The Shawano County courthouse on September 11, 2017
Shawano County was created in 1853 when the state legislature subdivided Oconto County. The name of the the new county comes from an Objibwe (Chippewa) word meaning “southern.” The original spelling of the county name was Shawanaw but it was changed in 1864. The city of Shawano was also originally named Shawanaw, but the spelling was changed in 1856.
One thing to know about Shawano County is how to pronounce it: the second “a” is silent, so it is pronounced like “Shaw-no” not “Sha-wa-no.” When TV reporters from the Green Bay or Fox Valley stations try to pronounce it, you can always tell which reporters have lived in Northeastern Wisconsin and which are newcomers!
The city of Shawano is the county seat and it is located on Shawano Lake. The lake is pretty heavily developed and is also one of the most heavily fished lakes in the state of Wisconsin.
The courthouse is located at 311 North Main Street in Shawano. I visited on the morning of September 11, 2017; I was on my way home from Door County and decided to visit a few county courthouses on the way. My first stop was in Shawano. The city has definitely grown since my last visit, which must have been in the 1960s. there was not a lot of traffic so I was able to get to the courthouse with little difficulty and I found a place to park at the small park and boat landing across the street.
The courthouse was built in the late 1950s; 1958 according to one of my sources. It’s a very clean looking building and one of the nicest courthouses from this period in time that I’ve seen so far. The sheriff’s department building which is just north of the courthouse was built in a matching style. The one thing that is kind of odd about the courthouse is that it is almost impossible to get a good photo of the front of the building. About 50 years ago they planted red maples in front of the courthouse and they have grown to pretty much obscure the entire east side of the courthouse. They are beautiful trees, but they are kind of in the way!
I don’t have a lot of memories of Shawano County itself, which is kind of strange because it’s not very far from Outagamie County where I grew up. Mostly we drove through the western part of the county (Tigerton and Wittenberg) when we drove to Upper Michigan to visit my grandparents. We drove through the eastern part of the county (Shawano and Bonduel) when I was going to Boy Scout camp in Langlade County or sometimes when going camping in Oconto County either on our own or at one of the YMCA camps. I do remember that on at least one of the trips to the Appleton YMCA camp, back when I was in first or second grade, we stopped at one of my childhood friend’s grandmother’s house in Shawano. I don’t remember much about it, except that she had a nice view of Shawano Lake from her house.