National Register of Historic Places
Fromm Brothers Fur and Ginseng Farm
Hamburg, Marathon County, Wisconsin
The record
- Listed
- November 6, 2013
- Type
- Historic district
- Address
- 436 Co. Hwy. F, Hamburg
- County
- Marathon
- State
- Wisconsin
- Period of significance
- 1850 to 1949
- Contributing resources
- 22 buildings, 8 structures, 1 site
- Coordinates
- 45.09810, -89.87531
- Reference number
- 96001581
Slide toward Today to fade the historical sheet and see the modern map underneath.
The outline is the area recorded for this listing in National Park Service map data, drawn approximately.
Barry Lawrence Ruderman Map Collection, Stanford LibrariesBarry Lawrence Ruderman Map Collection, Stanford LibrariesDigital Commonwealth, Boston Public LibraryBarry Lawrence Ruderman Map Collection, Stanford LibrariesDavid Rumsey Map Collection, Stanford LibrariesUSGS Historical Topographic Map Collection
The story
Written by AI from this property's National Register nomination and the record above; every sentence is checked against its sources before it appears here. Corrections: privacy@treealive.com
The Fromm Brothers Fur and Ginseng Farm is a historic district at 436 Co. Hwy. F in Hamburg, Marathon County. It has 22 contributing buildings, one contributing site and eight contributing structures, built between 1868 and 1948 in styles including Rustic, Craftsman, Prairie School and Tudor Revival, with Theodore Kohl as architect and builder for some of the work.
Why it's listed
The district is listed in the National Register under criterion A and criteria consideration G, with state-level significance in architecture, agriculture and commerce. Its period of significance runs from 1904, when the brothers planted their first ginseng beds, to 1964, when a lawsuit divided the company and its holdings.
Physical character
Walls are log, weatherboard, brick and fieldstone on stone and concrete foundations, under asphalt, metal and clay tile roofs. The boarding house, a two-and-one-half-story building, gained a rear ell in 1928 and a kitchen addition in 1936, and the clubhouse gained two wings and a stone fireplace in 1944. Other buildings include a round silo, a former gas station turned garage, and a four-lane bowling alley with a Tudor arch entry pavilion.
Historical context
Six families settled in the Hamburg area in 1857; the brothers planted their first ginseng beds in 1904, and held their first fur auction in 1936. A dispute broke out in 1963 among the brothers, their children, in-laws and grandchildren, and a 1964 lawsuit divided the company and its holdings.