During the 2007 Fourth of July festivities, the City of Whitewater also will celebrate the anniversary of its 1907 Home-Coming.
From the celebration website: “In the first week of August, 1906, Whitewater Normal School President Albert Salisbury placed an open letter in the Whitewater papers, inviting members of the community to come out and plan for a Home-Coming festival to be held the following year in honor of the 70th anniversary of the first settlement in Whitewater. As a result of that meeting, a Home-Coming was planned for July 4-7, 1907. Over 2,500 playful letters of invitation were sent to former Whitewater residents across the nation, with the hope that up to 1,000 would find their way home. The names of 109 community members were listed on the invitation, to extend as warm and encouraging a welcome as possible. In the end, over 2,000 residents returned for the event!”
See the 2007 schedule of events online. These include many events on campus, such as an exhibit in the Crossman Gallery, a dinner hosted by the Chancellor, and a rededication of the Halverson Log Cabin. The University Library Archivist, Karen Weston, will be involved with tours of the Oak Grove Cemetery given by costumed volunteers on July 3rd. She has also created a display in the Library lobby.
Interested in knowing more about local history? We have copies of Early Annals of Whitewater, 1837-1867, Whitewater Home-Coming: Seventieth Anniversary of Founding of the City (uncataloged in the Archives), and the 2006 pictorial history Whitewater by Fred Kraege, as well as other materials on both the City’s history and the history of the campus.
