120 Scott Street
Pastimes sits in a brick building on Scott Street in downtown Ripon, just east of Watson Street, next to a city parking lot. The patio and lawn out east were not always open space. For decades, other buildings stood there: a livery barn, a car garage, a blacksmith shop, and later a sheet metal works.
The building is part of the Watson Street Commercial Historic District and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. Registry paperwork lists a 1930 construction date, but Ripon Historical Society photos show the brick building already standing by 1924.
The Building
A 1913 Sanborn Fire Insurance map shows a house at 120 Scott Street. By 1924 that house was gone, and the brick building you see today was home to Allinson & Heiman Implements.
Charles Allinson and Julius Heiman sold farm machinery here. Phone directories list Allinson & Heiman Implements on Scott Street from 1917 to 1940, then C.H. Heiman Implements into the mid-1940s. The earliest clear photo of the building comes from 1924, taken while the U.S. Post Office across Scott Street was under construction. The Allinson & Heiman sign is right there on the front.
In 1945, Van Metre's Chevrolet and Oldsmobile dealership took over 120 Scott Street for a parts department. Van Metre already owned the garage buildings just east of here. After selling those neighboring buildings in 1963, the company kept 120 Scott for storage for a while.
What happened next is thinner in the record. A Commonwealth Press piece later mentioned the building had been used as a Post Office Annex. Hard proof for that stretch is scarce. By early 1969, the address was headed back into retail.
Next Door, Before the Patio
The outdoor deck side of Pastimes used to be busy ground. An 1892 Sanborn map shows Lewis Trager's livery at what was then 122 Scott Street. Richard Prout later ran the livery and expanded into the building next door.
In 1921 the old Prout livery barn was renovated into the City Garage, a Chevrolet dealership and repair shop. Wilbur Van Metre bought the City Garage in 1938, added Oldsmobile in 1944, and stretched the business into the implement building next door for parts. The garage buildings at 124-126 Scott Street were sold in 1963, used later for auto parts (eventually Napa), and razed sometime after 1992. That cleared the space that is now the patio and lawn.
On the corner of Scott and Blackburn Streets sat John Murtha's blacksmith shop, then Owen Riant's metalwork and welding, then Ripon Sheet Metal Works. By 1956 that corner building was gone. Today it is grass leading out toward Blackburn.
Pastimes Pub & Grille
In February 1969, Riverside Beer Wholesales asked to move the Drive In Liquor license from Eureka Street to 120 Scott Street. The address stayed a liquor store for more than twenty years. In 1985 Harvey and Joy Failor sold Drive In Liquor to Jim and Denise Delong of Chicago, who ran it as J&D Liquor. The license was not renewed in 1991, and the store closed that summer.
In May 1992 the Group of Seven of Oshkosh bought the building. Managing partner Ron Detjen of Berlin said there were no plans for it at the time.
Nick Lueptow, a Ripon High School graduate known around Ripon and Green Lake, purchased the building in 1997 for his restaurant, Pastimes Bar & Grill. The Pastimes logo marks Est. 1996. Ownership has changed since Lueptow opened the place, but the address has stayed a pub and grille ever since.
Sources & Acknowledgments
This history is based on research by Pat Grahn of the Ripon Historical Society, prepared for the Commonwealth Now & Then in Ripon series on Pastimes and the Scott Street block.
Sources cited in that research include Sanborn Fire Insurance maps, Ripon phone directories, Ripon Weekly Press and Commonwealth Press reporting, Ripon Historical Society photo archives, and City Council notes on liquor licensing.
Photos on this page come from that Historical Society material. Thanks to Pat Grahn and the Ripon Historical Society for compiling and sharing it. Visit riponhistory.org.
