National Register Listing

Marion Park Pavilion

Marion Park, Glidden, WI

The Marion Park Pavilion is an example of the Works Progress Administration program that encouraged the use of local design skills, labor, and materials. During the severest depression years, the federal government attempted to meet the needs of the unemployed millions through a large-scale national works program. The Town of Jacobs, in which the unincorporated Glidden lies in northern Wisconsin's Ashland County, responded to the WPA program with a public building project that provided jobs and business to the community. From its completion more than forty years ago by the WPA, the Marion Park Pavilion has continued to be a gathering place for the community. The Pavilion is unique in adapting the engineering concepts of a three-hinged arch with a bowstring truss to obtain a large volume dome-shaped structure constructed of timber members and metal tie rods. This combination of engineering forms achieved a sizeable structure with local materials and craftsmen.

Situated in the heart of Wisconsin's north woods, the community of Glidden in the Town of Jacobs lies on the banks of the Chippewa River. Since its platting in 1878 with the coming of the Wisconsin Central Railway, the village has always depended on timber-related industries for its livelihood. Sawmills and woodworking plants, as well as mills turning out shingles, barrel staves, and broom handles, provided jobs in Glidden.

By the early 1930s, because of the depletion of timber resources, drought, subsequent fires, and the general economic depression, Glidden fell on hard times along with most of the region. A flood of federal programs and projects came into the region. In 1933 four Civilian Conservation Corps camps were set up in the area, bringing in almost 600 men. They planted trees, fought fires, cleaned streams, cut new roads and erected bridges. But the depression still held the region five years later. None of the sixteen villages, cities, or towns in Ashland County paid tax rolls to the county treasurer by the designated deadline. That same year a Glidden man was named superintendent of all Works Progress Administration programs in Ashland County.

Choosing between a sewer system or a public building for Glidden, the Town of Jacobs WPA program drew upon local skills to draw plans for a community pavilion, replacing an aging building in Marion Park, on the outskirts of Glidden. Frank Huber, the designer carpenter for the old pavilion some thirty years earlier, was a German immigrant who had arrived in Glidden in about 1904. Huber, with the aid of Gust Kasin of Marshfield, designed a dance pavilion in the shape of an octagon covered by a large domed roof. Since the pavilion was intended primarily for dancing (and roller skating too), Huber wanted no vertical structural supports to hinder activities on the floor. Huber's plan was approved by the State Industrial Commission. With local materials and WPA labor under the direction of Henry Hoffschmidt, the pavilion was begun in July of 1938. A formal dedication address was held on June 2, 1939, the address given by Fred R. Zimmerman, former governor and then Secretary of State.

From its inception, the pavilion was and continues to be, a source of pride for the community. Dances, roller skating, and an annual community fair provide a great deal of use for the pavilion.

Local significance of the building:
Listed in National Register of Historic Places in 1981.