Named after the president of the railroad that serviced the town. Originally "Pelican Rapids," which is also a town in Minnesota. I went here once with a girlfriend who grew up here, and went to the Knight Gallery. It was a long trip and the relationship didn't last the summer. Ah well.

Let's take a look around together, shall we?

TV!

I love the entrance to this old dump. The modernization of ancient hotels was really a con job, and everyone knew it; just because you put up some thin brick and “landscaping” didn’t mean the place had old bones, and probably lost its modern veneer the moment you left the lobby.

"Our offices are on the 2 1/2th floor.”

What did they do to this thing? Cut it in half and slide in a slice from another building?

This one looks as if it has a second floor for little folk. And the inlaid decorations should not jump around like that.

Ah, that’s better. The off-the-shelf mail-order Sullivanesque designs were always a nice touch.

Used to be Woolworths, for a few decades, but not since the 60s.

HILGERMANN

He was the president of the Rhinelander Brewing Company.

I suspect this is a skin, with the corner addition as new construction.

The arches were as classical as you’d get in those days.

The Italianate style always classes up a street.

Gallerie?

It’s the light thin brick and the delicate adornments.

Then there’s the other Italian style, the palazzo, more suited to power and money.

I’m reasonably sure it was a hotel; those have to be the bathroom windows.

This would have looked quite modern at the time - not for its style so much as its plain-spoken shape and lack of excessive terra-cotta ornamentation.

I’m reasonably sure it was a hotel; those have to be the bathroom windows.

Perhaps apartments. In any case, the small windows make for an odd and unquiet facade.

The Pub Cafe!

Looks like a very thin building. Something burned or fell down, and was replaced by something that looks as if it was Buckaroo’d from the start.

The Chalet style was never good.

With the Tudor next door, it all looks vaguely northern European, but unconvincingly so.

Well, if you stayed out in the sun that long, you’d peel, too.

Nice post-war rehab on the ground floor, but I’m a sucker for that 50s brick and angled windows.

The State. 1921 - 2016.

Cinema Treasures: “A dropped ceiling covers over all the original decor of the lobby. In the auditoriums all the old decor has also been covered over in the conversion to the four screens.”

The interior was fantastic.

		No theaters have their own crests anymore.

That’s harsh.

Nice old vitrolite on the corner, if that’s what it is. (Vitrolite, I mean, not the corner.)

Say, I wonder if they ever fixed it up . . .

Somehow that’s not exactly better.

America.

I should just end here.

But that would deprive us . . . of this fellow.

No, not the magnificent building, althought that's quite the piece of work. This.

Someone in the comments knows exactly what it was. I’m not from Wisconsin, I’ve been to the town once - and I know what that is.