| Additional Information: | Located in Oak Island Park, this Rustic Style park structure is sheathed with locally quarried stone. Largely side-gabled in form, the building’s wooden double-door entrance is located near its center and is recessed beneath an overhanging roofline that features wooden timber supports and partial walls that include window openings to the recessed “porch” area. The front-facing gable at the west end carries a large rectangular window opening and scalloped wooden trim, while a side-gabled and set back wing at the east end includes a pair of rectangular openings with no trim. An interior chimney rises from the roofline near the east end. Window openings throughout the structure are boarded over—presumably for the off-season, as the photo was taken in early May.
Oak Island Park was established as a park in 1926 when the land was actually a free-standing island. This structure was completed in 1940 as the Oak Island Park Shelter; funding for its construction was obtained through the Works Progress Administration. As completed, it contained game rooms and was also available for parties. During the winter, it was also used as a warming house for skaters using the Oak Island rink. Following a request, blueprints for the subject structure were sent by Marathon County and Wausau Parks Superintendent I.S. Horgen to the Park Board in Aberdeen, South Dakota. This was reportedly not an unusual request, as Horgen had previously supplied blueprints to others for other area park structures. To date, the structure continues to function as a shelter house for Oak Island Park and, in 2003, it was designated as a City of Wausau landmark. |
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| Bibliographic References: | Wausau Daily Herald 8/26/2003.
Citations for 2018 survey report information below: “Projects Estimated at $3,000,000 to be Applied for Here,” Wausau Daily Record-Herald, 2 May 1935, 1/3; “Record for Rib Mountain Park is 1,200 Picnics in One Day,” Wausau Daily Record-Herald, 29 July 1939, 10/3-4; “City, County Parks Improved During 1939,” Wausau Daily Record-Herald, 31 December 1939, 5/2; “City County Parks Improved During 1940, Wausau Daily Record-Herald, 31 December 1940, 8/1; “Oak Island Shelter House,” photograph and caption, Wausau Daily Record-Herald, 27 January 1940, 3/2-4; “Furnishes Blueprints of Rustic Construction of Park Shelter House,” Wausau Daily Record-Herald, 13 November 1940, 18/1; David Paulsen, “City Considers New Landmarks,” Wausau Daily Herald, 26 August 2003, 3/2-6. |
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