THE OLD NEIGHBORHOODS

Shortly after World War II, Brian Blakeley’s grandfather constructed a grid of simple dirt roads across some of his farmland on the southeast side of Eau Claire – an area that decades later would hold London Square Mall. He plotted lots and sold the land to young families looking for an inexpensive place to build a home. At the time this property was outside city limits, free of most regulations and zoning laws. But all the same, it was a new neighborhood.

Blakeley – who recently published the first book in a series called A History of Eau Claire, Wisconsin – says that, like most cities, Eau Claire’s original 19th century neighborhoods formed over decades, driven by magnetizing factors such as ethnicity, religion, class, and political philosophy. They were anchored by places like lumber mills, factories, churches, and even cemeteries. Over 150 years, those original neighborhoods expanded and new ones were plotted and built. Through time, the social and economic forces driving neighborhood development have evolved.

The original sub-communities from the 1800s have all but lost their original names and identities. The younger historic neighborhoods near the heart of the city, the ones we can now easily identify, such as the Third Ward, Randall Park, Eastside Hill and Putnam Heights neighborhoods, didn’t form as organically as one might assume. According to Pat Ivory, Senior Planner for Eau Claire’s Community Development Department, these were largely subdivisions built by contractors, just like the new neighborhood projects of today. (In fact, many of the older houses we see now were literally bought from a Sears catalog.) Designed for the most part along a classic grid system and populated by citizens riding waves of economic upturn, the identities of these neighborhoods – their vibes – formed over time. It took sixty or seventy years (the decades of growth following WW II) before they were fully realized.

In terms of personality, it’s hard to compare a new neighborhood to ones that are over 150 years old. But they all start from scratch.