Photo Gallery
The Wisconsin House at 216 East Green Bay Street.
Wisconsin House Hotel bar with William Gottschalk, owner of the Wisconsin House, on the left and bartender, Bill Weber on the right.
Notes
The Wisconsin House
You wouldn’t know it today but the Wisconsin House Inn, located at 216 E. Green Bay Street, was once a prominent hotel in Shawano. When it was known as the Hotel Bilmay, John Kennedy stayed there while campaigning for president it 1960.
The first hotel on the site was the Wisconsin House, built by Leonard Achten in 1873. Achten owned the hotel for several years and sold it to Anton Dietzler who ran it for several decades. It passed through several more owners and was eventually sold to William Gottschalk in 1923.
In 1937, Mr. Gottschalk decided a new hotel was needed and the Wisconsin House was razed and a new 16 room hotel constructed. The new hotel was named the Hotel Bilmay, a combination of the owners, Bill and Mary Gottschalk’s, first names.
When the Murdock House Hotel, located on Main Street, was destroyed by fire in 1949, the city didn’t have enough hotel space for visitors so Gottschalk decided it was a good time to increase the size of the hotel with an addition to accommodate the ever increasing hotel trade in Shawano. The new 20 room addition included a beautiful Art Deco styled cocktail lounge known as the Port Room, kitchen, and spacious dining room. The Hotel Bilmay was a popular location for social events, service club meetings, wedding receptions, and parties.
In 1973 the hotel was sold and changed its name to Fuller’s Motor Inn. Over the years the hotel changed owners and its name to the Wisconsin House Inn but has never regained the prominence and excitement of the days when it was the Bilmay.