Rio Area Historical Society

In 1925 Vern Adams started working for his brother George in his gas station, which is now Roberts-Hill Insurance.  He worked there until 1927.

In about 1911 Charles Gilbert and Henry Jurgerson erected a building and established an automobile business on Wells Street in Rio, Wisconsin, in a building that was later occupied by Lang and Wavra Excavating (as of 2010 the building is owned by Terry and Jeff Rowe). They sold Barnsdall gasoline (also known by their trademark “B-Square”, or the letter B with a square around it) which was distributed by the Columbia Oil Company1. They also sold used automobiles and did general automotive repair work. Walter Strauss married Anna Jurgerson2, Henry’s sister and by 1921 became a business partner with Henry. They would often travel to Milwaukee to buy used cars for resale at their garage. Most often they would come back with the very popular model T’s.

On Friday evening April 11, 1913 Hotel Anna, a large twenty room wood frame structure caught fire. The landmark hotel that sat at the end of Lincoln Avenue burned completely down.

The fire was discovered at 6:30 pm by H.P. Leffingwell, a barber who had a shop in the building. A defective stove pipe was believed to be the cause of the fire, which had spread throughout much of the attic by the time it was detected.

The Rio Fire Department quickly determined that the hotel could not be saved, and turned their attention to nearby buildings. A strong north wind and flying embers from the fire put other buildings at risk.

 

It was June 1944 when Nazi solider prisoners of war were captured in Rio.  It was a 19 year old and a 30 year old who were assigned to the canning factory in Columbus during pea harvest. 

The August 24, 1950 Rio Journal  racing news as reported by Orville Dahlen…It was a whale of a show with two tip overs and one end for end flip. 

In August 17, 1950 Rio Journal Orville Dahlen reported… there was more entertainment at Firemen’s Park with a slam-bang smash up derby known as the stock car races.