Living in Beloit

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A neighborly look at Beloit its history, homes, streets, local places, and the quiet moments that make living here feel just right.

Exploring Beloit a small city with a Massive Legacy Welcome to Living in Beloit — your local guide to homes, neighborhoods, market updates, and everyday life in Beloit, Wisconsin. Whether you’re buying, selling, renting, or just love living here, this page shares local insights, real estate tips, and community highlights to help you stay informed.
📍 Beloit, WI
🏡 Homes | Market Updates | Local Living

10/28/2026

Walk through Rhodes Arboretum on East Grand Avenue, and you’ll find Beloit Corporation, the Daily News, George Bros. and other local names on small plaques near the roots.

That’s what caught my attention during a recent walk. From the street, we see a stretch of green and a canopy of branches. On foot, looking down, we discover who helped put some of those trees there and whom they wanted us to remember.

One plaque identifies a majestic locust donated by Beloit Corporation in honor of E. H. Neese Sr. Another marks a red oak donated by the William Collins family in honor of William Collins. The Daily News contributed a small-leaf linden honoring C. B. Salmon.

Elsewhere, a Chinese chestnut plaque names George Bros. as the donor, honoring John and Mike George. Nickel Bros. Tree Service appears beneath a bur oak. W. J. Dunnes Nursery is named beside a beech, and the Beloit Men’s Garden Club donated a ginkgo.

Several of the markers carry dates from 1965 and 1966. Reading them now, you wonder about the people who gathered here, the decisions behind each gift and what these trees looked like when the plaques were new. The markers give us names and dates, but they also leave us with questions worth asking.

There is an important piece of history behind this collection. Writing in the Beloit Historical Society’s July/August 2025 Confluence newsletter, Elizabeth Brewer describes how 40 residents challenged a proposed motel development at Mechanics Green in 1961 and prevailed four years later. Joseph M. Rhodes and the Beloit Men’s Garden Club then helped establish an arboretum through private donations. Its name formally recognized Rhodes’s leadership in 1995.

Rhodes Arboretum occupies the northern portion of Mechanics Green. Knowing that connection gives us another reason to pause here, but you don’t need to know the park’s whole history to appreciate what the plaques offer.

For someone who remembers these businesses or knew these families, a few words on a marker might bring back much more than they tell the rest of us. A workplace. A familiar storefront. Someone whose name hasn’t come up in conversation for years.

And the dedications haven’t stopped with that older generation. A white oak planted in 2024 honors Joyce Schoenfield, with a plaque naming the League of Women Voters of Beloit. It’s a recent addition to a tradition you can trace through the park one marker at a time.

We have plenty of reasons to look up during an autumn walk in Beloit. This little collection gives us a reason to look down, too. The next time you pass through, read a few names. If one means something to you, I’d love to hear the memory behind it.

Follow Living in Beloit for more stories found close to home, and share this with someone who might recognize a name beneath these trees.

photographs by Thomas Pullen | Living in Beloit

Historical background: Elizabeth Brewer, “Respite, Play, and Contestation in Mechanics Green Park,” Beloit Historical Society, Confluence, July/August 2025.

10/26/2026

The Beloit observatory with a paper dome and a telescope that still works

Just over 144 years ago, on October 14, 1882, Beloit College students gathered inside their new observatory and looked through its telescope for the first time.

The telescope was said to be exceptional. The dome above it was made largely from paper. Students had been asking the college for an observatory for years. They could study plants and rocks firsthand, one student argued, but astronomy remained something they mostly experienced through books.

Their opportunity arrived in 1881, when Mrs. J. S. Herrick gave Beloit College $10,000 in memory of her brother, John F. Smith. The college began constructing Smith Observatory on a bluff near the Turtle effigy mound.

The stone building included an octagonal tower and two wings. Its strangest feature came from the Waters company of Troy, New York, a manufacturer known for making paper boats.

The rotating dome consisted of 24 sections of paper board stretched over a wooden frame. The paper was only about one-eighth of an inch thick, but its light weight made the dome easier to turn as the telescope followed objects across the night sky.

Inside stood a nearly 12-foot telescope with a 9½-inch lens made by Alvan Clark & Sons, one of America’s most respected telescope makers. Its mounting was the first produced by Warner & Swasey, a company that later supplied equipment to some of the country’s greatest observatories.

Worcester R. Warner personally came to Beloit to install it. The telescope stood eight feet above the floor on an iron pedestal anchored to a masonry pier. Nine eyepieces allowed students to magnify objects from 70 to 600 times.

On the evening of October 14, Professor Thomas A. Smith and his students finally aimed it toward the moon, planets and stars. Beloit students could now study the sky with their own eyes.

Only two months later, the telescope proved its value during a rare transit of Venus. Clouds prevented many observers around the country from seeing the event, but Beloit’s students successfully recorded observations.

The telescope remained in Beloit for more than 80 years. After the college opened a newer observatory in the 1960s, it advertised the old instrument for sale. One offer reportedly came from a high school student who hoped to trade a collection of Popular Electronics magazines for it.

Instead, retired television personality Dave Garroway, the original host of NBC’s Today show, bought the telescope for $5,000 in 1967. He installed it at his home and invited schoolchildren to look through it.

When Garroway later moved to California, he sold the telescope to Keystone College in Pennsylvania. He reportedly chose Keystone because the college promised to keep it available to students and the public.

The old Beloit telescope remains there today. Its original Clark lens continues revealing the moon, planets and stars more than 140 years after Beloit students first gathered beneath that paper dome.

Smith Observatory had a different fate. Students briefly transformed the building into a coffeehouse and arts space before it was demolished in April 1969 to make room for the Neese Theatre complex. Some of its limestone reportedly survives in a retaining wall behind Wood and Haven halls.

The observatory disappeared, but the instrument at the heart of it continues doing exactly what Beloit students hoped it would do: giving people an opportunity to experience the heavens with their own eyes.

Did you ever visit Smith Observatory, look through a telescope at Beloit College or hear stories about the coffeehouse that briefly occupied the old building?

If you enjoy rediscovering Beloit’s vanished places and the remarkable pieces of them that survive, follow Living in Beloit and share this story with someone who remembers the college campus before Neese Theatre.

10/26/2026

We had a blast tonight! To everyone who stopped by, thank you for spending part of your evening with us. We’ve had so much fun putting this together, but sharing it with you was the best part.

You’re what makes Beloit feel like home. We’re so grateful to have you as neighbors, and we’re glad we got to share a little Halloween fun together. ❤️👻

Feel free to post your pictures or videos here we would love to see if from your experience!

10/25/2026

You’ve seen the front yard… but most people never get to experience what’s lurking out back. 🎃🌕

Tonight, we’re opening the gates at Haunting on Emerson St.! Come explore the entire yard, follow the spooky scenes around back, and meet a few characters waiting in the shadows. We’ve had so much fun putting this together, and we’d love to share it with you under the full moon.

👻 Tonight, Sunday, October 25
🕡 6:30–8 p.m.
📍 1425 Emerson St., Beloit

Brings a friend and come see what’s been hiding beyond the front yard… if you dare!

10/23/2026

A sculptor, an author, a murdered investigative reporter and a basketball standout belonged to the Beloit College class that gave this old bell a new home. The plaque says simply “Class of 1950.” Once you know a few of the people behind that date, it becomes much harder to walk past.

I was on campus taking pictures for another story when I remembered the bell and stopped for a closer look. Later, looking into that graduating class, I found a connection I hadn’t expected.

The bell once hung in the cupola of Middle College, calling generations of students to classes and worship. Imagine how familiar that sound must have become. Whatever they were studying, whatever they hoped to do with their lives, the bell was part of their day.

In the summer of 1950, the graduating class gave it this home beside Morse-Ingersoll Hall, along with the surrounding plaza and low wall. Their plaque explains that they wanted it to continue announcing important campus events. They left something familiar behind for the people coming next.

One of those graduates was Don Bolles. He became an investigative reporter for The Arizona Republic, digging into organized crime, bribery and corruption. His reporting earned a Pulitzer Prize nomination, and he was named Arizona’s Newsman of the Year in 1974.

When Beloit honored him in 1975, Bolles credited the college with teaching him to think for himself and Professor Ivan M. Stone with setting an example of integrity. The following year, he was murdered in a car bombing. Fellow journalists continued investigating after his death, including another Beloit graduate, J. Harry Jones.

His classmate Jacqueline Dougan Jackson spent years preserving memories of a very different place. Her Stories of the Round Barn chronicled life at Beloit’s Dougan Dairy Farm. Through her books, teaching and public-radio series, The Author Is You, she also encouraged others to recognize that their own experiences were worth telling.

Clarence “Sour” Anderson helped give Beloit basketball fans plenty to cheer about. During his four years, the college’s teams won 100 games and lost just 15. He earned Little All-American recognition and later played on Caterpillar Tractor Company’s AAU championship teams.

Then I came across the name that brought this whole detour back to my recent stories: O. Vernon “Verne” Shaffer.

The same Verne whose art fills so many corners of Beloit College. The same artist behind Celebration, which I recently shared here. He was a member of the Class of 1950, too.

Shaffer taught and directed the college’s Wright Art Center before becoming an independent artist. His metal sculptures ranged from delicate pieces to massive works, and his honors included Wisconsin’s Governor’s Award in Arts. Yet he had never taken a formal course in sculpture.

I had been taking pictures of his work without knowing this connection existed. Then a stop beside an old bell led me right back to him.

That’s a big part of why I enjoy doing this. I can head out with one story in mind and come home with another. A date on a plaque becomes a reporter who kept asking questions, an author who preserved farm memories, an athlete who helped fill the stands and an artist whose work is still all around us.

Have you stopped beside this bell, or do you remember encountering any of these four people or their work? I’d love to hear what you remember.

Follow Living in Beloit for more stories like this, and share this with someone who might recognize a name, remember a story or see that old bell a little differently.

10/22/2026

👻 Six FREE events, two for $5 or less, and eight reasons to get out of the house!

Looking for something fun around Beloit area this week? We've found ghost stories, Halloween celebrations, live music, hockey, and even an entire bag of books for $1!

Here's what's happening October 22–28!

1. 👻 Halloween Soirée: Wisconsin's Most Haunted Places — Thursday, Oct. 22, 6–8 PM at Beloit Public Library. FREE.

2. 📚 Friends at Beloit Library Book Sale — Thursday–Saturday, Oct. 22–24. Books start at 25¢, with $1 bag day Saturday.

3. 🏒 Beloit College Men's Hockey — Friday, Oct. 23, 7 PM at Woodman's Center in Janesville. $3–$5 admission.

4. 🎃 South Beloit Trunk N' Treat — Saturday, Oct. 24, 3–4:30 PM at South Beloit City Park. FREE.

5. 🎵 WIGGIN Live in Concert — Saturday, Oct. 24, 7–9 PM at The Overflowing Cup. FREE.

6. 👻 Rockton Halloween Spooktacular — Sunday, Oct. 25, 1–3 PM in Downtown Rockton and Settlers Park. FREE.

7. 🍂 Forest Bath & Reset — Sunday, Oct. 25, 1–2 PM at Big Hill Park. FREE.

8. 🍬 Indoor Trick-or-Treating — Wednesday, Oct. 28, 6–7 PM at Stateline Boys & Girls Club, 202 Maple Avenue. FREE.

Save this list, share it with a friend, and follow Living in Beloit for more local happenings and stories worth discovering!

10/21/2026

The “ghost” of Lincoln that changed Houdini’s life in Beloit

Years before Harry Houdini became the world’s most famous escape artist, he entered a darkened room in Beloit hoping to hear from the dead. Houdini later wrote that he was about 16 when he attended a series of séances conducted by a Beloit tailor.

At the time, the future magician was a sincere believer in spiritualism, and the tailor seemed capable of summoning some of history’s greatest figures. George Washington, Napoleon and Christopher Columbus supposedly spoke during the séances. Then one evening, the medium announced that the spirit of Abraham Lincoln had arrived.

Lincoln was one of young Houdini’s heroes. He had read every book about the president he could find, so he asked the “spirit” a detailed question about what Lincoln had done after his mother’s burial.

The answer sounded believable, but it did not match the history Houdini knew. That small mistake made him suspicious, and he began listening more carefully.

No matter which famous person appeared, the voices always seemed to be one of the same three. When Houdini asked the tailor about it, the man laughed and admitted that his séances were tricks.

Houdini remembered the confession as a painful shock. He had trusted the tailor completely, but the experience taught him to look beyond the performance and study how an illusion was being created.

Beloit was not finished with Houdini. In 1897, he returned as a performer with his wife, Bess, several years before his name became famous around the world.

During that period, the couple toured Wisconsin with a traveling vaudeville company. Together, they performed their “Metamorphosis” illusion, exchanging places with astonishing speed using a locked trunk.

Nearly three decades later, Houdini described the Beloit séances in a 1925 article called “How I Unmask the Spirit Fakers.” By then, he had devoted years to exposing fraudulent mediums and explaining the tricks they used to convince grieving families that they could communicate with the dead.

One hundred years ago, on Halloween in 1926, Harry Houdini died in Detroit at the age of 52. Before his death, Houdini and Bess reportedly agreed upon a secret message he would attempt to deliver if communication from beyond the grave proved possible.

Bess participated in séances for years, hoping to receive the promised message. It never arrived.

Appleton is commemorating the 100th anniversary of Houdini’s death by dedicating a Wisconsin historical marker in Houdini Plaza. Appleton remembers the boy who spent part of his childhood there, but Beloit has its own remarkable place in his story.

According to Houdini’s account, this was where a teenage believer began noticing that ghosts did not always know their history.

Follow Living in Beloit for more surprising stories from our community, and share this with someone who enjoys a little mystery. Had you ever heard about Houdini’s Beloit séances or his 1897 performance here.

10/19/2026

It’s was 100 years ago this month. One of Beloit College's most beloved professors was found unconscious and covered in blood inside a campus building. He would never explain what happened to him. Was it a medical emergency, a terrible accident, or something far more sinister? Nearly 100 years later, the mystery still lingers at Beloit College.

His name was Theodore Lyman Wright, and his mysterious death in October 1926 left questions that would linger for generations. Born in Beloit in 1858, Wright graduated from Beloit College in 1880 and devoted much of his life to teaching Greek literature and fine arts. His studies took him to Harvard University and Athens, Greece, but he returned to Beloit, where generations of students came to know him affectionately as "Teddy."

Wright had a remarkable passion for bringing history and ancient literature to life. He translated Greek plays, directed elaborate theatrical productions, and helped establish Beloit's reputation as an extraordinary place to experience classical Greek drama. He also helped create the city's grand pageant in 1916 and directed major portions of Beloit College's 75th-anniversary pageant in 1922. But in October 1926, something happened that would forever change how his story was remembered.

Wright was discovered unconscious inside North College, the building we know today as Campbell Hall. Accounts described a disturbing scene involving blood, his clothing, and an apparent head injury. He was taken to the hospital, where he died. The circumstances raised a troubling question: what had happened to the beloved professor?

Beloit College's archival records attribute his death to a stroke under unusual circumstances, while other accounts raised the possibility of foul play. The strange circumstances surrounding his final hours encouraged speculation, and over time, his death became part of the ghost stories associated with the campus. Even a century later, the unanswered questions continue to make Wright's final hours one of Beloit College's more intriguing mysteries.

His loss was deeply felt throughout Beloit. In a tribute published after his death, L. Taylor Merrill compared the city's grief to the way Concord had mourned Ralph Waldo Emerson. Wright was remembered not simply as an educator but as someone who had enriched the cultural life of the entire community. In 1929, construction began on an art building bearing his name, and the Wright Museum of Art, completed in 1930, continues to be part of Beloit College today.

But Wright's story didn't end with the naming of a museum. In November 2025, nearly a century after his death, Beloit College students presented The Guiding Spirit, a theatrical production inspired by the mystery surrounding the professor. Written collaboratively by students and featuring original music, the production brought Wright's mysterious final chapter back to the stage. There is something extraordinary about a man who spent much of his life bringing stories to life through theater becoming the subject of a theatrical production nearly 100 years after his own death.

Some mysteries fade with time, while others become part of a community's history, passed from one generation to the next. Theodore Lyman Wright's story is one of those mysteries, but his legacy extends far beyond the unanswered questions surrounding his death. His name remains attached to a place dedicated to the very things he spent his life sharing: art, learning, and the human imagination.

Every community has a story, and sometimes those stories are a little mysterious. Follow Living in Beloit for more remarkable stories from our community, and please share this one with someone who enjoys discovering Beloit's history.

Sources: Beloit College Archives and Special Collections, The Beloit Alumnus, Beloit College, and The Round Table.

10/18/2026

One of the nicest surprises since starting Living in Beloit has been getting to know so many people. Some through the memories, pictures, and stories you've shared, and others I've had the pleasure of meeting in person at open houses and around town.

Something some of you might not know is that I'm also a local Realtor with ReThink Realty. And honestly, the two go together pretty well.

I've always believed homes and neighborhoods are about more than buildings. It's the people, the memories, and the stories that make them special. That's a big part of why I enjoy sharing what I discover around Beloit.

Living in Beloit will always be about celebrating our community and uncovering stories worth telling. But if you ever need a hand with real estate, I'd be happy to help. No pressure, just a familiar face who loves this community.

And don't worry, we've still got plenty of Beloit stories left to tell!

10/17/2026

Johnny Cash and June Carter Cash sang together at Beloit's Riverfest. We have the live video of the performance!

if you were there that night, there's something pretty amazing. Thirty years later, you can still listen & see the video of that very concert. It was Saturday, July 13, 1996. The Man in Black had returned to Beloit for a performance at Riverside Park, six years after his first Riverfest appearance. (Video in comment section)

It’s said anyone who remembers Riverfest in those days, Says it was much more than a summer concert. The music, the carnival rides, the food, the crowds and running into people you hadn't seen in years were all part of the experience. Some of the biggest names in entertainment came through Beloit, and Johnny Cash was certainly among them.

Cash had first performed here on June 23, 1990. There's an interesting coincidence about that date. It happened to be his wife June Carter Cash's birthday.

When he returned in 1996, he was enjoying a remarkable comeback. Just two years earlier, his album American Recordings had introduced his music to a whole new generation of listeners. It earned him a Grammy and reminded the world why his unmistakable voice had endured for decades.

Now that voice was back in Beloit. The 1996 performance included classics like Folsom Prison Blues, Ring of Fire, I Walk the Line and Sunday Morning Coming Down. June Carter Cash joined her husband for Jackson and If I Were a Carpenter, two songs that had helped make them one of country music's most beloved couples.

June also performed Wabash Cannonball and Wildwood Flower, bringing a little of the Carter Family's musical history to the Riverfest stage.

Neither would be with us much longer. June passed away in May 2003, and Johnny followed just four months later. Riverfest itself eventually came to an end, leaving generations of Beloiters with memories of summers along the Rock River.

For one Saturday night in July 1996, Beloit had Johnny Cash and June Carter Cash together onstage.

And in our community, there are people who stood in that crowd, perhaps with a spouse, a parent, a group of friends or someone they still think about whenever they hear one of those songs.

Were you there in 1990 or 1996? I’d love to hear what you remember. And even if you missed Johnny Cash, what was the greatest concert you ever saw at Beloit's Riverfest?

If you enjoy rediscovering these pieces of Beloit's past, follow Living in Beloit and share this story. You never know whose memories it might bring back.

Address

707 Cranston Road
Beloit, WI
53511

Telephone

+16088989930

Website

https://thomaspullen.rethink.realty/, https://livinginbeloit.com/

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