The Saxonia House, just outside of Fillmore, hosted Oktoberfest on Saturday, Sept. 19. The day may have been gloomy but many people still showed up to learn more about the house and history of the area.
“There’s no other building like this in America. It was built as a multi-use, public house,” said Alan Pape, president of the Friends of the Saxonia House Board.
Built in 1854 to 1855, the house certainly holds a lot of history inside of it.
He explained that the Turner Hall, upstairs in the house, was used for celebrations. It was the first Lutheran Church in the area along with being a post office, an inn, a tavern and the family’s house. Potentially it was utilized as a base for German intellectuals who would meet to discuss politics and philosophy.
Historian Michael Besch mentioned, “At one point they said they had a library of 300 books, all in German. And it was said that it was housed here, but we don’t know which room.”
The Saxonia House was built from bricks laid with tamarack wood beams in between. Then plaster covered both the inside and outside of the house. Unfortunately this trapped moisture in.
Winters were cold in the house, the only sources of heat were the stoves. In order to get heat into the upstairs bedrooms, they had to cut a hole in the floor to draw the heat from the stove on the first floor up.
On the property there is a beer cave. The “cave” is not really a cave, rather a chamber made of bricks with several feet of dirt packed on top. Having dirt on the top keeps the cold air in to preserve barrels and barrels of beer.
Beer brewing was a large part of the house’s history. Apart from the beer cave, the cellar also was used in their brewing early on. The location of the house was crucial to brewing the beer.
“They would make ice on the field out here by damming up the little stream. And the ice is needed to keep the beer cool.” Pape continued, “The reason this building is standing right here is that there’s an artesian well out here. Good beer has to have good water.”
Using this area was important because closer inward to the town didn’t have as good of water. The beer was originally cloudy before the owner of the house discovered the well. Beer continued to be brewed at the property until the 1880s.
The Oktoberfest was a historical and learning event just as much as it was a cultural event.
Pape said, “Our mission as a nonprofit organization is to not only preserve the building but activate it. To have live music inside this building, it’s been long and coming.”
Besch also commented on it’s importance, “If you don’t have events like this, it doesn’t take long for people to forget that this is even here. A lot of folks live in Kewaskum or nearby, they have no idea that this building even exists.”
At the event there was live music by the Gypsy Swing Chicks Band, an archaeology display featuring items dug up that belonged to the family who lived there and food and drink to warm visitors up on the rainy day.
Inside the Saxonia House was a room with paintings inside from the time period the house was built. One of them depicts the German Revolution in 1848 which resulted in many German immigrants coming to Wisconsin, including the area here.
Those interested in learning more who were not able to attend the event can visit the Saxonia House’s website at https://www.saxoniahouse.org/.
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