Illustration by: Melissa Lee Johnson
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Kenosha North Pier lighthouse
“We’re a changing town. We’ve opened up for tourism,” says Chris Allen, executive director of the Kenosha History Center. “It’s a lot cleaner than it used to be. Thirty years ago, if we were standing here, you’d smell paint.”
We’re standing outside the Southport Lighthouse, an 1866 Cream City brick tower on a hill overlooking Kenosha harbor. Thirty years ago, we’d be looking down on a smelly but bustling international port, Jones Island in miniature, abutting an industrial hub where assembly lines produced cars and fire engines, and tanneries made leather goods. Only short stretches of the coastline, packed with terminals and warehouses, were accessible to the public.
Change came to Kenosha without anyone asking for it. The closing of the AMC plant cost 15,000 jobs. Many of the city’s other manufacturers also closed, leaving behind a harbor with no cargo to ship or receive. But if the large numbers of well-paid union jobs may never return, the upside of deindustrialization has been favorable to the environment and caused its residents to reimagine what Kenosha could become.
Nowadays, the city’s shoreline is a necklace of jade and amber, of green parks vying with sandy beaches. Dilapidated structures have been razed and replaced with condos, and many of the architecturally impressive buildings have been repurposed.
The north side of the harbor area, called Simmons Island after the long-gone Simmons mattress factory, is a good place to begin a day trip to the city. Facing it from the south is Harbor Park, site of the lakeside Kenosha HarborMarket every Saturday through Oct. 14 (moving indoors at the nearby Rhode Center for the Arts during the cold months). The farmers market features carefully chosen produce, cheese, meat and fish vendors along with arts, crafts, live entertainment and pizza hot from the oven. The lakefront includes a sculpture walk, a boardwalk and a long cement pier leading to the firehouse red North Pier Lighthouse, which continues to guide boats through the dark, but has also become the site of an artist-in-residence program.
Walking Around Downtown
Commercial fishing has vanished along with manufacturing, but charter fishing and recreational boating flourish from the harbor’s two marinas. And while Kenosha looks out onto Lake Michigan, there’s plenty to do on dry land in the city’s downtown, starting with a concentration of museums more or less in walking distance of each other. The Kenosha Public Museum is built around a winding walk-through exhibit whose dioramas afford a tour of Southeast Wisconsin from the age of mighty reptiles and wooly mammoths through the Potawatomi and early European settlers. The nearby Civil War Museum is dedicated to a conflict whose core issues await their final resolution. The Dinosaur Discovery Museum claims the largest collection of life-size dinosaur casts in the U.S.; specifically, the largest collection of meat-eating theropods. The Kenosha History Center houses many items once manufactured in the city, including cars. The Southport Lighthouse and the lighthouse keeper’s house are open for tours seasonally.
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You don’t have to travel to San Francisco to hear the “ding! ding!” of vintage trolleys and streetcars. A flotilla of the vehicles running on tracks and overhead electric wires circulate through Kenosha’s downtown area, but the low-slung downtown is compact enough to take in during a long walk.
Everywhere you turn, up pops an owner-operated coffee shop, boutique or restaurant.
Common Grounds is an attractive café with deck seating overlooking the lake. The Coffee Pot has a cool neon coffeepot sign out front and a boutique hotel upstairs. The Buzz is Kenosha’s answer to the Walker’s Point Fuel Café with a high ornate ceiling and whirring overhead fans, beer on tap, a liquor department and deli and plenty of hot coffee drinks.
Many specialty shops fill the downtown’s old storefronts. Sandy’s Popper, which began as a booth at the HarborMarket, sells popcorn and ice cream. Sugar Box started as an ice cream truck. Elsie Mae’s Bakery & Cannery offers personal-size fruit and potpies. The Modern Apothecary, filled with the welcoming scent of essential oils, is an herbal-natural shop as well as a working pharmacy. The Apothecary is an example of how Kenosha has actually gotten ahead of Milwaukee for business innovation.
Kenosha also has at least one restaurant the likes of which are unknown in Milwaukee. Mike’s Donuts and Chicken serves a unique take on American comfort food with, yes, donuts and chicken, breakfast and a full bar. Mike’s Sportsbook and Meat Bar has rooftop seating. The attractive Wine Knot is a wine bar and bistro that could blend into any trendy big city neighborhood anywhere in the world. Just north of downtown, the Union Park Art District includes four galleries nestled amid a neighborhood of old Victorian houses, among them an artist co-op, Lemon Street Gallery, featuring work by Wisconsin artists in many media.
Despite the fluorescence of new businesses, Kenosha’s heritage remains strong in the form of long-running family affairs such as Mars Cheese Castle, Tenuta’s Deli & Liquor and Jack Andrea soda fountain.
Meridith Jumisko, public relations manager for the Kenosha Area Convention & Visitors Bureau, attributes the city’s turnaround from Rust Belt to tourist destination to a variety of sources, starting with the foresight of the city’s mayor, John Antaramian, during a previous term in office, and continuing through a gamut of local partners committed to building a new Kenosha. “Everyone works together to build community,” she says.
For more information, visit visitkenosha.com.
