I read your column in Volume One and decided since I keep running into dead ends, I would ask you. There are Shermans married into my family, which got me wondering ... Where was the Sherman House? Is it still standing? What Sherman was it named after?
    Thanks for asking, but I’m afraid I’ve only got a guess. Let’s spin the tale ... Dr. David H. Ketcham came to Eau Claire in 1857, where he had a residence and practice on Barstow Street. In 1862, he left for Idaho in a covered wagon to dig for gold on the Salmon River. Ketcham bought a half-claim for $100, sold it a year later for $12,000, and was back in Eau Claire by 1865.

Thomas Kenyon came to Eau Claire pretty early, too, 1859. He left to serve in the Civil War, where he was a wagoner for Company G, 48th Infantry. The Army discharged Kenyon October 1865 on disability, and he returned here.

Kenyon and Ketcham invested in a two-story frame building at 64-66 Barstow. (When the City renumbered its streets about 1880, it became 211 South Barstow.) Ketcham opened a drugstore downstairs and Kenyon operated a restaurant above.

Apparently Dr. Ketcham caught the travel bug again, because he left for Montana with his family in 1872, where we lose their story – except that son Jean ended up being hanged. Don’t know why. Kenyon stayed on and turned the establishment into The Sherman House: saloon, restaurant, hotel, boarding house. Out back he had a livery – the 1870s equivalent of the Civic Center parking ramp (the livery’s ghost is on the same block) – where horses were “boarded at reasonable terms.” The Sherman House served as the downtown Eau Claire stagecoach stop for Harnden’s line to Whitehall and points south, and Haskins’ line to Mondovi and on to the Mighty Mississip.

By 1885, Kenyon had apparently died, and his son Sam renamed the hotel the Saginaw House and opened a “variety theater” in the back. There was quite a bit of “variety” in entertainment venues at the time, and the Temperance Union closed this one down. The building burned in 1900, but the site must have had an entertainment vibe: the Lyric Theater sat there in the silent-movie days. If there were a building on the same spot now (which there’s not; it’s a parking lot), it would be across Barstow Street from Dessert First.

With Sam Kenyon, by the way, the fun didn’t stop at the dancehall door. In 1892, while drunk, Sam and his wife stole the Honorable William Pitt Bartlett’s buggy and took off down State Street hill. Bartlett gave chase in another buggy and caught up with the Kenyons – Mrs. Kenyon lashing Bartlett with the buggy whip to keep him at bay. Sam had gotten drunk after finding his wife drunk with another woman. There’s a lot more to that story, but I’ll stop there, because you asked about the Sherman House.

So why the name? Tom Keny    on’s First Lieutenant during the Civil War was Mark H. Sherman, who was instrumental in organizing Company G of the 48th. I’m guessing Mark either invested, or Kenyon named it in his honor. Incidentally, Mark’s parents Samuel and Lavina Sherman gave the land for the original Sherman School (a one-room school back in the day). The Shermans had originally bought the land from none other than the Honorable William Pitt Bartlett. Small town.

Got a local question? Send it (17 S. Barstow St.) or email it (mail@volumeone.org) and Frank will answer it! Frank has lived in Eau Claire for most of the past 41 years. He is an editor and researcher at the Chippewa Valley Museum, which is open all year just beyond the Paul Bunyan Camp Museum in beautiful Carson Park. You should go there.