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The Old Town Hall Museum
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The Fifield Old Town Hall is listed on the National Register of Historic Places, where it is citied as “one of the few remaining buildings of it’s kind.” The State Historical Society remarks that it is a “very impressive landmark.” The Fifield Old Town Hall is in itself a very valuable artifact. The Old Town Hall Museum is maintained and operated by the Price County Historical Society. The Old Town Hall Museum was a government building from 1894 until 1967. It was built in 1894 to replace the original building constructed in 1882. That building and many others were lost in the fire of 1893, which destroyed the entire Fifield business district. Through the years, day-to-day government business was conducted in the lower floor offices. Town meetings were held upstairs in the large hall. The upstairs was also the site of countless dances, talent shows, graduations, school programs, fancy balls, lodge meetings and appearances by visiting speakers. Beginning on the lower floor, the clerk’s office displays logging tools, camp artifacts and railroad memorabilia. A Victorian period living room and kitchen occupy the old jail area. A changing exhibits room provides some new aspects of county history at intervals A gift shop offering books of local and northern Wisconsin history is also located on the main floor. The treasurer’s room houses collections of personal and community artifacts. The old ticket office still stands sentinel to the wide stairways leading to the upstairs social hall, also known as “The Opera House.” A stage remains an integral part of the interior, and a touch of early pioneer elegance is evident in the wainscoting and a delicate stencil, which has been restored on the walls. Exhibits in the great hall include farm implements, artifacts of early transportation, clothing and the Old Price County Court House furniture. The stage offers some glimpse into early county life, usually changing each summer. The organization operating the Price county Historical Society was organized in 1959. The society took on its first substantial project in 1967when it acquired the Fifield Old Town Hall from the town of Fifield. Restoration of the building began in 1969. In 1976, the doors were opened to the public for the summer season. Today, the society maintains and develops the museum with the support from Price County, the town of Fifield, private donations and volunteer help. All phases of local government were carried on here mainly in the “clerk’s room” that contained the vault for storing town records. Court cases were heard here and often the room became a morgue for victims of drowning, homicides and suicides. The town hall was a convenient place for the coroner to come after his arrival by train from the County seat. The justice of the peace, too, performed marriages here and the old hall served as a church and school while new buildings were under construction. It had a two-celled jail in the rear that served mainly to house rowdies and vagrants. During World War II, the jail was removed and was sold for scrap iron. Since then the County jail at Phillips has played host to undesirable citizens. The Old Town Hall was the scene of political rallies, elections and attendant celebrations. Beginning at the time of McKinley’s terms, celebrations were held after presidential returns were in, regardless of who won. A roasted steer, barbecued in the foundation pit of what is now the Fifield Cash Store, was transported to the social hall where a huge camp cook, Herman Diner, by name, who had attended the huge roast, supervised the election banquet. The roast was placed on a large table, sliced and served to all with homemade bread and butter furnished by the women. There was coffee, of course and milk for the children. The Old Town Hall, with “council chambers” below and its upstairs social hall (known as the “Opera house” in early days) was a true community building servicing nearby communities, churches, schools and organizations. Each church had a kitchen, and it was here that the famous Congregational Ladies Election Day Dinners began: and where Catholic ladies held their well-known St Patrick’s Day bazaars. All water for cooking, washing dishes, and cleaning, was carried from the Badger Hotel a block away where there was always a large metal barrel of boiling water heated by pipes from a big hotel cook stove. Community life was closely knit and the usual good turnouts for these events made the labor seem light indeed. Veterans of Foreign Wars met here, Red Cross training and the knitting sessions, which produced the famous khaki army sweaters, were held in downstairs rooms. The hall was the headquarters of the Modern Woodmen and they held their fancy dress balls upstairs in the social hall. Orchestras up to 15 pieces were engaged for formal affairs, and a sergeant-at-arms was stationed at the upper and lower entrances to make sure no rowdies marred the stateliness of these occasions. The walls of the social hall still echo with the delighted laughter from home talent plays, the buzz of excitement from the magic of the Christmas program with its huge tree, the solemnity of graduation night. The old stage curtain with its center scenery surrounded by hometown advertising, rolled down countless times on lecture courses, traveling shows, and the famed medicine shows that dispensed their cure-all elixirs. Even the Mikado was produced here in 1906with local talent from Fifield and Park Falls. Somehow this old hall has defied time and usage, and stands proudly to reflect the life of another day—a moment to those now gone that felt the full impact of its gracious reign. So at the crossroads of yesterday and today it is hoped that this unique old land mark will pick up the frayed threads of a bygone era and remain to preserve, at least in part, something of our heritage. |
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