Then & Now: Clintonville, Wisconsin

1950s vs. the present

Well, and now for something completely different.

For whatever reason, I found four picture postcards from, believe it or not, Clintonville, Wisconsin, of all places.

From their website, I learned the following:

The City of Clintonville was first settled in March of 1855 by Norman and Lydia Clinton of Menasha.  Clinton and his wife were both originally from Vermont, born in 1796 and 1800 respectively.  Clinton, who was a carpenter by trade, established a sawmill on the 1200 acres of land he owned.  The sawmill burned down within a few years but was later rebuilt by one of his sons, U.P. Clinton.  In 1878, the railroad reached Clintonville and Clinton donated land for the first depot.  In 1879, Clintonville was incorporated as a village and, just 8 years later, as a City in 1887.  Clinton passed away in 1910, and, by that time, the population had reached 1,747.

While Clintonville has a Wikipedia entry, it’s neither long nor detailed.

That said, I do have the following images—and should you know someone from the area, please send over the link to this posting. Personally, I’ve never been to Wisconsin or Clintonville, for that matter, but it sure seems like a nice small town.

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Judging from the cars, it’s the 1950s, or thereabouts. I think that one of the buildings in the above picture postcard—the white-grey one in the centre of the image (or the one next to it, partially hidden behind the trees—might still exist, as the below screen grab from July 2023 indicates.

I was unable to locate the places shown in the other three postcards:

There is a high school in Clintonville, but it’s now located at the edge of town, and I doubt that it’s in the same spot as the building shown in this postcard If anything, the road-sign—“Junction 22”—suggests a place along Main Street, but I don’t think the building still exists.

The same holds true for “the hospital”, which I couldn’t find either on Google Maps. There’s an assisted living facility (Aster Assisted Living of Clintonville), which might be in that place, but it’s impossible for me to tell.

I had a bit more luck with that “scene”, for this—or a similar replacement—pedestrian bridge still exists in “Olen Park” (formerly Central Park):

Well, two out of four with some 70 or so years in-between: not too shabby, eh?