Canfield Award

Canfield Award Recipients

2002 - present

Please note that following descriptions were written at the time of the award and many awardees have gone on to do even more work in the area of local history.

2002 Erhart Mueller (posthumous) Accepted by Leta Ambler Mueller

Erhart Mueller is a name familiar to anyone researching the Sauk Prairie area. The author of a five-volume series on the history of the Town of Sumpter and beyond, Mueller also wrote on the Ochsner Family, the history of the Ragatz Church and on the Civil War heritage of the Sauk Prairie. To say he was a prolific writer is an understatement. His research and his writings were so well respected that upon his death in 1992, the State Historical Society of Wisconsin quickly snatched the significant selections of his research.

2003 Ken Lange

Ken Lange is the former naturalist of Devil’s Lake State Park and wrote A Lake Where Spirits Live in 1975 and A County Call Sauk in 1976 (three printings). These history-packed books are a staple for Sauk County historians and continue to delight new readers. Lange also documented the existence and location of effigy mounds in Sauk County.

2004 Phyllis Dearborn

Phyllis Dearborn is the author of The Ghost Village of White Mound. Many people are familiar with White Mound Park in western Sauk County but many do not realize that at one time a small but busy village stood just down the road. Dearborn grew up on a farm that contained the ruins of the site of White Mound and her family still owns the site. Her book began as a few pages written as a Christmas present to her family. That brief outline piqued her curiosity and she went on to do in-depth research that resulted in her published book. She also spearheaded an effort to erect a historical marker on the site of the now vanished village.

2005 Dr. Robert Dewel

Dr. “Bob” Dewel was a prolific local history researcher and writer. His historical writings include over 270 local history newspaper articles spanning many years. These articles were later compiled, indexed and published in seven volumes.

2006 Carol Sorg (posthumous) Accepted by Bob and Patti Brown

Carol Sorg was an active SCHS member serving on the board of directors for decades and participating in nearly every aspect of Society operations. Sorg assisted with the research and writing of many books including, Good Old Golden Rule Days, Many a Fine Harvest, and Powder, People and Place: The Badger Army Ammunition Plant and the Sauk Prairie. Carol was also an author in her own right, publishing histories of St Mary’s Ringling Convent and Hospital. She was also a founding member of the Badger History Group, dedicated to preserving and sharing the history of the former Badger Army Ammunition Plant.

2007 Joe Ward

Joe Ward has done extensive research into the histories of the downtown and south side commercial areas of Baraboo, a labor of love that took decades to complete and resulted in seven fully-indexed volumes which he published at his own expense. The volumes contain information on every commercial building and virtually every business as well as many other historical topics.

2008 Mark Tully

Mark Tully was chosen for his long-lasting commitment to historical research and creation of quality historic publications including, A Man Called Baraboo, The Life and Times of an 18th Century Voyageur. The book chronicles the life and times of voyageur, Francois Barbeau, whose name became associated with the Baraboo River and later the City of Baraboo. Tully’s research for the book took several years and took him as far as Montreal in his quest for the truth about the origin of the Baraboo name.

2009 Verlyn Mueller

Verlyn Mueller was chosen for his dedication to the history of the Badger Army Ammunition Plant. He has been instrumental in collecting documents, photos, artifacts and other material related to the history of the powder plant and the prairie. In 1998 he helped establish the Badger History Group. He set up and furnished the archive at the plant and photographically documented the landscape and buildings prior to demolition. Mueller has also been involved in the planning of a historical museum dedicated to the history of the Badger Army Ammunition Plant.

2010 Bernadette Bittner

Bernadette Bittner has contributed greatly to the documentation of Sauk County history by participating in the production of several Sauk County historical works including Reedsburg Remembers, Good Old Golden Rule Days, and Ghost Churches of Sauk County among others. One particularly useful project to genealogists searching in Sauk County has been the publication of Sauk County cemetery inscriptions, an eleven-volume set, containing tens of thousands of names and dates from tombstones. Bittner helped immensely with this project and was also the Sauk County Coordinator of the Wisconsin State Old Cemetery Society answering many queries from researchers looking for information.

2011 Donna Lange

Donna Lange is an avid genealogist and has researched families from the Towns of Reedsburg, Westfield and Winfield for over 30 years. With over 54,000 people registered on her computer, Lange is the foremost authority on family history in this area and has helped hundreds of people from across the country with their own family research.

2012 William C. Schuette

Bill Schuette has contributed to local history in many ways. Schuette has been on the board of the Sauk County Historical Society for over 35 years and is indispensable to its operation. Schuette has scanned over 30,000 historic photos of Sauk County and made many of them available online. He has also been an integral part of several local history publications including Reedsburg Remembers, Loganville – Our Heritage, and Good Old Golden Rule Days. Schuette is also the current and long-standing secretary of the SCHS and manages its website and newsletter.

2013 Paul Wolter

Paul Wolter has served as the president of SCHS for the past 13 years and had been on the board of directors since 1996.  Over the past several years, Wolter has spearheaded the work of converting the historic Island Woolen Mill Office Building into the Sauk County History Center. The research and writing for the Society’s tour of historic homes has been done by Wolter and he has written many scripts for the Society’s living history cemetery tours and for the tours of historic haunts. Wolter also researched and wrote the centennial history of the Sauk County Courthouse and did much of the research and writing for the Images of Baraboo book.

2014 Ross Curry

Ross Curry has written ten publications on history and genealogy focusing on the Dells-Delton area. Curry has deep roots in Sauk County with ancestors arriving only a few years after Canfield.  Curry worked for the Wisconsin Dells Events for 40 years and during his time at the newspaper he began researching and writing local history stories which were eventually published and are now a resource for the history of the Dells-Delton area and beyond.

2015 Jody Kapp and Jack Berndt

Jody Kapp is the Director of Development and Jack Berndt is the Museum Manager of the Sauk Prairie Area Historical Society. Together the pair completely transformed the Tripp Heritage Museum in Prairie du Sac in both physical form and programming which resulted in the return of a 5,000-year-old bison skull to the area. Kapp and Berndt have worked tirelessly to reinvigorate the organization, receiving multiple grants and donations to bring the museum up-to-date, add new and innovative programming and create a social media presence that now has over 1,000 followers.

2016 Philip Hasheider

Philip Hasheider, Sauk Prairie area historian and author, was awarded for documenting local history which includes writing All Bottled Up- A History of the Sauk Prairie Area Milk Delivery Routes in 2001 and Building Early Wisconsin Community – The 150 Year Story of Mills on the Honey Creek in 2014. Both exhibit Hasheider’s passion for research and documentation – his Honey Creek book alone has over 1,000 footnotes.

2017 Bob Doepke

Bob Doepke was awarded for his outstanding work in local history as an author, researcher and volunteer. Doepke has worked as a volunteer at SCHS for 19 years and has been instrumental in making local history resources more accessible and searchable along with helping countless researchers from across the country with their research requests. Doepke has worked for years creating indexes to Sauk County probate records and has authored numerous local and family histories.

2018 Jean Smith

Jean Smith was awarded for her outstanding work in local history as a researcher and volunteer. Smith worked as a volunteer at SCHS for nearly 30 years and has been instrumental in making local history resources more accessible and searchable along with helping countless researchers from across the country with their research requests.

2019 Beverly Vaillancourt

Beverly Vaillancourt, lifelong educator and volunteer, was awarded for her outstanding work in local history as a web developer, app designer and volunteer. In 2018 Vaillancourt created a new website for SCHS which now has over 400 pages and several thousand photos. Vaillancourt also created an app for the Society which is now available for free at app stores for all mobile devices. Vaillancourt has also served on the SCHS board of directors for many years and she currently is the vice-president.