Historical Notes

This site is sponsored by The Town of Dover Betterment Committee, chaired by Patrick Haley.

Historical Notes

Kansasville got its name thanks in part to the railroad and its small train depot. According to The Grass Roots History of Racine County, the hot topic of debate here in 1856 was admitting Kansas to the Union. The territory was half slave and half free and a couple of local fellows hopped aboard a train bound for Kansas, pledging to fight for the free party. When they returned without a scratch and admitted they had gotten lost, the debate gave way to laughter and ridicule. With no official name yet, the railroad company decided Kansasville would be appropriate and labeled it as such on its route map.

In Kansasville's earliest years, as many as eight trains a day stopped, often loaded with people bound for resorts on Eagle Lake. Local children also used the train to get to school in Union Grove.

Racine businessman and Kortendick Hardware Store namesake, Russell Kortendick Sr., said he remembers riding the rail in the late 1920's, but not to paddle around Eagle Lake. As a yound lad, he and his sister, Helen, had jobs. The siblings took the train from Union Grove to Kansasville to clean their father's downtown tavern, The White Elephant. Today the building is still a tavern, but the white elephant statue that once stood in the window is kept at Kortendicks Hardware in Racine.