Red Circle Inn History

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As appeared in The Freeman on Thursday, September 15, 1994.
By William Stark

On a foggy morning a few weeks ago, I was driving south to Paddock Lake, a Kenosha County village close to the Illinois line. As I look back now on the experience, I should have wondered whether my morning's mission might warrant combat pay.

I pulled into the Brass Ball Inn, a hostelry that claims its 1848 origin makes it Wisconsin's oldest restaurant. Nashotah's Red Circle Inn claims are identical, founded in 1848, the year of Wisconsin's statehood.

Which establishment is older? I wanted to find out.

Glenna Robinson, owner of the Brass Ball, was not too happy at my unannounced arrival. When she learned that I was questioning the date of the Brass Ball's founding, she became downright belligerent.

I left.

So, dear reader, if Waukesha County's Red Circle Inn isn't the oldest restaurant in the state, at least it ties for that honor.

Few places can equal the color and rich history of the " Circle."

It goes back to 1847 when Francis Schraudenbach, a resourceful Bavarian immigrant, moved from Stone Bank to the site of what is now Nashotah. He paid $350 for 40 acres of government land. He knew that the newly planned Plank Road, from Milwaukee to Watertown, would intersect a wagon road that ran north from the village of Delafield—the present Highway C.

When Schraudenbach took possession of his land, it was uninhabited except for an occasional wandering Potawatomi. He built an inn at the crossroads, a graceful building of wood timbers and plaster, with exterior wrap-around balconies. The interior was snug and contained several large and inviting fireplaces.

The inn soon became a stagecoach stop. It's referred to in a stagecoach schedule of 1852 as the Nashotah Inn.

In 1854, the Chicago, Milwaukee, Watertown and Baraboo Valley Railroad was built through Nashotah and for years, this little crossroads community was known as Pine Lake Station. The tracks ran less than 100 yards behind the inn.

A year or two before the Civil War, Schraudenbach constructed the old Nashotah Park—not to be confused with present Nashotah Park. The park was across the road from the inn. He also built a dance pavilion. On holidays, train-loads of merrymakers descended on Schraudenbach's little village.

During the Civil War, more than one farm boy walked to Nashotah, stayed overnight at the inn, then caught the early morning steam train to Madison and Camp Randall for training. And, not long afterward, points south!

According to a letter written two years after the Civil War, the Nashotah Inn consisted of a bar and pool room on the first floor and a dining room and guest rooms on the second and third floors.

In 1867—after a run of almost two decades—Schraudenbach sold his inn to Issac Smith.

Smith didn't have the founder's business sense and within a matter of months, he was glad to sell out to John Hill, a mason by trade. Hill, like Smith, was a poor proprietor and for several years the building lay vacant.

In the early 1880s, Samuel Warr became owner. He had his idiosyncrasies but he had an entrepreneurial flair, too. Warr soon became the best customer of his own bar. Townspeople said it was not unusual to see Mrs. Warr chasing him around one of the porches with broom in hand.

Regardless of Warr's penchant for alcohol, he was innovative. One welcome addition was a livery service from the inn, carrying summer colonists in horse-drawn vehicles from the railroad station to their new summer homes on Pine and Oconomowoc lakes.

The year 1889 ushered in a golden era for the inn. That year the dapper Fred Pabst and the Pabst Brewing Co. purchased the hotel. One of the first things Pabst did was change the name from the Nashotah Inn to the Red Circle Inn.

The name " Red Circle" was a famous part of the old Pabst Brewing Co. trademark. The colorful name, The Red Circle Inn, has remained with the establishment for the last 119 years.

Ira Bigelow became the manager of The Red Circle the year the Pabsts bought it. Bigelow remained manager for 22 years until ill health forced his retirement in 1911.

He was a very capable manager. But during his two decades there, more than his share of amusing incidents occurred.

An example: A young, newly licensed doctor, Henry Helmholz, was to be married Dec. 31, 1907, to Isabel Lindsay. Helmholz had spent much time at his family's summer home on Pine Lake. He knew the Red Circle well and wrote Ira Bigelow about his forthcoming marriage.

He requested that Bigelow reserve the inn's finest room for them. He added that he hoped it contained a fireplace with a cheery log fire.

Bigelow wrote back the room was all set. But he regretted that the Red Circle did not have any cherry logs. He hoped, however, that Dr. Helmholz would find the oak logs satisfactory.

Within a month after Ira Bigelow's resignation, Steve Pulaski Sr. replaced him as the Red Circle manager. Fred Pabst knew Pulaski and his wife, Hulda, well, for they had worked at his Milwaukee mansion.

Six years later, in 1917, a devastating fire destroyed the inn. One of several accounts wrote off the Red Circle, saying: " The passing of Red Circle Inn brings a tear of regret to those who have known it since pioneer times."

But the obituary was premature. By 1921, the inn had been rebuilt and Steve Pulaski Sr. was not only the Red Circle's manager but the owner as well. For the next 45 years, three generations of Pulaskis ran a very successful restaurant.

The affable Steve Pulaski Jr. is best remembered by patrons. Young Pulaski, always a good student, attended St. John's Military Academy around 1920, then he enrolled at the University of Wisconsin.

The well-liked Pulaski played football all four years at Madison. His senior year, 1925, he captained Wisconsin's varsity football team.

Upon graduation, he returned to the Red Circle and was a part of management until his tragic and untimely death in 1941.

Eighteen years ago, the Pulaski family sold the restaurant to Aad Groenevelt of Provimi fame. Until two years ago the inn was managed by Groenevelt's daughter, Renee, and husband, Mark Manion.

It was then purchased by Norm Eckstaedt and Nico Derni in 1993 and in 2000 sole ownership was transfered to Norm and Martha Eckstaedt.

Visit it today and you'll see a round table in the corner of the main dining room where on two occasions history was made.

In the early 1930s, Albert J. Earling, president of The Milwaukee Road and owner of an Oconomowoc Lake summer mansion, was sitting with some of his associates talking about the streamliner, Hiawatha, which was still on the drawing board.

One of them asked Earling just what he envisioned the exterior design of the train to be. Earling took out a pencil and drew for five or 10 minutes on the tablecloth! What he drew became the basic exterior design for The Milwaukee Road's first streamliner.

Twenty years later, the late Fred Miller – brewery president, owner of an Oconomowoc Lake home and captain of Notre Dame's 1928 football team – sat at that very table. His guests were Lou Perini, owner of the Boston Braves baseball team, and several of his executives. Legend has it that it was agreed at that time to move the Braves from Boston to Milwaukee.

(William Stark, former president of Stark Candy Co. in Pewaukee, once served as president of the village of Chenequa and as a Waukesha County supervisor. His writing includes seven books. His column about Waukesha County runs monthly in The Freeman.)