Waukesha museum to receive historic mud bath scale

Jan. 09, 2012
SHARE

By Laurel Walker of the Journal Sentinel

Jan. 09, 2012 0

Waukesha - A vintage floor scale used to measure mud used for spa treatments at the Moor Down Mud Baths - a building now occupied by the Waukesha County Health and Human Services Department, where the scale stands in a boardroom - will be handed over to the Waukesha County Museum.

Museum President and Chief Executive Officer Kirsten Lee Villegas asked County Executive Dan Vrakas last week to donate the mud scale, which dates to use in the early 1900s, to the museum's collection.

Vrakas said Monday he has agreed to the donation. However, he is still weighing the museum's request to also donate a nearly 9-foot-tall statue of "Lady Justice" that once stood atop the old courthouse in downtown Waukesha, now home to the museum. The statue was moved to the current courthouse in 1972 but in the past few years has been out of view in a maintenance office. Conservation specialists are scheduled to evaluate the sculpture for needed repairs on Wednesday.

Muddy history

The health and human services building was founded as a resort in 1911, and a few years later a golf course was added. Real estate agent John Weber owned the land and had been unable to sell it for development because of soil conditions. Instead, he built a hotel and invented a couch for giving mud baths, with mud drawn from the surrounding area, according to a State Historical Society report.

Between 1925 and 1947, over 130,000 people received the mud treatment, according to the historical society. The hotel was sold in 1946 and the mud baths closed in 1961. In 1962 it became Mount St. Paul College, and in 1972 the county bought it and has used it ever since as an office building. A new health and human services center is to be built on adjacent land, and preliminary utility work is under way.

About Laurel Walker
Laurel Walker covered local, school and county government for 20 years -- the last half of that at the Milwaukee Journal and Milwaukee Journal Sentinel -- before she was named Waukesha County columnist in 1997. Today she writes about the people, places and events around metropolitan Milwaukee with a broad suburban focus. She was the youngest of nine children raised on a central Wisconsin farm before leaving the nest for journalism studies at the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire and a masters degree at the University of Oregon. She has spent the last half of her life in Waukesha County, where she and her husband raised two sons. Though she has a fondness for life in Waukesha, she eagerly partakes in the culture of the big city to the east and the recreation of the forests to the west. With sons in the arts, she has a special fondness for symphonic music concerts and art museums. She finds peace in a good book at a Northwoods getaway weekend, adventure in family visits to the east and west coasts, and satisfaction in a column well-written that reaches readers.
0 Share Tweet Print
NewsWatch

Advertisement

Photo Galleries

Advertisement