An Evansville, Indiana, local recommended we try the Turoni’s pizza, voted best in Indiana. Another local argued that Roca Bar, where the very first Evansville pizza was served, is the best. As a lifelong Chicagoan, I rarely eat pizza out of town. When I do, I’m usually disappointed. It’s rare to find one as good the Chicago pizza I grew up on. However, with such rave reviews of these pizzas, we put them to the test. So we tried both. Read more
Walk into the Reitz Home, and you step back into the lifestyle of the wealthiest family in early Evansville. Extensive use of stained glass, chandeliers, intricate inlaid wood floor patterns, Moorish doorway screens, and fireplaces of the finest materials like white onyx tell you that no ordinary family lived in this Victorian mansion. Religious icons throughout the house tell more about the family, that they were devout Catholics. This was the home of John Augustus Reitz, Prussian-born lumber baron and town philanthropist. Mr. Reitz, his wife Gertrude, and eight of their ten children (two were married by the time the home was built in 1871) lived in the home.
After John August and Gertrude passed on, the unmarried children continued to live together. They redecorated the home and updated it with electricity and plumbing, including Evansville’s first toilet, still in the home.
The last Reitz family member to die, Christine, had given many of the home’s contents to neighbors and staff members. Two heirs donated the home itself to the Daughters of Isabella, and it eventually was sold to the Evansville Diocese and became home to Evansville’s first bishop.
In 1974 the home was donated to the Reitz Home Preservation Society, and restoration work began. Some of the furnishings in the home are original to the Reitz family, having been donated back by the those they were given to, and some are representative of the furnishings that would have been in the home when the Reitz family was living there.
The major part of the restoration is completed, but as Matt Rowe, Executive Director of the Reitz Home Museum and Chairman of Evansville’s Historic Preservation Commission, pointed out, work on an old home is never finished.
Watch the video below to see more photos of the restored mansion.
After your tour of the Reitz Home, take a self-guided tour through the neighborhood where you’ll see more homes originally owned by Evansville’s elites and now restored or undergoing restoration. Numerous Queen Anne homes are interspersed with prairie,craftsman, and many other architectural styles.
Carriage houses have been restored, too.
Just as the Reitz home, owned by a lumber baron, made extensive use of wood, the home built by the local brick baron used brick just as artfully, even in the sidewalk outside the home.
As we strolled on our tour, we were fortunate to be invited by Elaine, the current owner of the Fendrich home, to step inside to see the restoration progress. John Fendrich, heir to the Fendrich Cigar Company and the original owner of the home, was married to one of the Reitz daughters. The completely restored dining room, including the silver wall sconces, the parlor with its lovely fireplace and the kitchen with the original icebox are evidence of the meticulous detail that has gone into the restoration.
Preservation continues throughout the historic neighborhood, once run down with many of the homes turned multifamily, but now returning to its grand glory.
The Reitz Home Museum, located at 224 S.E. First Street in Evansville, Indiana, is open for tours Tuesday through Sunday. Check the web site for hours and admission.
Disclosure: My visit to the Reitz Home Museum and a tour of the surrounding neighborhood was hosted by the Evansville Convention & Visitors Bureau and Reitz Home Museum, but any opinions expressed in this post are my own.
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Other posts and articles you may enjoy:
Tropicana Evansville: Stay, Dine, Play
Summer’s Riverview Mansion Bed & Breakfast, Metropolis IL: Elegant Comfort
Shawnee National Forest and Cave-in-Rock State Park: Southern Illinois Natural Beauty
Chateau Thomas Winery, Plainfield IN, Marks 30 Years in Business in 2014
Stay at the very nice Tropicana Evansville Hotel or go upscale at the LeMerigot? Enjoy casual dining at Max & Erma’s or a steak at Cavanaugh’s? Try your luck at the slots or table games in the casino or listen to live entertainment? You’ll have lots of choices to make at the Tropicana Evansville in southern Indiana, but whatever you choose, you can’t go wrong.
Our comfortable room at the Tropicana Evansville Hotel overlooked the Ohio River, a picturesque view of the sparkling river with a walkway alongside it that beckons you to go out for a stroll. Later. Right now it’s time to grab a bite to eat.
With ten venues for cocktails and food, from casual to gourmet, not even counting the bars on the casino floor, it’s easy to find something that whets your appetite. The hard part is deciding between them. When we wanted a dessert, we opted for Max & Erma’s decadent triple chocolate cake.
Our splurge meal at Cavanaugh’s started with our choices of ten signature martinis. I went with chocolate, which seems more like a dessert martini, but it’s the one that most intrigued me. Our waiter assured me that people order it before dinner all the time.
Sipping the martini, watching a barge pass by on the river outside the window, and listening to live piano music set the tone for an elegant meal.
I ordered basic but my favorites: a salad, prime rib and double baked potato. After the salad and bread served with garlic oil, lemon sorbet was a nice palate cleanser.
I purposely didn’t finish my succulent, medium-rare prime rib, because I had seen the dessert cart and knew I couldn’t pass it up. We ordered the crème brulee, the brittle, sweet caramelized topping a crunchy contrast to the creamy custard.
If food quantity is your style, try the all-you-can-eat weekend brunch at the Temptations Buffet. You’ll find everything from breakfast meats, biscuits and gravy, eggs, and potatoes, to lunch foods like a salad bar, turkey, fried chicken, mac ‘n cheese, and too much more to list here.
If you want to eat while you’re in the casino, you can do that, too, at the Diamond Deli on Level 1. Level 1 is completely non-smoking, which is where I stayed while I was playing the penny slots.
Just outside the casino entrance in the riverfront Pavilion Hoosiers Lounge, enjoy free live music.
When you’re in need of a breath of fresh air, step outside the casino and take a stroll down the paved riverfront walkway. After you’ve burned off some calories, return to the Evansville Tropicana for more casino action before trying another dining venue.
The Tropicana Evansville is located at 421 NW Riverside Drive in Evansville, Indiana. Visit the web site for further details or to make hotel reservations.
Disclosure: I won my stay at the Tropicana Evansville, including dinner at Cavnaugh’s and brunch at the Temptations Buffet, in a drawing, but any opinions expressed in this post are my own.
Thank you for reading Midwest Wanderer. If you enjoyed this post and would like an e-mail notification when other posts are published, enter your e-mail address below and click Subscribe. Be sure to click the link when you get the e-mail asking you to confirm.
Other posts and articles you may enjoy:
Summer’s Riverview Mansion Bed & Breakfast, Metropolis IL: Elegant Comfort
Metropolis Illinois: Home of Superman
Shawnee National Forest and Cave-in-Rock State Park: Southern Illinois Natural Beauty
Chateau Thomas Winery, Plainfield IN, Marks 30 Years in Business in 2014
Editor’s note: Unfortunately, Barlett’s is no longer in business.
Who would ever guess that behind this door with the beer drinking deer carved into it you could feast on Grilled Maple Leaf Farms Duck Breast or Rigatoni and Smoked Amish Chicken? If you miss the word “gourmet” in its name, from the street you would think Bartlett’s is a typical roadhouse. But one look at the menu tells a different story. Although the atmosphere in Bartlett’s Grill & Tavern is casual and comfortable, the food has a gourmet flair, whether you order a dinner entrée or a sandwich. Read more
Step over the threshold into Zydeco’s 5, and you’ll think you’ve been transported from Indiana to the New Orleans French Quarter. Everything in the restaurant–the décor, the drinks, and the food–screams New Orleans, Mardi Gras style. Read more
“I’m tired of this winter.” I’ve heard it over and over again for the past month. And I agree. It seems that every day, at least here in the Chicago area, we’ve been getting either more snow, making roads dangerous to navigate, or single-digit to sub-zero temperatures, so we can’t go out and enjoy snow activities. Of course, the obvious remedy is to go somewhere warm, and if you can do that, great. But for many, a vacation to a warm climate is impractical or even impossible. Besides, a week later, you’ll be back home in the snow and cold again. So aside from hibernating and counting the days until spring, here are a couple of ways to counter the cabin fever that has hit the Midwest hard:
Go to indoor events and attractions. On the days that are cold but the roads okay to drive on, go to a local museum that you haven’t been to in a long time. (Call first to make sure they haven’t closed due to the cold.) Or go to one of the many travel, RV, boat, auto, or home shows going on in cities all over the Midwest. You’ll find links to information on lots of them on the Midwest Festivals & Fairs page.
Plan your summer travel. Now is the time to plan your summer getaways. Get them on the calendar before your calendar fills up with other obligations. If you’re planning to go to a popular seasonal destination, you should make your accommodation reservations as soon as possible, too, for the best selection. Need help in deciding where to go? Turn to the convention and visitors bureaus of the states you are thinking about. On the Internet, search “[state name] tourism” to find the state’s official tourism site, which will have listings of attractions, accommodations, dining options, and events. You can order free hard copy travel guides for the states or regions you are considering for your getaways, too. I personally like to peruse the hard copy guides from the cozy comfort of a sofa and then use the Internet to get further details on places that interest me. To get you started, I’ve included links below to order tourism guides for the Midwest states.
Illinois
Indiana
Iowa
Kansas
Kentucky
Michigan
Minnesota
Missouri
Nebraska
North Dakota
Ohio
South Dakota
Wisconsin
Just thinking about and planning your summer getaways will do wonders to counter the winter doldrums. Do you have other suggestions for cabin fever remedies? Answer in the Comments box below.
Thank you for reading Midwest Wanderer. If you enjoyed this post, enter your e-mail address below and click Subscribe. Be sure to click the link when you get the e-mail asking you to confirm.
Other attractions you may enjoy this winter:
Peoria Riverfront Museum: Interactive Exhibits, Planetarium and Giant Screen Theater
Abraham Lincoln Presidential Museum, Springfield IL: Museum Meets Disney
Frank Lloyd Wright Dana-Thomas House: 12,000 Square Feet of Phenomenal
Visit Jelly Belly, Pleasant Prairie WI: Take the Tour, Taste the Candy
Tour Stone Hill Winery, Hermann, MO: Most Historic and Awarded Winery in the State
