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Charles and Mina Pfennig Home

Charles and Mina Pfennig Home at 537 W. Prospect Avenue.

In 1857, Frederick and Charles Pfennig purchased the Genessee Flour Mill from Colonel Conkey (whose residence is depicted at another stop on this tour).  At that time, flour milling was the industry driving the Appleton economy.  Originally located just below the house on the river, the mill no longer stands.  The business grew to an enormous capacity of 700 barrels a week, driven by demand to feed Union troops during the Civil War.  After the war, Colonel Conkey partnered with the Pfennigs and Charles and Mina built this Italianate Style home in 1865. 

Surviving elements include the low-pitched, hipped roof, the wide overhanging eaves (which could have been originally supported by decorative brackets), and the narrow three ranked windows.  Asymmetrical L-shaped Italianate homes were a relatively common form, accounting for approximately twenty percent of the type.

When Charles died, Conkey repurchased the mill.  In 1879, he sold it to Kimberly Clark and Company, as paper making was about to become the next boom industry in Appleton.

Hearthstone's Historic Tours of Appleton: Victorian and Edwardian Homes of Prospect Avenue 1849-1919
  1. "Hearthstone" The Home of Henry and Cremora Rogers
  2. Charles and Mina Pfennig Home
  3. Nathan and Virginia Morgan Home
  4. Theodore and Cynthia Conkey Residence
  5. Cynthia Conkey Home
  6. Paul Hackbert Home
  7. George Hogriever Home
  8. Jacob and Elizabeth Wolf Home
  9. William and Francis Sheer Home
  10. Ephraim and Louise Goff Home
  11. Raymond and Jean Bertschy Home
  12. John and Martha Whorton Home
  13. William Grant Whorton / John Van Nortwick Home
  14. Edward and Amanda West Home
  15. Henry and Emily Holbrook Home
  16. Thomas and Ophelia Brown Home
  17. Thomas Pearson Home
  18. 1880 Home
  19. Anthony Hoeffel and James and Mary Ritchey Home
  20. Joseph and Henrietta Plank Home
  21. George and Mary Potts Home
  22. Frank and Mary Slattery Home
  23. Thank you