Jacob Baker Site, Mississippi River Valley, IL
The Site
Baker was a carpenter by trade, but his small-scale “dream houses” incorporated unconventional materials such as hundreds of diminutive figurines, bits of glass, and other colorful objects set in concrete.
It is unknown how many houses Baker ultimately made. The John Michael Kohler Arts Center has one of these miniature houses covered with ceramic souvenirs and tiny figurines in its collection. Known as “the DeSoto House,” it was originally placed in the lobby of the DeSoto House Hotel in Galena, Illinois. However, it was also seen in two locations in Elizabeth, Illinois, from the early 1970s to 1993. In 1993, it was moved to a private collection in Wisconsin, later transferred to Kohler Foundation, Inc., for restoration, and subsequently gifted to the Arts Center in 2006.
Jacob Baker
c. 1880–1939
Very little is known about the artist Jacob Baker, who lived from around 1880 to 1939. A carpenter by trade, he built homes for people around the town of Menominee, Illinois. In the 1920s and ’30s, he also constructed a series of embellished miniature houses thought to have been inspired by the Dickeyville Grotto in Dickeyville, Wisconsin. It is unknown how many he ultimately made, though a newspaper article from 1974 describes a wide variety of the sculptures that could be found in yards throughout the region.
