Do you people have no respect for history. This is part of janesville. This was part of the underground rail road also. Apparently you didn't go there maybe you should so you know a little more about are town.Before you rip every hitoic building down!!!

doc0430 - what a great idea! That is a serious suggestion. I hope the administration can pick up on that.

There was talk last week of trying to find A spot for training and Mercy needed A spot to put up parents of children in the hospital...... BOOM here ya go, let the companies training rent and mercy foot the bills!

leech,sorry.

OK $4000.00 to ground care.Who is being paid $57,000 per annum.Give that tax leach back.

It's time for the city to take care of the basics...police, fire, and infrastructure.
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If there is anything left over...let's look at it on a self sustaining level.
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Wish in one hand and **** in the other...see which one fills up first.

How can the city afford to make rockport pool a water park in 2009 and not afford this?

Hey, if we want to save every one night stand of a president lets get Clintons limo!

I believe the Tallman house falls under the advisory of the Leisure Services Advisory Committee. Why is the City Council making recommendations on its future? Can anybody confirm this?

The sad thing is the lack of caring for something that is and always will be part of the history of this city. Maybe a little more effort should be put back in teaching the kids about Janesville and its history and that it wasn't always the way it is today. I would like to ask the students in school today about the history of Janesville and actually hear what they know. just my opinion

Detroito~ You do know Lincoln was a Republican, right? Just a fun fact

Why take on a children's museum? Because it is a "need". Just ask the council president.

DJ, I agree ! Why take on a childrens museum (expected to operate at an annual loss) if we can't take care of what we've already got ?!?!?!

Add a hot tub and rent out the Lincoln bedroom for a nightly fee. Watch the democrats line up.

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"Truman asked how council members could eliminate the $57,000 subsidy but turn around and pledge money to build and subsidize a children’s museum, as it did this summer."
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Yeah, good question! Where's the answer?

These comments are all well and good but should be directed to the council at citycouncil@ci.janesville.wi.us to make sure the people who actually get to make the decision hear your opinion.

The Tallman House is significant to Janesville because of Lincoln, but I think people are no longer impressed by "Lincoln (or Washington) slept here" claims, documented or not. The house should really exist to interpret the history of Janesville, Rock County, and Wisconsin as Tallman was intimately involved in developing the region (he built the house on money he earned selling land grants), and as a window into the culture of the upper class in the 19th century, coupled with the simpler Stone House that was moved to the site in the 1960s and is itself the oldest surviving structure in Janesville and represents both early settlers as well as a less ostentatious lifestyle.
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The architecture, which is the then-popular Italianate style (nothing to do with the Spanish), is truly outstanding in this region and that alone should be part of the draw. It is also nearly pristine, never seriously modified from its 19th century condition.
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I do think the site has not been marketed properly, certainly since the RCHS ran into financial difficulties when they had to assume the debt of the contractor and as far as I know continues to be an expense for them and a deterrent to donations. The intent had been to completely renovate the site over time and that obviously was not able to take place.
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As to the Trust, I am not at all certain that they are financially in a position to fully support the house as a museum themselves. What is definitely needed is a stronger commitment from the community, such as a major benefactor for an endowment dedicated to the museum itself.

Well, alot of people don't use the Rotary gardens, can we mow it down?

I love this house. I hope they find a way to keep it going.. If it ever want on the market I know some that would jump.

Proartist, you make a very valid point. I love what has been done with the Marshall Apts. I'm pretty sure, though, that if you ask the average Janesvillian – and I may be wrong about this – that they don't visit the Lincoln-Tallman House because it's an exemplorary example of Spanish-American architecture.
It's because Honest Abe was here. At least that's what I believed, while I was growing up in town, to be the main significance of the property to be.
With the way Janesville's economy is going, all's I'm asking is it worth subsidizing when it could be better spent elsewhere.
That said, it's easy for people to identify problems, and difficult to solve them.
I'm not saying tear it down, I'm just saying let someone else build it back up.

I share Stevel's opinion about the share of visitor's being kids on school trips. Even with that the average is 12 people a day. If one president sleeping in a place one night made it a landmark, the nation would be blanketed with them. Returning it to the Trust to stand on it's own merit is the most sensible cut the council can make during this year's budget struggle.

The Tallman house is more than simply a place where Lincoln slept. It is an historic architectural example demonstrating an era of quality craftsmanship, it was the home of a very prominent Janesville family, and a place where many other Janesville activities/organizations began because of that family's foresight for the city. Saving the historic is hard and almost always unheralded work. Preservation has a mission to tell us about the past and our cultural roots through the historical often embodied in a particular place. The task of preservation itself inevitably creates new perceptions about history which can change how preservation is valued in a community. In addition to financial concerns, a preserved building’s future should be considered with historic and aesthetic sensitivity - the same issues that apply to any new, contemporary architectural projects. To do so, both must begin at the most basic level with consistent and careful MAINTENANCE! Janesville is blessed to have JPAC and the Marshall Apartments today, in no small part, because of the neglect of regular maintenance to the old Marshall High School. Because simple maintenance at the Tallman House has fallen short for decades due to limited funds, the issue today isn't simply funding operations but repairing what neglect has wrought. Possibly now is the time for new financing opportunities and, perhaps, creative ideas for "reuse". Let's be VERY careful in decisions regarding this Janesville gem because today's citizens will probably not be judged in the future by the sports infrastructures the city finances but, more likely, by those structures of the past which we have destroyed instead of restoring and "reinventing".

I'm pretty torn on this one.
Two questions:
• How many of the 4,400 are children on a school trip who don't have to pay the price of admission?
• While I understand this is probably a historic piece of architecture first, and a presidential landmark second, I wonder how many people truly know the story behind Lincoln's stop in the home (slept there, missed breakfast because of wait staff's failure to bring boots back to his room, jettisoned on next train out of town). Seems to me that the argument behind it being a presidential landmark – and therefore subsidizing it as such – is pretty hallow, and frankly, pretty embarrassing. Give it back to the Tallman's, let the JHS take over the payments, save the money. Lincoln would have wanted it that way.

Please look elsewhere for budget cuts!! It is very important to preserve the history of Janesville, maintain the old before adding the new.

i am confused on what all this means. i know it needs to stay here.
4400 people a year seems like alot to visit to me to keep it open.that is ave of 366 a month. if it is $7 to get in that is 30800 a year. seems you could run the building on that. they raised ALOT of money for the historical society home tour this year. the most since the early 90's.

For the $600k they spent on screemin meemees, they could have funded this for 10 years.

Maybe the city can put the children's museum inside the Tallman House. Or put the skateboard park in their front yard. Or stick a baseball field on the grounds. Maybe then, the city will fund it properly.
For being Janesville's historic crown jewel, the Tallman sure doesn't get any love.