504 E Main St

Summary

Loewe-Weis-Wilson Farm
504 East Main Street, Village of Palmyra, Jefferson County
Dates of Construction: 1872 to ca. 1974

Victor Loewe immigrated to the U.S. from his native Germany in 1857, settling in Milwaukee. He relocated to Palmyra in 1860, where he operated a dry goods store. In 1863, Loewe married Antoinette Allen, who was from a pioneer Palmyra family. In 1870, the Loewes purchased the land that includes the Loewe-Weis-Wilson Farm. In 1871, Loewe cleared a spring to provide drinking water for his farm. Those who drank the water claimed it made them feel healthier, and people began lining up to partake of it. Loewe began bottling his spring water and shipping it to Milwaukee and Chicago. He built the original Italianate section of the house on the Loewe-Weis-Wilson Farm in 1872. The popularity of Loewe’s springs launched Palmyra as a mineral springs summer resort and led to the discovery of two more springs in the village in 1872. Ira Bidwell purchased them and built a luxurious hotel and water cure that would attract summer guests from all over the Midwest into the early twentieth century. Loewe continued to sell spring water, but focused his attention on raising Jersey dairy cattle and growing grapes for winemaking. Loewe sold the springs in 1883. In 1893, he sold the farm to William Weis.

William Weis was a German immigrant who ran a wholesale liquor business in Milwaukee. The round-towered Queen Anne section of the house on the Loewe-Weis-Wilson Farm was built for Weis in 1895. He continued dairying with Loewe’s Jersey herd. Most of the outbuildings on the farm were built for Weis around 1910, including a gable barn that housed bulls and heifers, a silo, a well, and a cistern. A dairy barn was constructed not long after Weis sold the property in 1913.

Woodrow T. and Gertrude Wilson bought the farm in 1950. He was born on a farm in the village of Palmyra. After graduating from high school in 1933, Wilson served in the Civilian Conservation Corps. He bought his first cow with his earnings, and established a milk route in 1934. Woodrow married Gertrude Basseler in 1940, by which time he had a herd of 15 cows on his parents’ small village farm. In 1950, Wilson bought his first Holstein and began to build a Holstein herd on the Loewe-Weis-Wilson Farm. He developed his own breed, recognized by the Holstein-Friesian Association of America and known by the prefix W-T-W. The Wilsons milked cows until 1966 and continued breeding cattle until 1990. Their important contributions to the farm include modernizing and expanding the dairy barn to include a milk house in the 1950s, and building two cattle sheds in the early 1970s. Their daughter, Connie Lea Wilson, still lives on the farm and has maintained the house and the historic outbuildings in excellent condition and with as much of their original appearance as possible.

The Loewe-Weis-Wilson Farm is a private home and is not open to the public.

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