Jump River Town Hall
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
McKinley Town Hall | |
 McKinley Town Hall in Jump River, August 2010 | |
   | |
| Location | S of WI 73, Jump River, Wisconsin |
|---|---|
| Coordinates | 45°21′7″N 90°48′10″W / 45.35194°N 90.80278°W |
| Area | less than one acre |
| Built | 1915 |
| Architect | Purcell & Elmslie |
| Architectural style | Prairie School |
| NRHP reference No. | 74000127[1] |
| Added to NRHP | March 28, 1974 |
The McKinley Town Hall is a historic Prairie School building located in Jump River, Wisconsin. Built in 1915, it was designed by the noted Prairie School architects Purcell & Elmslie,[1] and is significant as the smallest public building they designed. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1974.[2][3]
The building listed on the NRHP as the "Jump River Town Hall" is actually the town hall of the town of McKinley. The town hall of the town of Jump River is the larger stone building built by the WPA a few hundred yards to the east. Both lie in the hamlet of Jump River - hence the confusion.
In 1915, when the McKinley town hall was built, McKinley was a rather remote corner of northern Wisconsin. Pine/river logging was largely done. Hardwood/railroad logging was still going pretty well, and some of the cut-over forties and eighties were being taken by farmers and settlers. The town of McKinley had been split from the town of Westboro in 1902 and included what is now McKinley and what is now the town of Jump River.[4]
Purcell & Elmslie was a prominent architecture firm of the Prairie School, perhaps second only to Frank Lloyd Wright. Key ideas of this style were that America should have its own original architecture, not aping older styles from Europe like Queen Anne, and that a building should fit with the landscape, often by emphasizing horizontal lines to suggest the wide-open prairies.
