Pelican Lake’s Lakeview Resort

This story is about the beginning of one of the many resorts that were on the shores of beautiful Pelican Lake. Resorts at the turn of the twentieth century were starting to gain a footing in the fabric of American life as the dust settled from the Second Industrial Revolution (1870-1914). As people were working factories, mills, and enterprises other than homesteading, they were in need of vacations to take a break from the monotonous grind of the forty-hour work week. Newspapers and magazines would run ads or articles about lakes that abound with fish that were not far from the railroad. A quick, easy, jump off the train and you’ll be in paradise, catching loads of fish, or searching for that trophy musky. For instance, Pelican Lake was touted as having 37 miles of shoreline with an abundance of pike and muskellunge. Then as the twentieth century rolled on, resorts got to be very popular especially here in Northern Wisconsin. The resort owners that were in it for a business or a way to cash in on something they loved to do were in for a period of prosperity. The Lakeview Resort is one that started a little out of necessity.

There was a quaint, lovely log home that sat on the southern shore of Pelican Lake. The home was purchased or built in 1890. The passage of time tends to obscure certain details. The new owner of this property was Joseph Feuerstein, who lived here with his wife Katherine. Joe would work a railroad job on the line that went right past his home, the Enterprise-Harrison branch of the Northwestern Railway. Other than the normal chores, Joe loved to fish, spending his time on the waters of Pelican Lake in search of anything that would bite. Years go by, and Joe’s friends would spread the word around that this guy is really good at getting “on the fish”. This eventually turned into a spectacle of sorts and people were paying Joe to take them fishing and to stay at his house. Well, this lasted as long as Katherine’s patience held out. Joe thought of building a larger house with more rooms to fit his family and many guests.

Now, Joseph Feuerstein, he was of 1851 vintage. The story has it that his father, George, convinced his pregnant wife, Barbara, to move to America before having the baby. As things got delayed enough for little Joseph to come into the world aboard a ship sailing from France to America. So much for making it easier on Barbara. George found a place to settle in Bessemer, Michigan, and that’s where Joseph grew up working in the mines. Joe spread his wings, went to Milwaukee and found his bride, Katherine Musiel. They were married in June of 1878 and they moved up to Monico where Joe worked as a fireman at a saw mill. In the meantime, they had ten children, Anna, Joseph Jr, Kathie, Peter, Clara, Margaret, Agnes, Elma, Frank, and Madeline.  In 1890, Joe and Katherine bought the acreage on Pelican Lake. 

Once the Lakeview Resort was completed around 1905, Joe’s fishing guide business was going well and Katherine was a school teacher.  She used some rooms in the resort to hold classes, with her oldest daughter Anna’s help. This served well until the school was consolidated into the Enterprise school some years later. Joe eventually acquired the nickname, “Grandpa Feuerstein,” most likely by all the little children running around for school. Well Grandpa Feuerstein earned a reputation in the area. He served on various Enterprise town and school board positions. Joseph and Katherine ran the resort until 1920 when CR Guth and family bought the resort and continued its operation. The Feuersteins moved and settled in a place a mile east of Enterprise and would winter in Chicago with some of their children that lived there. Grandpa Feuerstein passed away on January 11, 1935, while visiting his daughter and her family in Chicago.

When Conrad Richard Guth bought the Lakeview Resort in 1920, the property consisted of a few small buildings, a house and 80 acres of land. Being 46 years old he had the ambition to build a bright future here in Pelican Lake. Conrad was known by his initials.  CR had a very successful general store and creamery in Kolberg, which is in Door County. He had sold out in 1918.  With that capital, he acquired this property and enlarged its potential exponentially. CR Guth and his wife, Theresa (Grundemann), were married in 1893 and they had five children, Esther, Erwin, Alfred, Leonard, and Harold. 

CR went right to work implementing his vision for the property by renaming it Lakeview Inn and the construction began. He built a totally new main lodge with a huge kitchen that had a screened porch facing the lake that went the length of the building. The main floor of this building housed the living and dining rooms, and the office. The kitchen was its own area attached to the house. The main building’s second floor had 12 bedrooms and the property had 13 additional bedrooms situated in another building called the annex. CR had three overnight cabins for accommodations that were added to the property in 1939. With Mr. Guth having experience in the creamery business, he built a beautiful dairy barn with all the most modern equipment of that day, to assist him in producing the best product.

In the advertisements for the Lakeview Inn, it mentions that he had the finest pure-bred Guernsey cattle that supplied the kitchen and tables at the Inn with pure cream and milk and all the vegetables were grown in the gardens on the property. Theresa was the queen of the kitchen and all of the meals were prepared under her supervision. The word from the kitchen was that they had “good eats and plenty of them.” They had a 75-foot spring-fed well that supplied the property with pure, sparkling water for drinking and food preparation. Also having an icehouse right there, the Lakeview Inn was totally self-sufficient. CR and Theresa’s daughter, Esther, went to culinary school for a time, came back and took charge of the kitchen.

By the mid 1920’s, Oneida and Langlade Counties saw the logging and lumber industry take a hit in productivity and efficiency, having to buy logs from places further away to keep various mills running. This would put economic strain not only on the timber bosses but also on their employees, and would lose them to working a resort. People in the cities and other large towns worked in various factories and industries and would need time to relax as stated before. Resorts in the Northwoods of Wisconsin were popping up everywhere as this was the big, local “tourism industry” now. CR Guth had a great eye for attracting people to his establishment. He added on to his property by purchasing 640 wooded acres for more recreation. It was also advertised that the resort had a fine bathing beach and that you could enjoy yourself by indulging in any outdoor sport there.

Mr. and Mrs. Guth would hold many events at the resort as well as a Homemaker’s Club that would come and use the large kitchen for cooking classes. Mrs. Guth was a known Schafkopf player which is a German trick-taking card game. She would have weekly card games at the resort and also at the schoolhouse in Enterprise. There is a legend that circulates around the Guth family and their friends that Theresa had an unpleasant incident at the resort one day. In the 1920-1930’s here in the Northwoods of Wisconsin we are known for accommodating Chicago’s finest citizens to stretch it a bit. One day, a potential customer came into the motel and wanted to stay the night. Theresa had recognized this man most likely from newspaper pictures. He may have even told her his name. She knew him by “Baby Face Nelson”, made famous by the bank robberies, murders of FBI agents, and maybe by association with John Dillinger, depending on the time of this event. Theresa had no intention of allowing this “undesirable” to stay at her establishment possibly harming her family or other customers. She grabbed a broom and chased him out of the place. With the regularity that the mobsters were in this region, many places have tales such as this to tell. 

On November 21, 1950, the Lord called CR to his eternal home changing the dynamic of his family and of his life’s work, the Lakeview Inn. Theresa continued the operation of the motel and bar with the help of her daughter, Esther Zander, and two of her sons, Ervin and Leonard. After a few years, Theresa sold the place to Leonard’s son, Herb and his wife Francis, and they ran Lakeside as a bar and motel. Around 1971, the Guth family parted ways with the faithful family staple as they sold it to Gary and Bonnie Patterson. Gary had changed the motel over to an apartment complex, because the resort industry was being phased out as people were buying up lots around the lakes putting up their own cabins. In the 1970’s, the economy was in a downturn and after a few years the Patterson’s had to give up on it. Herb and Francis stepped in and took over the bar and apartments once again and kept them going. Barry Thiel purchased the bar from Herb in 1976, which the Thiel family ran for decades. Herb sold the apartments to Milo Gregrich in the early 1980’s and since that time the places changed hands, but are still in operation to this day.