Blaney Park

Blaney Park is the remains of a large resort developed on cutover timber lands by Harold and Stewart Earle, owners of the Wisconsin Land and Lumber Company of Hermansville. In 1907 the company acquired Blaney, a company town with headquarters, stores, and houses established in 1902 by the William Mueller Lumber Company. The resort grew into a huge operation, with dozens of buildings, a golf course, an airport, and a swimming pool. In 1927, after laying out a golf course and forming Lake Anne Louise, the Earles opened in the center of town a resort tavern called Celibeth. In the 1930s dozens of old and new cottages and a lodge were fitted for resort service. In 1938 a group of Colonial Revival cottages, originally painted white with green shutters, was constructed one mile from the village. The resort reached its heyday in the 1940s and 1950s, when middle-class vacationers came by automobile from all over the United States and stayed for weeks. It declined in the 1960s and 1970s, as jet travel enabled Americans to seek more exotic vacation destinations, and was sold in the late 1970s. Many buildings survive as private houses, camps, and bed-and-breakfasts.