Conrad Fox, Jr. House, 3500 Rapids Court, Mount Pleasant, Racine County, WI

Significance: The Conrad Fox, Junior, House is architecturally significant as a good and intact local example of a Queen Anne style residence and for its construction of cream brick, an historic material indigenous to the area. Cream brick was manufactured in Racine County for only 75 years, from 1839 until 1914. The Fox House retains excellent integrity. The Fox House is historically significant for its association with Conrad Fox, Junior, for whom the house was built. With his father (Conrad Senior) and his brother (John), Conrad Junior operated one of the leading lime and stone quarrying businesses in the Racine area. Lime and stone quarrying was an important industry in Racine County during the nineteenth century, and Conrad Junior was a principal in the Foxes' company from its beginning in 1878, until its demise in 1922. The Fox House is also historically significant for its association with Conrad Junior's daughter, noted educator Ruth Mary Fox. Ruth Mary developed the first junior high school English curriculum for the first junior high school in Madison, Wisconsin (possibly the first in the Midwest), and the first for the Racine Public Schools system. She went on to teach at the Milwaukee State Teachers College (now the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee) where she taught the first course in journalism offered there, and the fist courses in world literature and humanities offered in the Midwest. A Determination of Eligibility (DOE) prepared in 1989 found the Fox House eligible for listing on the National Register of Historic Places.
Survey number: HABS WI-343