

08/20/2026

Wondering what's been going on in our research archive? Here's a quick update from our Archivist, Liz:

Currently we are working on several new “accessions” - items that RHM is adding to our collection. We are accessioning a collection of articles saved by Rev. Tony Larsen (Olympia Brown Unitarian Universalist Church), which record q***r history in Racine through the lens of the Reverend and his husband Craig. We have also added “Fashion Exhibition Photographs” which traces the activities of Burlington resident Ruth E. Reschke Reed’s activities with the Capstone Committee, a group of female volunteers who in the 1960s organized various exhibitions in connection with the Milwaukee Art Center (now the Milwaukee Art Museum).

08/14/2026

Its no secret that we are a small museum, so often when we want to include a new exhibit, we have to take down an old one. Such is the case for our Factory for the World Exhibit. Installed in 2010, Factory for the World has featured inventions a products from Racine that have made a global impact. So to give these artifacts a proper send of, we'll be featuring each of them here before putting them in storage.

First up is this model of a Case 65 Horsepower steam engine. Since we can't fit our actual 65 Hp steam engine into the museum (we do have one, its huge) we have this little guy. The Case 65 was a later model of steam engine, so the company had time to improve their steam engines by the time this one came along. Our 65 is from 1917. They required two people to operate; one to drive and another to feed coal into the boiler from those boxes at the back.

Stay tuned for more Factory for the World artifacts and an announcement about our new exhibit!

08/11/2026

08/08/2026

Our home at 701 Main street recently got some much needed TLC. Years of weather and use have resulted in patchy grass and deteriorating concrete stairs. This past sunday, a generous group of volunteers helped us to landscape the north side of the building. And what a fantastic job they did. We are so excited to continue to take steps to make RHM an beautiful and inviting place.

Special thanks to the following volunteers and donors for making this happen:

John Dickert
Mario Martinez - Marz Insurance
Rueben Martinez - E.M. Contractiing (Concrete)
Raul Silva - RGS Landscaping (Lansdcaping)
Tavares Tressul - Menards (grass seed)