Just step into the one-room schoolhouse in the Rosholt Fairgrounds and you’ll find yourself transported into the past. Photos of former Presidents Abraham Lincoln and George Washington hang at the back of the room on either side of an American flag. Small desks line up from smallest to largest waiting for the students that no longer come.
The ancient schoolhouse stands tribute to Portage County’s past in a museum on the fairgrounds site. The Pioneer Museum is made up of the schoolhouse, a granary, sawmill and two log cabins. Not only are they reminders of the past, they are a part of it. Artifacts from the pioneer household, farming and logging have been collected and displayed within their walls. Almost all have been donated by local residents.
Among the items are broad axes, bear traps, ox shoes, buggy lamps, dress forms and typewriters. Some of the most unusual antiques are an armor-plated vest and a magneto phone, which came with the schoolhouse. An unusual facet of the museum is that it’s only open four days a year. Its doors open each year during the Rosholt Free Community Fair, held during the Labor Day Weekend.
Malcolm Rosholt served as director for 43 years, with Craig Anderson taking over as curator in 1991. Anderson had helped Rosholt through the years with the museum and was a natural to take over the duties. “Mac did all the hard work,” Anderson said. “Mac’s not one to blow his own horn, but I know he has stuck a lot of his own money into that place.”
The museum is completely self-supporting. Any money going into maintenance and acquisition comes from donations during the annual Community Fair, he said. The Rosholt Fair Association pays insurance on the museum, he said.
Begun in 1948, a log cabin was the first piece of the museum. The Portage County Board granted $500 to move the cabin to the fairgrounds, which then was called Hill Park. The cabin was built in 1881 on the banks of the Flume Creek in Rosholt. It housed a Danish widow, Bente Rasmussen, and her family.
Almost a decade later, the State Bank of Rosholt granted enough money to buy and move a granary from the old Budsberg farm in the town of New Hope. “It was an unusually well-preserved log building. There was very masterful craftsmanship in cutting of the corners and construction,” Anderson said.
Another grant in 1962 moved the old Garfield School from New Hope to Rosholt.
In 1983, another log house, probably built before 1876 by John Glodowski, was moved to the site. The house had stood in the town of Stockton off Highway I on land owned by Jerome and Gladys Lepak, who donated the building to the museum.
And a Phoenix sawmill was moved to the site and refurbished by the Rosholt Thresheree Club in 1989. Eight people spent about 300 hours rebuilding the mill. The steam-powered sawmill operates twice each year - during the Threshermen’s annual picnic and the fair.
Putting a value on the museum and all its artifacts is virtually impossible, Anderson said. A lot of it is sentimental, he said.