Once Upon a House

3156 S Riverside Dr · Beloit, Wisconsin

Once upon a house — and every word of it on the record.

One piece of land beside the Rock River: the Ho-Chunk village of Standing Post, the trader Joseph Thibault, the Blodgetts who founded Beloit, William S. Yost's farm and cobblestone house, the Yost Park resort, and the Riverside Motel built around it. Every event below links to the page of the source that records it.

Why this place matters →

The 1917 atlas prints "John A. Yost" on the land beside the Rock River, with Yost Park on lot L-7.
The 1917 atlas prints "John A. Yost" on the land beside the Rock River, with Yost Park on lot L-7.

The land through time

  1. …–1835

    The first people

    The Ho-Chunk village of Standing Post beside the Rock River.

    "Indian Manufactures": a canoe, tools and garments of the upper Great Lakes nations, engraved for Schoolcraft's journal of 1821. Not specific to the Ho-Chunk.
    "Indian Manufactures": a canoe, tools and garments of the upper Great Lakes nations, engraved for Schoolcraft's journal of 1821. Not specific to the Ho-Chunk.
    SourceSchoolcraft, Henry R. Narrative Journal of Travels through the Northwestern Regions of the United States, Extending from Detroit through the Great Chain of American Lakes, to the Sources of the Mississippi River, Performed as a Member of the Expedition under Governor Cass, in the Year 1820. Albany: E. & E. Hosford, 1821. Library of Congress copy via the Internet Archive, archive.org/details/narrativejournal01scho.
  2. 1634–1836

    Contact and the fur trade

    French, British and American traders; Joseph Thibault.

    Sault de Ste. Marie, engraved for Schoolcraft's account of the 1820 Cass expedition through the fur-trade country.
    Sault de Ste. Marie, engraved for Schoolcraft's account of the 1820 Cass expedition through the fur-trade country.
    SourceSchoolcraft, Henry R. Narrative Journal of Travels through the Northwestern Regions of the United States, Extending from Detroit through the Great Chain of American Lakes, to the Sources of the Mississippi River, Performed as a Member of the Expedition under Governor Cass, in the Year 1820. Albany: E. & E. Hosford, 1821. Library of Congress copy via the Internet Archive, archive.org/details/narrativejournal01scho.
  3. 1836–1843

    The Blodgetts

    Caleb Blodgett buys Thibault's claim; Selvey K. Blodgett farms the land.

    "A Map of Beloit": the early village beside the Rock River, reproduced in Brown's Rock County, Wisconsin (1908).
    "A Map of Beloit": the early village beside the Rock River, reproduced in Brown's Rock County, Wisconsin (1908).
  4. 1843–1897

    The Yost farm

    William S. Yost settles, farms and builds the cobblestone house.

    "Wm. S. Yost" on the 1858 map of Beloit Township, Sections 11 and 12.
    "Wm. S. Yost" on the 1858 map of Beloit Township, Sections 11 and 12.
  5. 1898–1930

    Yost Park

    The riverside resort: picnics, dances and the interurban.

    "Yost Park" lettered by the river on the 1904 plat, beside John A. Yost's Park Stock Farm.
    "Yost Park" lettered by the river on the 1904 plat, beside John A. Yost's Park Stock Farm.

1820

1822

1823

1824

1825

1826

1827

1828

1829

Faces from the record

Engraved portraits from the county histories of 1879 and 1908. A different dozen each day.

Everyone the sources name →

Research in progress

2,413
documented events
41 years so far, 1820–1860
27
on the property itself
614 more in Beloit
9,847
people identified
across the sources
9
sources transcribed
1,456,854 words · 198 clippings

See how the research is going →