Join the PAHS and Polish Heritage Society on a One Day Bus Trip
If you have ties to Hofa Park, this trip to Jennings, Wisconsin is right up your alley.
Did you know that one of the most unique buildings relating to early Polish-American settlement in Wisconsin still stands in the Great Northwoods just 5 miles east of Pelican Lake? It’s so important to the history of America that it’s listed on the National Register of Historic Places because of both its size and how it was constructed. It’s especially important to the Polonia of Northeast Wisconsin because of our connection to one family from Hofa Park that set out for the American dream way back in 1899.
This is the story of the Mecikalski Stovewood Building (originally from Hofa Park) in Jennings, Wisconsin.
Mecikalski Building originally built in Hofa Park, Wisconsin, is now located in Jennings, Wisconsin.
In 1873, Joseph and Anna Mecikalski (along with their two sons, John and Lawrence) immigrated from Pomorskie, Poland, to the United States, living for a time off Sobieski Street in Milwaukee before settling on a farm in Maple Grove Township. The Mecikalskis attended church at St. Stanislaus Church in Hofa Park. In total, Joseph and Anna would have eight sons, two of whom (Lawrence and Francis) married two of the first daughters born in Hofa Park (Francis Lepak and Apolonia Zygmanski). On February 9, 1891, their eldest son, John, married Mary Kasza, another Milwaukee-born native who came to Hofa Park in a wave of Polish immigration to Northeast Wisconsin.
By all accounts, John Mecikalski was a very enterprising and industrious young man who worked for a time for J.J. Hof, the Milwaukee-based land agent who built the largest rural Polish colony in the United States (centered around Pulaski, Wisconsin). In 1899, at the age of 32, John Mecikalski purchased 160 acres of land in Schoepke Township, Oneida County, in the heavily wooded forests about 90 miles northwest of Pulaski. After establishing himself in the Northwoods, John intended to sell parcels of land to other Polish immigrants, building a colony similar to what J.J. Hof had accomplished in communities surrounding Pulaski. Starting around 1900, John Mecikalski and his brothers (Lawrence, Stephen, Ernest, and Henry) built and operated several businesses in what would become Jennings, Wisconsin, the largest of which was the Mecikalski General Store, now the Mecikalski Stovewood Building.
What makes the Mecikalski Stovewood Building special is its construction. The majority of the building was fabricated using a technique called “stovewood,” where small cords of wood (the length of which would fit in a stove) were stacked between layers of mortar. This type of construction is found in Poland and in other parts of Wisconsin, including the rural areas surrounding Pulaski. In fact, one of the most well-known examples of stovewood construction in the state is the Kruza Farmhouse at Old World Wisconsin. The Kruza Farmhouse was originally built in 1884 by Franz Stefaniak in Hofa Park for his elderly in-laws and was later painstakingly moved in 1989 by the Wisconsin Historical Society to Old World Wisconsin to become its showpiece “Polish Farmstead.” John was familiar with this building technique, and while most stovewood buildings are one story tall, John’s mercantile was an impressive three stories, making it the largest commercial stovewood building of its type in America.
Throughout the first few decades of the twentieth century, John and his brothers continued to develop their businesses in Jennings, establishing a saloon, an implements dealership, a grocery store, a sawmill, an icehouse, and a boarding house (all centered around the original Mecikalski Stovewood Building). John’s brother Ernest opened a candy store and saloon right next door, and in the 1920s, his younger brother Henry took over the Stovewood Building while John moved to Sobieski, owning several businesses, including a fox farm and a quarry. When John passed away in 1930, he was buried in Sobieski, within eyesight of his former mentor, J.J. Hof.
After Henry passed away, the Mecikalski Stovewood Building went through a period of slow deterioration but saw a rebirth in 1955 when Clara Mecikalski Kulinski, the daughter of Ernest, compiled an extensive history of Jennings and the Mecikalski family. Further recognition came in 1984 when Donna M. Gager, a researcher from UW Madison, got the Mecikalski Stovewood Museum on the National Register of Historic Places due to its being the largest commercial building utilizing the stovewood construction technique in the United States. Shortly thereafter, the Kohler Foundation, Inc. undertook the restoration of the entire Mecikalski site and passed it over to the Town of Schoepke on June 20, 1987.
Today, the Mecikalski Stovewood Building is a museum open to the public. It is a time capsule with a collection dating to before 1930. Through the great efforts of its curators, it’s easy for a visitor to walk into the museum and feel what it was like to stand within a space that is well over 100 years old. The general store is fully stocked with a vast array of canned goods, candies, threads, toys, and trinkets. An attached saloon has all the trappings of a frontier tavern, including examples of homemade stills and player pianos. The implement shop contains all manner of tools found on the farms and in the lumber camps from the surrounding area. The living quarters and boarding house are especially charming, with handmade quilts on the beds, carved wooden toys in the corners, little black potbelly stoves in every room, and on the walls and mantles, small pictures and tokens of their faith (often in Polish). Outside the museum is Ernest Mecikalski’s candy store, which now serves as the local gift shop and visitors’ center. A blacksmith shop holds demonstrations at the museum’s annual fundraiser (Stovewood Daze), and within walking distance is the Polish Pioneer’s Cemetery, a solemn place of rest for many of the community’s early settlers.
Location of Jennings, Wisconsin
Touring the museum, visitors are reminded that they are in a place very similar to the businesses that would have been found all throughout Hof’s Polish colony, complete with period artifacts. That it was built by folks from the Pulaski area only makes it that much more important to us, the Polonia of Northeast Wisconsin.
Want to learn more? The Pulaski Area Historical Society, in conjunction with the Polish Heritage Society of Northeast Wisconsin, is organizing a bus trip on August 2nd, 2025, to Jennings, Wisconsin, to attend this year’s Stovewood Daze. Stovewood Daze is an annual event celebrating the history of the Mecikalski Stovewood Building that includes tours of the site led by friendly and knowledgeable docents. There will also be sawmill demos, chainsaw art, live music, raffles, a craft and vendor fair, fun events, a pig roast, and more Polish dishes and bakery than a person can eat in a week! The cost is $30 per person (round-trip), with the bus leaving Pulaski at 10 AM on the morning of August 2nd and returning to Pulaski by 4 PM that afternoon. If you’re interested in joining us, please visit the PAHS website and check out the Events tab for details and a link where you can sign up for an enjoyable afternoon visiting this wonderful site of Polish-American history (https://www.pulaskiwihistory.org/events).