History in the Park
On the 4th Sunday in August, History comes alive in Leonard-Leota Park with the Evansville Grove Society’s signature event.
August 2025 – Varco-Pruden: 75 years of Pruden Products
The Grove Society’s annual “History in the Park” gathering for 2025 will take place on Sunday, August 24th at the Upper Shelter Pavilion in Evansville’s Leonard-Leota Park. The featured speaker will be Dan Stephans, formerly Chief Architect for the State of Wisconsin and long-time member of the Grove Society’s Board of Directors. His topic will be the history of the Varco-Pruden Company, a world-wide leader in the manufacture of steel buildings that got its start in Evansville in 1954. Now part of BlueScope Buildings of North America, Varco-Pruden maintains a factory on Water Street in Evansville. Among other noteworthy contributions, the company built the Wisconsin Pavilion at the 1964 New York World’s Fair; it also built the pavilion that houses the History in the Park meetings each year. Admission is free to the public; as usual, lunch of bratwurst and hotdogs will be provided free. The event concludes at 3 pm.