| By Neil Johnson, Anchor/Reporter, Big Radio |
A well-known former farmstead on Janesville’s south side loses its historic designation as developers plan an industrial development there.
On Monday, the plan commission voted to peel away a National Register of Historic Places designation bestowed in 2005 on the vacant, 1870s John and Martha Hugunin family farmstead in the 2700 block of Beloit Avenue on the city’s industrial belt on the south side.
A brick, Italianate farmhouse at the center of the property was torn down in 2018 after it fell in disrepair as a private residence. That’s left a historic agriculture conservancy designation on land that no longer has any remnants of a working farmstead. The land itself is sandwiched between two other vacant parcels. The city owns all three parcels, and the farmstead itself is surrounded by light industry and warehousing.
City of Janesville planner Brian Schwiegl says the move grooms the land for private industrial development similar to adjacent properties in the city’s south side industrial zone.
The city’s economic development hasn’t shared details of the development proposed at the old farmstead.
Wisconsin Historical Society records indicate the Hugunin family farmstead was one of the earliest, large-scale farms to be built in the then-young Rock County. The original operators grew wheat on the land.
According to a city memo, the city of Janesville would place a sign on the land to commemorate the historic farm that once stood there.
