Walking Tours of Downtown Appleton
and the Fox River Waterfront

Hearthstone Historic House Museum is helping to foster community-wide awareness of the beautiful and historic architectural legacy that surrounds us in Appleton while at the same time elevating the importance and value of historic preservation.

To this end, Hearthstone is proud to research, author, and offer free walking tours of some of the most historic areas of Appleton. Each tour is cell-phone based (no download necessary) and narrated. To access a tour, please click on the links below.

Hearthstone’s Historic Tours of Appleton

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Victorian and Edwardian Homes of Prospect Avenue 1849-1919

Famed as “one of the finest streets in the city” in 1872, historic Prospect Avenue was once lined with the beautiful homes of Appleton's civic leaders.  They were industrialists, merchants, judges, and politicians.  From their showcase homes overlooking the Fox River, which offered “no finer view of the Grand Chute falls and rapids,” these leaders guided the city's development and dictated the fashions of the day.  The bluff also provided a commanding view of the mills and other factories lining the river – the businesses that permitted these beautiful homes to be built.

These homes, many of which are on the National Register or in the West Prospect Avenue Historic District, beautifully represent the major national architectural styles of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries:  Queen Anne Style, Italianate, Greek Revival, Prairie School, and the like.

This tour still echoes with the sound of water rushing over the dam below.  It highlights not only the stately homes that still exist along this tree-lined street but also the beautiful homes that have been lost over time.  

Enjoy the beauty that remains and envision that beauty that has been lost from when this avenue was “one of the finest streets in the city.”

Additional historic photos of some of the homes on the tour are available by clicking right on the tour stop photo.

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Available soon…

  • “Old Third Ward 1850-1930”

  • “Mills and Might: The Industries that Built Appleton 1850-1890”

  • “victorian vestiges: Downtown Appleton - A Victorian City”

  • “Homes of the City Park Historic District 1870-1910”

  • “Pierce Park and Front Street Neighborhood Homes 1850-1900”