Sunday, July 28, 2013

Holmen, Wisconsin: Then and Now

It's been quite a while since I did a Then and Now posting, so here's what I found on the bustling "metropolis" of Holmen, Wisconsin.  My Father-in-Law, Richard, lives here during the summers and has been wintering in Arizona as a snowbird.

We'd visited Holmen recently to help Martha's dad celebrate his 80th birthday.  Quite the turnout for the party and we saw some familiar faces from previous visits.

The above postcard was the inspiration for this posting, btw.
Martha had shown it to me and so I tried to find the same spot that
the postcard's photo was taken from:

Holmen 2013
I didn't quite get the angles the same, didn't have the postcard
with me, but I think you can extrapolate.  Gone is the red-colored 
building on the left of the postcard for instance.

photo courtesy of Holmen Historical Society

Nowadays, the Bearly Used Consignment Store, 2013

The Holmen Creamery, date undetermined for the photo
but it was built starting in 1899.
photo courtesy of Holmen Historical Society

The Holmen Creamery Building, 2013.

There really weren't any other buildings still standing that I could find historical pictures of online.  Oh sure, the local churches but I failed to get present day pictures of same.  You may want to peruse the stuff on the Holmen Historical Society's website:  LINK

One last picture, taken of Valencia at the side of the Holmen Creamery Building, just for fun:


I jokingly referred to Holmen as a Metropolis at the start of this post.  It is instead, a quiet little town, typical of the Midwest.  I imagine is a nice place to retire to, and in the last few years, its become somewhat of a bedroom community for the nearby city of Lacrosse, WI.  There was a newly built housing subdivision right next to my father-in-law's farm.  Where there had been crop fields, now stood new houses....progress I guess?

3 comments:

Trobairitz said...

A great idea Dom to do the before and after shots.

I appreciate the effort in finding those old photos to match with the new.

Lucky said...

Cool post! I love seeing little bits of local history, and change.

redlegsrides said...

Trobairitz, thanks for the kind words.

Lucky, glad you liked it, thanks for reading this stuff.