Category: News

The Evansville Grove Society will sponsor a Historic House Tour on Saturday, September 19th , from 1 PM to 5 PM in Evansville’s historic district. Five landmark homes will be included on the tour, all of them within walking distance of each other.

Admission for the event will be $20 in advance or $25 on the day of the event, when the Grove Society will have a tent on First Street between Evans Hall (104 W. Main St.) and the Tower House (44 W. Main St.). Children 12 and under will be admitted free.

Tickets may be purchased online. Tickets will also be on sale at the Society’s museum in the Historic Baker Building, 15 Antes Drive in Leonard-Leota Park, Saturdays between 1 and 4PM, or through the Evansville Chamber of Commerce during regular business hours. All proceeds will go to support the Grove Society’s efforts at preserving Evansville’s history.

Learn more about the Tour and the houses.

Irregular Warfare during the Revolutionary War.

On Thursday, June 25, Professor John W. Hall of the UW-Madison History Department presented a talk, entitled “Washington’s Partisans: Early American Warfare Reconsidered,” at the Eager Free Public Library in Evansville. The Grove Society sponsored the talk jointly with the Library and UW Badger Talks as part of its observance of the 250 th anniversary of the American Revolution.

Professor Hall began his talk by challenging what he called the “received wisdom” that General (later President) George Washington led the American colonists to victory over the British by using informal, “frontier” tactics against which the professional soldiers in the British Army were unable to defend themselves. This “frontier” myth has been a durable part of US military culture as well as in American culture at large. Academic historians, Professor Hall told the audience, believe that the standard view has only a little basis in fact.

Instead, Professor Hall said, Washington was no less devoted to professional European military doctrine than his British opponents. The British, meanwhile, were far from helpless and able to adapt strategy and tactics to North American conditions. Washington was successful because he supplemented his use of professionally-trained troops with European-style “partisans” (small, highly mobile forces comparable to today’s Army Rangers or Special Forces) and “irregulars” (militia soldiers who maintained their civilian lives and took up arms only when the fighting came to their neighborhoods).

These “irregular” forces were especially important because they were the mainstay of the colonists’ defense against the larger and more powerful British. Washington reserved his professional troops for situations in which he could achieve the kind of spectacular victories that would eventually cause the British to tire of the fight. Washington’s genius lay in his ability to use all three kinds of forces effectively under North American conditions.

Irregular Warfare during the American Revolution

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.

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.