Wisconsin, Eau Claire County, Eau Claire
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Historic Building
John S. Owen became one of Eau Claire's powerful lumber barons. The house is a Colonial Revival style built in 1923 as the Owen's second residence.
Designated March Nineteen
Nineteen Hundred and Eighty-Six
(Notable Buildings) Includes location, directions, 2 photos, GPS coordinates, map.
Historic Building
John S. Owen became one of Eau Claire's powerful lumber barons. The house is a Colonial Revival style built in 1923 as the Owen's second residence.
Designated March Nineteen
Nineteen Hundred and Eighty-Six
(Notable Buildings) Includes location, directions, 2 photos, GPS coordinates, map.
The Buffalo Bayou, Brazos & Colorado—first railway built in Texas—in the 1850s mapped its route from Houston to Austin through Alleyton (3 mi. E), bypassing Columbus. To retain their town's supremacy in its trade area, Columbus citizens projected a railway of their own, to tap into the B.B.B.&C., at Alleyton.
Atop the hill in front of you, on the left side of the field, stood Fort Compher (also called Fort Comfort), a key position for U.S. forces occupying Plymouth. The nine-sided fortifications was named for Capt. Alexander Compher of the 101st Pennsylvania Infantry. Five earthen walls with four gun emplacements (mounted with two 32-pounders and two 12-pounders) faced east; the rear walls, facing Plymouth to the west, were built with sharpened vertical logs to form a stockade. In April 1864, Confederates under Gens. Robert F. Hoke and Matthew W. Ramson attacked Plymouth to drive out the Federals.
Honor to whom honor is due
James Johnston Pettigrew was born here at Bonarva on July 4, 1828. His father, Ebenezer Pettigrew, operated several large plantations in Tyrell and Washington Counties. Johnston Pettigrew, as he was called, graduated in 1847 from the University of North Carolina, where he was regarded as a brilliant student. President James K. Polk soon appointed him as assistant professor of astronomy at the U.S. Naval Observatory in Washington. Pettigrew traveled to Europe in 1849, where he studied law, then in 1852 settled in Charleston, S.C., where he practiced law, edited a newspaper, served in the state legislature, and became adjutant general of the militia.
In honor of the men of Pike County who served in the World War 1914-1918.
Site of the camp,
In April 1864, women of the former West Side Soldiers’ Aid Society opened a temporary Civil War Soldiers’ Home at this location. By May 1867, the home’s Lady Managers had welcomed 21,550 Union soldiers, given medical care to over 1,000, and provided 150,167 free meals. Although the women had received a state charter for a permanent Wisconsin Soldiers’ Home and had raised over $100,000 at their Soldiers’ Home Fair, they were persuaded to donate their assets to the federal government for the Northwest Branch of the National Home for Disabled Volunteer Soldiers in Milwaukee. When the veterans living at this home were transferred to the grounds of what is now the Zablocki VA Medical Center, the women were comforted that they had in some small way advanced the well-being and happiness of Wisconsin’s battle-scarred heroes.
In 1808 David and Joseph Ruffner near here on the bank of the Kanawha completed a well into solid rock to a depth of 59 feet by a method and with drilling tools they devised, which was further developed in this valley by themselves and Billye Morris into what is now known as the cable tool method of drilling. Drilling tools and drillers from the Kanawha Valley drilled the first well for oil at Titusville, Pennsylvania.
Asa Biggs (1811-1878), a prominent North Carolina politician and jurist, and his wife, Martha, built this Federal and Greek Revival—style house and lived here from 1835 to 1862. Biggs practiced law from his office just across Smithwick Street.
