Lodi Public Library
The Lodi Public Library was formed in 1899 by members of the Lodi Woman's Club who wished to provide books for the mental edification and relaxation of the community. The Library was initially housed in various homes and stores in the community. In 1914, the library secured a more permanent location in the new City Hall built at 113 South Main Street. The Library remained in this location for over 75 years, growing and expanding to occupy space vacated by the fire department. Needing more space, the City of Lodi bought and renovated the Bank of Lodi building at 130 Lodi street, where the Library has been housed since March 5, 1990.
Job Mills Block
This red brick commercial building was built in 1895 for Job Mills, a local farmer who also operated a cheese factory in Lodi and worked in the grain trade with his brother. Job Mills also served as Lodi’s postmaster, and one of the building’s first tenants was the Lodi Post Office, which was housed in the south side for many years. The north side has housed several different types of stores over the years. Additions around the turn of the 20th century added space to the back of each side of this building. The Job Mills Block was added to the national Register of Historic Places in 2008.
Schmiedlin Brothers Building
This building was built in 1895 by the Schmiedlin Brothers to house a meat market they operated. Meat for the market was harvested and prepared in the space behind this building, as there was a slaughterhouse, a smokehouse, and an ice house on the property. Ice would be harvested in the wintertime from nearby lakes and rivers, then placed in an ice house like the one that stood behind this building. Typically, an ice house was built partially underground with well insulated walls. A layer of hay or sawdust would be placed over the blocks of ice, keeping it cold throughout the year.
Bank of Lodi
The Bank of Lodi was formed around 1885 and consisted mainly of the town’s wealthiest people, and was housed in the small Cummings building at 143 S. Main Street. In 1895, the Bank built a new home for itself here. The decorative touch toward the top of the building showing a dog with the words “Always on the Job” is an alarm bell that would sound should there be an attempted robbery or other incident at the bank. The bank was renamed the State Bank of Lodi in 1897, and continued to occupy this building until 1936 when it moved to a location on Lodi Street. In 1961, the State Bank of Lodi built another home for itself at 130 Lodi Street, the same building which now houses the Lodi Public Library.
J.M. Pruyn Grocery
Prominent local grocer and butcher Joel Pruyn, a New York native born in 1819, had this building constructed in 1885 to house a dry goods store for his son, Judd. That same year he and his wife built a house of cream brick at 303 S. Main Street, which still stands overlooking downtown Lodi. Only four years earlier he had built the one story commercial building across the street at 146 Main St. By the early 1900s, this building housed a funeral home and furniture store, professions that often shared spaces as furniture makers were often hired to build caskets.
Joel Eaton Block
These two buildings, constructed in 1866 and 1876 by Joel Eaton, are the earliest examples of the second generation of buildings comprising Lodi’s downtown business district. The first generation of buildings that flanked Main Street beginning in the 1850s were smaller, wood-framed structures that were used for a short period then replaced. The 1866 portion of the building was used as a general store with a community meeting hall on the second floor. For many years, this building was home to the beloved Weber’s Bakery which was in business for 93 years before closing in 2014. The 1876 portion for several years housed an opera house and storage for sets used in sundry performances.
Palmer Cabin/Jolivette House
At this location in 1846, Isaac Palmer built the first log cabin in Lodi. Palmer was drawn to this area by the availabilty of good land, lack of settlement, and the presence of Spring Creek which could provide power for a grist mill and sawmill. Palmer's log cabin was not here very long before it was replaced by the house built for Joel Eaton that stands here today. The house was acquired in 1988 by a generous gift from native son Ray Brown and renamed the Jolivette Memorial House in memory of his beloved wife, Margaret Jolivette Brown. The Jolivette House now houses the Lodi Valley Historical Society.
Briggs House Hotel
Lodi’s first Hotel, the Briggs House, was built on this block in 1848. Isaac Palmer gave two lots to Freedom Simons in exchange for building and operating a hotel. Simons began construction in 1848 and was living in the unfinished hotel by the next winter. The hotel changed hands - and names - several times before the name Briggs House stuck. The Briggs House was conveniently located with many attractions nearby, including a vibrant downtown business district, a tavern at the end of Sodders Street, and a carriage shop and blacksmith on the same block. The Briggs House burned down in 1913.
Lodi School Hillside
In 1926, local residents began to build terraced walls and stone staircases into this hillside overlooking downtown Lodi, but money soon ran out. In 1935 work resumed utilizing funding from the Civil Works Administration, a New Deal program that created work all across the country during the Great Depression. The staircases and terraces were designed by Franz Aust, the first professor of landscape architecture at the University of Wisconsin. Local workers provided the labor for these features, laying down the sandstone and limestone that still flank School Hill. The School Hillside Terrace was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 2009.
Veteran's Memorial Park
In the 1860s a dam was built across Spring Creek to generate power for a grist mill, creating a millpond that abutted what is now Corner Street. By 1926, the dam had fallen into disrepair and had to be removed, leaving behind an unattractive marsh. Between 1933 and 1935 workers cleaned up the riverbank, added stones and cobbles to erosion-prone areas of the creek, and turned what once was an unsightly mess into a memorial to Lodi’s men and women who served in the nation’s wars. This park, along with the School Hillside Terrace, was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 2009.
Lodi Enterprise
One of the best preserved of Lodi’s 19th century commercial buildings, Joel Pruyn built this in 1881 utilizing elements of the Romanesque Revival style, to house a grocery store for his son. In 1892, Pruyn’s son sold the building to L.P. Hinds, who operated a butcher shop out of the location for several years. In 1923, the Lodi Enterprise moved to this location, where it remained until the early 21st century. In 1987, the original glass in the semicircular windows on the facade of the building were replaced with stained glass windows depicting a printing press, a storage chest, and the words: “Tools of Freedom.”
Lodi City Hall
Built in the early 2000s, the plans for Lodi’s City Hall date back nearly a century earlier. For almost 90 years, Lodi’s local government offices were housed across the street in the old City Hall Building at 113 S. Main Street, which was built in 1915-16. Among those who submitted plans for the 1915 building was C.C. Menes, Lodi’s most prominent architect and builder. Menes’s design was deemed too costly at the time, and the city built a more modern and inexpensive building. Nearly a century later, however, Menes’s plans served as the basis for this new City Hall, which opened in April, 2003.
Spring Creek
Lodi owes its genesis and growth to Spring Creek. In the 1800s when settlers from Europe and the eastern states moved west, they used rivers to power machinery that ground grain into flour and sawed logs into lumber. One of these settlers, Isaac Palmer, bought 40 acres of land after going on a hunting trip in 1845 to the headwaters of Spring Creek. Within a year, Palmer had built a sawmill along the creek. On June 25, 1848, only a month after Wisconsin became a state, Palmer recorded the first plat of the town which he called Lodi. The same year, Samuel Ring built the area’s first grist mill beside Spring Creek, enabling local farmers to have their grain ground into flour locally. Palmer would build a grist mill of his own in 1850. By 1852, a small town had built up around these enterprises, including dozens of houses, several different stores, three churches, and a school.
Seville House/C.C. Menes
The Seville House was built in 1897 by Lodi’s master builder, C.C. Menes, who designed and/or built over 20 houses in Lodi. Carl Christopher Menes was born in Norway in 1870 and immigrated to Wisconsin in 1886. A self-taught architect and carpenter, Menes first built a home in Lodi in 1894, and moved to the city four years later. For the next thirty years, Menes worked designing and building homes and commercial structures in and around Lodi. The homes Menes designed and built generally had foundations of stone harvested at a local quarry, palladian attic windows, and verandas with doubled columns. Many consider the Seville House to be his masterpiece.
Hotel Lodi
The Hotel Lodi was built in 1892 by Alfred Clements, and was originally called the Clements House Hotel. This hotel served travelers coming to Lodi via the railroad, which had a stop within walking distance. The railroad originally came to Lodi in 1872, and a second track was added in an 1896 expansion. Over twenty trains a day used to pass through town until automobile traffic expanded with better roads and more affordable cars in the mid-Twentieth Century. From the Clements House Hotel, it was only a short walk down Lodi Street to a livery stable, a grocery, meat market, barber, and a variety of other businesses serving local needs.
