There were many reasons why Evansville was growing by leaps and bounds during the decade of the 1880s.  The community offered many opportunities for living the good life.

There were many opportunities for work for both men and women.  The industrial, commercial and farming community in and around Evansville was thriving.

The quality of life was enhanced by the social activities available to most people in the community.  By 1886, the village had four lodges for men and three for women, including a Equal Suffrage Association.

A Y.M.C.A. held regular meetings and was considered a strong arm of the church.  Less formal organizations, debating societies, camping clubs and musical groups provided other opportunities for people to learn and socialize with their neighbors.

Five churches, one public and one private school and a variety of social organizations offered amenities many small towns did not have.  “Our inhabitants are sober, intelligent class of people who love their village and their village homes,” one observer noted.

While leisure activities were important, it was the business and industrial sector that made the growth of the 1880s possible.  Many long-time residents who had struggled through the early settlement period were rewarded with good fortune.

By the 1880s, there were a growing number of men who had lived and worked through the development of agricultural and industrial systems in Evansville who were now affluent.  Some were retired farmers and businessmen with money to spend and invest.

Those who had enjoyed success were now ready to enjoy the fruits of their labor.  The well-to-do displayed their wealth in the large and decorative houses that were built and filled with lavish furnishings that were purchased for the new homes.

The wealthy men called themselves capitalists.  They sent their children to college, traveled for pleasure and invested their money in the community that had made them prosper.  Others less fortunate in accumulating wealth benefited by the investment the capitalists made in real estate, industry and business ventures.

New and old manufacturing firms expanded and grew in the 1880s.  Even major fires could not stop the intensity of growth.  There were also many new industries that were started in Evansville, including a tack factory, match factory, box factory, creamery and cigar manufacturers.

On East Main Street, a large public hall was built.  The public hall was located on  the second floor and stores occupied the first floor of the building known as the Magee Opera House.

The new theater was the place Evansville citizens went to be entertained.  It was a place to hear major speakers of the day and musicians.  The Opera House was also used by local drama groups or traveling troupes of players, who acted out favorite musicals and plays.

Three hotels were available for travelers who came to visit, or for the traveling salesmen who made regular stops at Evansville businesses.  All of the hotels were located within two blocks of the railroad depot and local livery owners provided bus services to and from the hotels.

By 1883, the village had two weekly newspapers, the Evansville Review and the Enterprise.   At the end of the decade, there were three weekly newspapers as the editor of the Enterprise began publishing another paper called The Tribune.

In the commercial district, there were shops of every description.  Eight dressmakers and milliners provided the ladies with clothing and hats.  Four stores sold men’s clothing and three barbershops provided hair cuts and shaves.

There were four grocery stores and three drug stores.  Three jewelers, a book store, two hardware stores, and two furniture stores supplied other needs for the shoppers from the village and the surrounding farm community.

The railroad system added improvements that allowed better transportation to major markets.  During this decade a rail connection between Janesville and Evansville was completed.  The development of the railroad system aided businessmen and industrialists, as well as the pleasure traveler.

The rural population prospered as well.  One reporter who rode through the countryside near Evansville in May 1883 saw many new houses being built.  “Log houses are almost things of the past, their sites are now occupied by more sightly structures.  Straw stables and sheds have been superseded by frame barns,” the reporter for the Evansville Enterprise declared with a touch of pride.

The 1880s farmer had diversified his crops and animals, so that he no longer was dependent on a single crop, as he had been in the settlement period.  Farmers raised various grains and cash crops, like tobacco.  Many farmers kept sheep, beef cattle, poultry, and pigs.  Union Township ranked second in the county in corn production and second in the number of milk cows.

The prosperity of the farmers was an important key to the prosperity of the village of Evansville.  Livestock and grain dealers became the farmers’ link with the larger markets in Chicago and the western markets in Kansas City and St. Louis.  The local dealer acted as the middleman, purchasing the product on the farm, arranging for transportation, and making the sale to the larger market.

As the village began to spread out into what had been productive farmland on the edge of the village, farmers began looking for ways to make their land more productive.  Some tiled the marshes and drained swampy areas to reclaim land for crops and grazing.  Both residential and agricultural land prices rose in the 1880s.

The business and industrial sectors of the village grew as fast as new investors and builders could be found.  There were twenty-one small industries in the township when the census taker surveyed Union Township and the Village of Evansville in 1880.

The two largest manufacturers in Evansville were the Lehman Brothers furniture factory and the Baker Manufacturing Company.  Both had started in the 1870s.  Other manufacturers included wagon makers, blacksmiths, harness makers, tobacco warehouses, and a cheese factory.

By 1880, Baker Manufacturing Company employed twenty-three men.   The Monitor Vaneless Windmill and a new rotary powered attachment were being marketed throughout the western United States.  The company began hiring salesmen to market their products in states outside of Wisconsin.

The Lehman Furniture Company was operating in buildings directly east of the Baker Manufacturing Company.  A family owned industry, the Lehman Furniture Company also employed twenty three men according to the 1880 census.

The Lehmans’ made major improvements to the buildings in the 1880s and renamed the company the Evansville Furniture Manufacturing Company.  The company did the millwork for Evansville’s three lumberyards.

A third major industry started in 1883, with many of the same investors as those who had started the Baker Company ten years earlier.  While not as successful as the other two industries, the Evansville Manufacturing Company made tacks and provided employment for men and women during the 1880s.

In 1884, a fire destroyed both the Baker Manufacturing Company and the Lehman Furniture Company.  The conflagration threatened the tack company buildings.  “The A.S. Baker & Co.’s wood shops and the Evansville Furniture Factory in Ashes, Loss $20,000”, the headlines of the local papers proclaimed.

Undoubted by the ruined factory, the Baker Manufacturing Company’s major investors went to work immediately to rebuild and within a few months were back in business.  Lehman’s decided not to rebuild and sold their land to the Baker firm.  Baker Manufacturing immediately began to expand their operation onto the former Lehman property.

There was one benefit to the community when the great fire of 1884 destroyed the two largest manufacturing concerns.  The total destruction of the factories that employed nearly 50 men convinced the Evansville Village Board to upgrade their fire fighting equipment.

Although it was seasonal employment, the tobacco warehouses provided jobs for more than fifty men and women who sorted and crated the tobacco.  Farmers, tobacco buyers, warehouse owners, workers, and the railroad all benefited from this profitable cash crop.

The Evansville Seminary, run by the Free Methodist Church, started operation in 1880.  The success of the school also contributed to the growth of the village.   A new three-story classroom building was constructed in the late 1880s, bringing more students, faculty and families into the community.

As the village grew, many suggestions were made for improvements.  “We are growing more and more into a metropolitan dignity,” one newspaper editor said.

With many new students entering the public school system, the School Board asked the community to support a second public school to be built on the East Side.  Voters approved the $1,000 expenditure for the new school, but the Board did not proceed with the project.

There were so many new streets and new homes in the village that it became difficult for visitors and new comers to find their way around.  In April 1890, the Tribune newspaper suggested that the buildings be numbered and the street names marked at the intersections.   It was not until 1898, that Evansville’s governing body took this simple step to identify buildings and streets.

At the end of the decade when business and residential growth had slowed, Evansville’s newspapers still proclaimed the good living conditions of the village.  “We think that our village has many inducements to hold out for people looking for a home to consider—first class church societies and schools, good merchant and mechanics, a grand class of people, and, as one would say, with all the modern improvements.”

The rapid growth of the 1880s halted with a down turn in the economy in the early 1890s.  Never again would the growth of the village meet with such nearly universal public approval.