A tractor heads down Glenbeulah's Main Street

Just a few miles from the resort town of Elkhart Lake is the small town of Glenbeulah, population 378.  The Main Street, running right through the center of town, is flanked by a few businesses and houses with empty front porches.  I’m there around midday so things look fairly deserted, people off tending to their farms or perhaps working at the nearby resort.  I jump out of my car to take a quick picture of the Main street sign just in time to see a massive tractor drive down the center of the street.  It’s likely headed to Weiss’s Lawn and Garden, a large storefront with tractors and other farming supplies sitting outside.

Weiss's has been on Main Street since 1946

Weiss’s interior is like the floor of a car dealership except the customers come there in search of shiny new John Deeres, not hot rods.  In the back office Mary Marciano sits at her computer, placing orders for tractors and other farming items.  She tells me she has been working at Weiss’s for 32 years.  The business was started by her father in 1946.  She’s lived on Main street her whole life, and supposes her family goes back about a hundred years in Glenbeulah.  “It’s a small town,” she says “With its quirks like any other town.” Mary tells me that they just put up a subdivision at the other end of Main Street.  She used to know everyone in town, but now it’s getting bigger.

Mary has worked at Weiss's for 32 years and lived in Glenbeulah all her life.

Down the street next to the gas station is Marshall’s gateway, a new-looking mini mart.  Mike Miller, the manager, stands at the front counter inside.  He tells me that Marshall’s opened about 3 years ago on the empty lot that use to house a metal manufacturing company before it closed down.  I ask Mike about the major construction going on next door and he tells me, “Oh that’s going to be the new Fudgienuckles.”

Fudgienuckles?

It turns out the original “Fudgies” was the town bar that burned down a year ago, leaving a big hole in the community, “It was a mainstay on Main Street” he says.  I notice a PT Cruiser next to the construction site with a license plate that reads “Fudgies” and nearby a woman in pink authoritatively surveys the site and talks to the constructions workers.  I guess she has something to do with Fudgies.

The famous "Fudgies" of Glenbeulah is the mainstay of Main Street

I guess right.  Carrie Lewitz is the daughter of the owners of  what most people in town called “Ma and Pa Fudgies”.  She tells me about the day it burned down.  “People were on the street bawling, just bawling.”  Fudgies was clearly more than just a bar.  “On Christmas we’d have a Santa Clause who really looked like Santa Clause.  And Halloween we’d have a basket of candy for the kids.  It was family oriented.”  But things are looking good with construction and Carrie is confident it will be finished by August.  “They always knew they’d rebuild, I mean there’s only one Fudgies” Carrie says with a laugh.  Karen Hefter, who lives  nextdoor to the old Fudgies site tells me “We just want our bar back.”  Fudgies is something of a community center in Glenbeulah – a place to gather and bring the family, see familiar faces, and shake Ma and Pa Fudgie’s hand when you walk in the door.  Carrie says, rather wistfully “Small towns are cool, they really are.”

Outside the temporary "Fudgies." The original Fudgies that burned down last year, is due to be rebuilt by August.