Outagamie County, WI - "Hortonville Commercial Club - A History
       of Community Service"
              
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       Contributed for use in USGenWeb Archives
       Subject: newspaper article "Hortonville Commercial Club - A
       History of Community Service"
       Submitted by: county coordinator 
       EMAIL: jmmarasch@aol.com
       Date Submitted: 15 March 2000
              
       Source: New London Press newspaper article from Bicentennial issue,
       undated.
       
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           Hortonville Commercial Club
            Proceeds from the summer Hortonville Homecoming each year support
       community projects sponsored by the Commercial club.
            The first homecomings were held on Main St. after the club organized in 1929.
                Ten years-later club members purchased park land known as "the Fair Grounds" from
       the Outagamie County Agriculture Society.  The first homecoming on park land paid off
       the $1,600 mortgage.
                World War II shortages suspended homecomings for two years.  Except for those
       years, the celebration has been held the third weekend in June for 39 years.
                The Commercial Club was incorporated on Apr. 17, 1929.  Otto A. Reinke, Joseph P.
       Platten, Fred N. Torrey, Vincent M. Freiburger and Enoch C. Otis signed the original
       Articles of Organization.
                Reinke was the first club president with Walter L. Schroder, vice president; Leonard
       R. Schwarz, secretary.
                From the start, Commercial Club projects were a success.
                "The Womanless Wedding"--the first club entertainment in Nov. 1929--played twice
       to sell-out crowds in the Community Hall.
                In 1936 the club sponsored Maynard Servis in a Highway 26 Club wheelbarrow race.
       Servis won the race by pushing a wheelbarrow from Waupun to Antigo.
                In 1975 club members organized a softball tournament to help boost profits from a
       slow homecoming.  The tournament was a financial success and was repeated in 1976.