Dinosaur Discovery Museum - Civic Center Historic District - Kenosha, WI
N 42° 35.043 W 087° 49.407
16T E 432430 N 4714954
The Dinosaur Discovery Museum has stood on the West Side of the Civic Center Historic District since it was moved there in 1933. It is located at 5608 Tenth Ave in Kenosha, WI.
Waymark Code: WM5H63
Location: Wisconsin, United States
Date Posted: 01/07/2009
Views: 9
From the Civic Center Historic District web site (
visit link) :
"This one-story building is richly detailed in the Beaux Arts style, a more decorative classical style which was popular at the same time as the Neo-Classical Revival style and related to it. The building sits on a raised gray limestone base faced with granitestone. On the four facades of the building are highly decorated recessed areas covered with terra cotta. Decorative elements on the front facade include four groups of attached paired colossal Ionic columns separating windows and doors. Single columns and partial pilasters in the same order appear at the corners of the recessed areas. The capitals of the columns feature leaves, rosettes, and darts. Period light fixtures flank a concrete staircase leading to the main entrance, which consists of a wood and glass double door with a transom. The entrance is framed by a frontispiece of pilasters, a pediment, and an eagle over a window. A cornice molding runs across the top of the building, creating an unadorned parapet. The building was designed by federal architect James Knox Taylor.
The former Kenosha Public Museum was originally the United States Post Office and was located on the southwest corner of 56th Street and Eighth Avenue, behind the current Post Office building. In 1933, when the new post office was completed, this building was moved foot by foot across the Civic Center to complete the last side of the Civic Center project. It was then acquired for the Kenosha Public Museum and, until 2001 when the Museum moved to a new facility, it served the community as an educational and cultural institution. The building is reopening as the Dinosaur Discovery Museum on August 19, 2006."