Manitowoc Exhibition Hall and Armory
The combined efforts of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s WPA (Works Progress Administration) and local communities led the way for hundreds of new armories to be constructed across the country in the years that followed the Great Depression. One of these structures, the Manitowoc Exhibition Hall and Armory, was built in the City of Manitowoc and remains an active part of our community today.
In 1938, a joint committee of county board members, city officials, and National Guard officers looked over architects’ plans of a proposed new Armory building in Manitowoc. The Exhibition Hall and Armory building, located at 930 North 18th Street in Manitowoc on the Manitowoc County Fair Grounds, would provide for general county use and exhibit space for the fair, as well as offices, storage and drill space for the local National Guard, Company E 127th Infantry. The new structure would replace 3 wooden fair exhibition buildings and be of “new modern constructing.”
The contract for drawing the detailed plans of the exhibition building and armory was given to Architects William J. and Frederick W. Raeuber. They were chosen from 3 firms who submitted preliminary sketches. As the project was finalized, the WPA grant would provide funds to pay the labor costs and the City of Manitowoc donated brick and other building material.
Construction was well underway in the spring of 1939. Much of the outer brick walls were constructed from piles of old paving bricks that had been removed from Eighth Street in Manitowoc. The Armory opened a few months later and soon became home to many conventions, business meetings, concerts, and indoor sports. Basketball, boxing, roller skating, indoor tennis and badmitten were also played inside. Small circus acts were held at the Armory, including the Kiwanis Club’s annual circus fundraiser. During World War II blood drives, public sessions, and gatherings were also held at the Armory.
Roller skating soon became a favorite activity for local students. In the 1950s Bill Paulson was the manager of the Armory Roller Rink with student night every Thursday with 50 cent admission in the evenings and 16 cents in the afternoon.
A city pool was added in 1968 as the Manitowoc City Council voted to purchase the fairground property as the fairgrounds prepared to move to the current Expo site.
As the decades passed, new uses would be found for the space. The City of Manitowoc sought citizen input to suggest a new name for the Armory building in 1972 as the building was converted to a recreational and social space. The City Recreation Department encouraged community support. Alderman Thomas Frieder, a teacher at Wilson Junior High, said in a February 22, 1972 newspaper article in the Manitowoc Herald Times, “students … had come up with about 150 suggested names but … the list was being narrowed down.”
Today our local history continues to live at the former Manitowoc Exhibition Hall and Armory as the historic space continues to be shared by roller skaters and other community groups.