The museum at the Historic Baker Building, located at the lower entrance to Leonard-Leota Park, is open for the season. Hours are Saturdays from 1-4pm, except August 15th and September 19th, when we’ll be closed for other events.
Stop by to see artifacts from Evansville’s past and visit the Antes Cabin from the 1930s. Grove Society staff are on hand to share information and answer questions.
We hope to see you this summer!
Kelly J. McKay is the winner of the Commemorative Coin Contest honoring the 250th anniversary of the American Revolution. The contest, jointly sponsored by the Evansville Grove Society and the Eager Free Public Library, was to design a coin that depicts “what the 250th anniversary looks like” to the artist personally. McKay’s winning design features a stars-and-stripes birthday cake with candles and an open book labeled “Our Story.”
McKay’s design will be stamped on an antique brass, half-dollar sized coin that will be minted and available for distribution by the Evansville Grove Society as part of Evansville’s Fourth of July celebration.
6:00 pm on Thursday, June 25 at the Eager Free Public Library.
The Evansville Grove Society is joining forces with the Eager Free Public Library to celebrate the upcoming 250th anniversary of the United States by holding a contest to design a coin commemorating the anniversary. Contestants will design a coin that depicts “what the 250th anniversary looks like” to them personally. The winning design will be placed on an antique brass coin, minted and available for distribution around the Fourth of July. We encourage people of all ages to participate and hope to have a large selection of pictures from which to choose the winner. Entry forms are available at the library; the deadline to submit is May 1st.
Have fun! Be creative! Show us what the 250th looks like to you!
On Sunday afternoon, February 22, the Grove Society sponsored a watch party for a new PBS Wisconsin documentary, Bucky!, on the life and times of the beloved UW mascot. PBS reached out to us because an Evansville Resident from the early twentieth century, Lloyd “Babe”
Spencer, played an important role in the story. “Babe” was the original mascot for the UW teams and was known for his playful nature and for bringing his pet badger, “Billie,” to the games with him. In the late 1940s Wisconsin Athletics replaced the live “Billie” with the cartoon character,
“Bucky” that we know today.
The party took place at The Night Owl in Evansville; the Night Owl’s Travis Ardisson was happy to collaborate with the Grove Society and provided a special menu of old-time Wisconsin food and drink. A delegation from PBS Wisconsin included the documentary’s director and producer, who entertained questions from the audience after the showing.
The highlight of the party, however, was an appearance by Bucky Badger himself, who spent an hour posing for pictures, delighting the many children in attendance, and leading them around the place as if he were the Pied Piper.
Bucky also assisted in awarding Evansville’s First Historian, Ruth Ann Montgomery, with a lifetime membership in the Grove Society.
A running theme of the documentary is the way in which Bucky Badger appeals to everyone who cares about Wisconsin: he makes people happy, makes us feel connected in our love for him and for our state. As the photographs make clear, Bucky did that for everyone who attended the
watch party: we laughed, we delighted in his shenanigans, we felt fortunate to be able to share in his Bucky-ness for an afternoon. The Night Owl, PBS Wisconsin, Wisconsin Athletics, and the Grove Society all contributed to the event’s success, but at the end of the day the event’s contribution to the life of Evansville’s community amounted to considerably more than the sum of the parts.
The documentary can be found on the PBS Wisconsin app, as well as on PBS’s YouTube channel. There is additional content on the PBS Wisconsin page and on Youtube, including an original short feature on RoseAnn Donovan, a woman who was Bucky in the 1980s.
PBS Wisconsin interviewed Ruth Ann Montgomery as part of their research while making the documentary, “Bucky!”.
You can read the transcript HERE, and also find some amazing photos of Lloyd “Babe” Spencer, Evansville native, who was an intregral character behind the UW’s beloved mascot.
Put on your Badger Red and join us at the Night Owl on February 22nd to watch the new PBS documentary on the life and times of UW’s beloved mascot, Bucky Badger.
PBS Wisconsin will premiere “The Life and Art of Theodore Robinson: From Evansville to Giverny and Back Again” on its University Place program on January 29, 2026 at 9pm. The presentation, sponsored by the Evansville Grove Society, was recorded at Creekside Place on October 11, 2025. Robinson, a highly regarded Impressionist painter, grew up in Evansville. The program, by Dr. Janine Yorimoto Boldt of the UW Chazen Museum of Art in Madison, discusses his roots in Evansville and their impact on his life’s work.
Check out more details at PBS Wisconsin.
On November 1, Grove Society members Ed and Barb Larson hosted a second open house at Grandpa’s Farm to raise funds for the Society. Grandpa’s Farm is a museum, located in Larson Acres’ headquarters building, that displays farm antiques dating back into the nineteenth century.
The weather was fine that day and more than sixty people attended from all over southern Wisconsin. The Larsons were on hand, as well as Grove Society board members, to visit, get acquainted, and learn about the artifacts. Of particular interest was Ed’s amazing collection of milk bottles from Wisconsin dairies.
We at the Grove Society are grateful for the generous support of our good friends Ed and Barb.
“Just a quick note of thanks to everyone – what a terrific example of what’s possible when strong partnerships, thoughtful planning and high quality content come together – exactly the kind of impact we aim for. Thank you for all the care that went into making this event such a success.” Fran
Fran Puleo Moyer
Director, UW Connects
University of Wisconsin-Madison
Janine Yorimoto Boldt, PhD, gave an illustrated lecture on the life and art of Theodore Robinson, an Evansville native who became a leading Impressionist painter in the late 19th century. Blending her own expertise in art history with historical research on Robinson’s early life – some of it by Evansville’s leading local historian Ruth Ann Montgomery – Dr. Boldt showed how Robinson’s personal history entwined with the developing style of Monet, Degas, and other French Impressionist painters.
Robinson left Evansville to develop his craft in New York and later in Paris but, Dr. Boldt explained, he ended up doing his best work after returning to the United States and applying the techniques he learned in France to American subjects.
The presentation was the result of a year’s worth of planning and development by Grove Society members in cooperation with UW-Madison Badger Talks. Dr. Boldt, who is currently employed at the Chazen Museum at UW-Madison, agreed to prepare the lecture on her own time. Badger Talks, the speaker’s bureau for UW-Madison, brought the project to PBS Wisconsin, which sent a crew to live stream the presentation and record it for later broadcast on its program, University Place. Currently, you can find the talk on the University Place YouTube channel. There was a great turnout of residents and out-of-town visitors including several members of Robinson’s own family. The event represented a wonderful collaboration between different groups to keep Theodore Robinson’s legacy alive.
