Black Point Estate and Gardens

2026 is the 250th anniversary of the United States of America. Over the next 250 days we will be highlighting historic people, places or things from around Walworth County.

Up next is Pioneer Cemetery.

Lake Geneva’s original cemetery was established in 1837. It’s a small square cemetery framed by four streets - Dodge, Maxwell, Warren and Park Row.

Buried here are 26 Union Army Civil War soldiers along with Veterans of the War of 1812 and World War I. Many of the original settlers of Geneva are buried here as well.

The land was donated to the village by the seven founders known as the Company of Geneva: R. Wells Warren, Greenleaf Warren, Col. James Maxwell, Dr. Philip Maxwell, Andrew Ferguson, George Campbell, and Lewis Goodsell.

Although the gravestones seem scattered around the grounds, at one time the cemetery was full. Erosion of the soft limestone and sandstone markers and damage from age led to removal of broken pieces.

The last burial in Pioneer Cemetery was in 1986.

Walworth@250 #101

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2026 is the 250th anniversary of the United States of America. Over the next 250 days we will be highlighting historic people, places or things from around Walworth County.

Up next is the Norman B. Barr Camp.

The six acres of land on which the Norman B. Barr Camp sits today, was originally home to the Native Potawatomi tribe. In 1897, Alice B. Stockham, M.D. was the first documented owner of the land.

In 1908, Norman B. Barr, the pastor of the Olivet Presbyterian Church and Superintendent of the Olivet Social Institute in Chicago purchased the land to create the Olivet Institute Camp.

It became his mission to provide a no-cost, Christian-based camp experience for under-resourced children.

It is one of the oldest and continuously operating not-for-profit summer camps in the United States. The only building standing on the Olivet Institute Camp property in 1908, was the large white building located at the lakefront.

Rent from tents, then cottages, provided the campers’ fees. A bath house was available although many campers preferred bathing in the lake.

Prior to his passing in 1943, Rev. Barr stated, “All the Heaven and Earth is right here. This camp should go on forever.” And it continues to this day.

Walworth@250 #100

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2026 is the 250th anniversary of the United States of America. Over the next 250 days we will be highlighting historic people, places or things from around Walworth County.

Up next is Buena Vista Hotel, East Troy..

Cobblestone is not an architectural style (any more than “brick” is one) but it is a masonry technique marked by carefully selected and arranged stones of uniform size and color.

Among the remaining cobblestone buildings in Walworth County, at least two are on the National Register of Historic Places.

The elegant design style came to Wisconsin from western New York, and is associated with areas of glacial drift…Rock, Racine and Walworth Counties…Beloit, Burlington and East Troy have examples.

The largest cobblestone example in Walworth County (and in Wisconsin) was the 3 story Buena Vista House on the Square in East Troy…completed in 1849 after three years of construction by Samuel Bradley, a mason, with stones collected in the nearby lake beds of Lake Beulah and Booth Lake. The hotel was named after a Mexican-American War battle in 1847. In disrepair, the building was razed in 2023.

Walworth@250 #99.

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