The first floor with a 16-foot ceiling consisted of a public lobby (south side), spacious workroom (north side) and money order and registry room (west side). The lobby was illuminated with ornamental bronze electric fixtures. A postmaster’s office and stairway to the basement were located on the east side. The basement had a “swing room” for clerks and carriers and rooms for the postoffice inspector, civil service, internal revenue collector, janitor, a coal-fired boiler for steam heat and public toilets.

During its many years, the Hotel Hamilton hosted meetings, wedding receptions and society events. In 1948, the hotel welcomed Coach Earle Neale and the Philadelphia Eagles football team of the National Football League when they arrived for a week of training at Walsh Field. The Eagles had previously trained in Two Rivers during 1941 and 1942.

On April 28, 1881, 22 men signed the charted and were mustered into the Grand Army of the Republic as Post Number 18. That night, James Anderson was elected the post's first commander. They took the name of Capt. Horace M. Walker as their post name.

Mr. Wentorf was both a local photographer and a collector of historical photographs. The images focus on local landmarks, industries, institutions, special events and people going about daily life in Two Rivers. Many of the photographs include group shots of organizations and civic groups.

On July 24, 1901, about 500 employees including pickers and field hands of the E. J. Vodra Canning Co. celebrated the close of the pea canning season at Picnic Hill. The workers marched from the plant to the picnic grounds in groups representing the different departments, led by a band.

In April 1902, two small city streetcars were unloaded at the C&NW depot in Manitowoc. In appearance, the cars (29 feet–4 inches long with 28 seats) were “handsome in design,” painted “a pretty red color” and numbered “3” and “4.” Other city streetcars and larger interurban cars (42 feet–4 inches long with 44 seats) for the Two Rivers run arrived later.

On Saturday morning, February 26, 1927, four men were injured and considerable damage was done when the ‘Snowflake Limited’ derailed a mile south of Two Rivers on the branch line of the Chicago & North Western Railway Co. The Chronicle reported, “The wreck was a bad one and caused considerable loss and delay.”

The unveiling of the monument was followed by a national salute fired by the U.S. Revenue Cutter Morrill from the harbor. The chorus then sang The Star-Spangled Banner and the monument was accepted by W. J. Wrieth, president of the common council.

On July 21, 1891, the Manitowoc County Chronicle reported, “Work on the library building is now in progress” and on October 13, “The building for the Joseph Mann Library is nearly completed.” The two-story front-gabled frame library building was located on Lots 3 and 4, Block 72, south of Main (now Sixteenth) Street between Washington and Adams Streets. The total cost of construction, heater, furniture and books was $3,363.73.

When the tannery opened in May of 1851, it was one of the largest in Wisconsin and the Midwest, with 134 vats for tanning 100 hides daily for harness and light stock on the ground floor and extensive drying and storage rooms on the second floor. In 1861, a second, larger tannery, 315 × 50 feet, was constructed south of  the earlier one, with 150 double vats for tanning 75 hides daily into sole leather. Bricks used for its construction came from Milwaukee.

The closed bridge prevented students living west of the river in School District No. 2 from reaching the Tannery School, east of the river, except by a distant route – a tremendous inconvenience for rural residents. The bridge, near the northern limits of the city of Two Rivers, was in the west half of Section 25, Township 20 North, Range 24 East.

Completed in October 1914, the Voshardt mausoleum was said to be the best in the state and one of the finest in the West. In all, 16 Voshardt family members (Herman’s father and mother, five brothers, three sisters and five of his siblings’ spouses) are laid to rest in the stately mausoleum, the last being in 1954. Herman Voshardt was interred here after his death in 1929.

During the late nineteenth century, Voshardt’s Hall was the scene of many social activities that included concerts, balls, dances, parties and wedding receptions. It was a popular place for labor meetings, boxing and wrestling matches, and, for a few years, exercises and physical activities by the local German Turn Verein or “Turners.”

On Friday morning March 7, 1958 at 0210 hrs. at the Calumet Rail Yards, a Chicago and Northwestern Railroad train crew, with their train parked and running, disembarked to take a breakfast break. The engine and nine cars were gone when they returned. The train traveled l0 miles and went through 20 crossings before the engine and two box cars smashed through a dead end obstruction, traveled 60 feet and plunged into 18 feet of water in the Two Rivers Harbor.

The Forget-Me-Not creek ran through the Kuehn property. Kuehn’s mother-in-law lived in the home with Kuehn and his wife and bought the forget-me-not seeds from Europe to plant on the banks of the creek. During the Civil War Kuehn invested his own money, along with the banks, in Confederate bonds. This ended tragically for Kuehn, as well as those who placed their faith in his Manitowoc and Two Rivers banks.

Company F of the 26th Wisconsin Regiment consisted almost entirely of German-born soldiers from Manitowoc County. They came from towns like Manitowoc, Two Rivers, Gibson Rockland and Maple Grove and had such familiar surnames as Neumann, Kreuger, and Schmidt.

Situated on Lake Michigan’s shoreline is Point Beach State Forest. This forest serves as a recreational haven and one of the state’s best examples of ridge and swale topography. Most would assume that Wisconsin’s state parks were all established to conserve and preserve our state’s natural beauty. However, in many cases, parks were also created to draw tourists into a community. This was the case in the establishment of Point Beach State Forest.

Staff of the Rivoli Theater portrayed ghosts for the Municipal Recreation Department’s Halloween Saturday afternoon show. The Manitowoc Herald Times featured the event with an article on October 30, 1953 saying, “Eight young misses will portray the roles of ghosts in serving as ushers at the event for the kiddies. Their adopted theme song will be ‘A-Haunting We Will Go’.” The ushers for the evening included Natalie (Spooks) Lueck, Betty (Spirits) Fronk, Nancy (Shadow) Henrickson, Dorothy (Goblin) Shavlik, Shirley (Screams) Richard, Shirley (Shreaks) Beth, and Lou Ann (Groans) Prausa.

On June 9, 1900, a statue of a soldier standing silently with his gun was placed in the middle of Washington Street in Two Rivers. The day it was positioned there, swarms of people turned out to see it. The complete monument being twenty-one and a half feet high, and the silent metal soldier on top, standing eight feet high, looked southward down Washington Street after being erected.

As the current Coronavirus/COVID-19 pandemic spreads and impacts lives, behavior and livelihoods around the world, readers may not realize it is not the first time a deadly disease has affected local residents.

In the History of Manitowoc County, published in 1912, local historian Dr. Louis Falge chronicles two disastrous cholera epidemics in 1850 and 1854 which affected the lives of early settlers.