| Additional Information: | This building was torn down the end of February or the beginning of March 2017. WRAP AROUND PORCH. PARTIALLY ENCLOSED ADDITIONS ON SIDE (1988).
2004 - This property consists of the main house/lodge, which is located immediately adjacent to STH 70, while a long driveway leads to the lakefront and a cluster of seven cabins/cottages, as well as a fish cleaning house and some sheds. A 1910 newspaper brief indicates that the former newspaper editor Col. A.F. Smith erected this house and it was called Greenwood Ranch. The brief goes on to suggest that Smith took in boarders for the summer resort season. By 1913, Chicagoan Dr. J.R. Powell moved to the St. Germain area and purchased the property. While his initial intention was to establish a rest home, he soon began one of the first American Plan resorts in the area. Dr. Powell died in 1930 and his wife passed in 1955. The property was then run by their son Malcolm. Since 1964, the resort has been run by Malcolm's daughter Jane. It now runs as a housekeeping resort and boarders are no longer taken in the main house/lodge.
2012 - The Greenwood Ranch Resort has been owned and operated by the Powell family since 1913. Two of the cottages on the property, however, date from ca. 1890; loggers apparently stayed in the cottages while clearing surrounding forests. By 1905, the land was homesteaded to Patrick J. Gaffney, and shortly thereafter, to Col. Asa F. Smith of Milwaukee, operator of the Milwaukee Paper Mache Company. Smith hired Ted (T.J.) Minkley to construct the ca. 1910 lodge. Smith apparently coined the name “Greenwood Ranch,” and took in boarders for the summer resort season. By 1913, the Powell family, headed by Chicagoan Dr. John R. Powell, had moved to St. Germain and purchased the property. Based on his medical experience, Dr. John and his wife, Margaret, fully intended to operate a rest home on the property; however, it developed into one of the first summer resorts of the area, and one operating on the “American Plan.” “American Plan” resorts were full-service facilities supplying their guests not only with food and lodging, but also entertainment, activities and fishing guides. The first American Plan resort in Vilas County was Mann’s Manitowish Waters on Trout Lake in 1888. Mann’s was quickly followed by Sayner’s Plum Lake House in 1892 and the Waldheim Hotel on Star Lake in 1896. Dr. Powell operated Greenwood Ranch along with his wife and son, Malcolm Powell, until his death in the fall of 1930. At that point Malcolm continued to operate the resort along with his mother, his wife, Margaret, and their five children. An advertisement from 1952 in the Racine Journal indicates the ranch as located “on famous Little St. Germain Lake,” with “modern housekeeping cottages, good fishing, swimming, boating, horses, good entertainment, and reasonable rates.” Dr. Powell’s widow died in 1955. One of Malcolm’s children, Jane Powell, took over in 1964. Jane has operated the resort ever since and it is currently being run as a housekeeping resort from May through September. Vacationers are no longer housed and meals are no longer offered in the main lodge. |
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| Bibliographic References: | -Jane Powell, conversation with current owner, of Greenwood Ranch Resort and third-generation owner of property (2004 and 2012)
-Eagle River Review, 20 May 1910
-Heritage Research, Ltd., Historical/Architectural Resources Survey: Historic Resorts of Vilas County, 23, 27-28 and 56
-Ruth Hessen Komassa, St. Germain: Message from the Past (Sayner, WI: Vilas County Historical Museum, 1995), 57-58
-Racine Journal, “Greenwood Ranch Resort,” May 20, 1952 |
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