Corner of Main St. and 4th Street St. looking West (circa 1908)

Though it can be difficult to tell, Main Street is paved with red brick in this photo. But in the days when most of the traffic was horses or horse-drawn carts, even the paved streets were covered in a layer of mud and manure. 

The building on the far left is the newly completed Stoughton Public Library, built with money donated by Andrew Carnegie. Over 2500 Carnegie libraries were built world-wide between 1883 and 1929, including 63 in Wisconsin.  Stoughton's library was built in 1907. A significant addition on the south and east sides was added in 1990. There is a tent in the vacant lot to the right of the library in this photo.   

The next building in the photo with the Gold Medal Flour ad painted on the exterior wall is George Weisel's Harness Shop. Today, the Public Library addition covers the ground where the vacant lot and the harness shop once stood. 

The wooden building next to that was a shoe store and shoe repair shop. In 1921, the Badger Theater was built on that spot. Today, it is the home of the Stoughton Village Players. 

The next building is Martin Jacobson's bakery, called The Home Bakery. Although the ownership has changed, The Home Bakery has been a Stoughton business for more than 100 years. In 1939, Olav Fosdal purchased the bakery from his uncle, Hans Romnes, who had owned and operated it for many years. The name was eventually changed to Fosdal's Home Bakery. Today, it is simply called Fosdal Home Bakery. It is one of only three wooden buildings in the downtown historic district that are still there today.

The building to the right of the bakery was the Ben Midgard Photo Studio (illustrated on the left). This building featured a sloping glass wall that was one and a half stories high. This north-facing wall allowed sunlight into the photo studio allowing photos to be taken in natural light. At a time when photos were taken on glass plates and flash-photography was in its infancy, glass walls like this were common fixtures in high-end photography studios. Ben Midgard came to Stoughton from Norway at the age of 6 in 1893. He was a prominent photographer in Stoughton for more than 50 years. Unfortunately, this beautiful and unique building was lost sometime in the mid-1900s.

The building to the right of Midgard Studio is Maloof Brothers Candy Kitchen. In the photo on the right, two young girls are peering into the window of the candy store, while a third girl poses in front of Midgard Studios.  

The two buildings to the right of the candy store are the Stoughton Post Office and the Stoughton State Bank. The bank building was also the home of Wisconsin Telephone Company offices.

The buildings that housed the candy store, post office and bank are still present today. However, in the 1960s, Stoughton State Bank expanded to fill all three buildings and covered the facade with the gold and brown panels you see today.

Across Forrest Street on the next block is a row of eight buildings under four peaks. After a fire destroyed most of the wood-frame buildings on that block in 1889, George Becker, a local contractor was engaged to replace them. The buildings were designed to be "as nearly alike as possible, thus giving the entire row a uniform appearance". Each building was individually owned (note the owner's name in the date block of each section). At the end of the block, you can see the spire of the old K&H building built in 1903.