How do I get to the Green Mountain House?

Go to the corner of S. Main and W. Milwaukee and go back 165 years...

This (above) is the first "Blackhawk Hotel," except that it wasn't called that yet. In fact, it was built around 1848, just ten years after Chief Black Hawk, the famous Sauk leader, died. It stood on the corner of South Main Street and West Milwaukee Avenue. The Green Mountain House was built by Milo Jones and named after a mountain range in his pre-Fort Atkinson home of Vermont.

The Black Hawk today.

This corner of downtown Fort has been the site of ______ Hotel since before Abraham Lincoln was president (1861-1865). The reason for the blank before ______ Hotel is because during the 19th century, this hotel had many names: The Green Mountain House, The Higbee House, The Stover Hotel, The Hotel Fort, The Blackhawk Hotel... The original Green Mountain building was built of yellow cream brick, the type you see so much in buildings of that era. In 1915 the hotel was expanded with the construction of the Blackhawk Tavern adjacent to the hotel, which was built out of red brick and still stands today. In 1929 the cream brick building was demolished and a new hotel was built out of similar red brick. This is the structure that stands to this day.  (You can differentiate the original 1915 Tavern from the 'newer' 1929 construction by the arched windows facing West Milwaukee Ave.) The Blackhawk Hotel, as it was known for most of the 20th century, is currently the Blackhawk Senior Residence (photo left). Not a hotel per se but a facility to house people nevertheless.

View from West Milwaukee Avenue.

Above we see a hand-tinted penny postcard from the turn of the century featuring the Hotel Fort on the southwest corner of South Main and West Milwaukee Ave. Notice it still had it's wraparound railing porch and by this time an awning had been added. By 1929 when the red brick tavern portion was added, the railed porch had been demolished, as is evidenced by the photo on the right, (a view from a different angle.) The wooden building behind the hotel is gone. This photo was taken from West Milwaukee Ave looking southeast towards Main Street. (Imagine the photographer standing beside the Hoard Dairyman building across the street.)

Above we see the Hotel Fort in its final state. The grandiose porch has been demolished, the yellow brick is stained by rust anywhere there used to be an iron fire escape attached to it... Compared to the new red brick tavern addition, it just looks obsolete. This is, after all, the twentieth century. Look! There are cars!

And so it was that the old Green Mountain House came down and the new Hotel Blackhawk took its place, circa 1929. The photo above -- judging by the cars -- dates from the late 30s or early 40s. I'm not one who keeps tabs on ladies' fashions (I know what I like) but the girls crossing the street seem to be wearing pretty short skirts, so I'm guessing this is the 1940s. Newsman Tom Brokaw once called the people of this era "The Greatest Generation." I think it had something to do with the shortening of the skirts.

One more bit of minutia to point out: compare the two photos above and you'll notice that when they built the 'new' hotel, the 'older' tavern portion lost its fancy castle-like roof.

 Stay Tuned... There's More to Come... 

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