What would Ellen Kort say? There are different views on moving Trout Museum to Peace Park

APPLETON - In the discourse over whether Appleton should entertain a proposal to relocate the Trout Museum of Art to Ellen Kort Peace Park, several speakers recalled their connections with Ellen Kort and surmised how she would have viewed the move, were she alive today.

"She's smiling right now that this conversation is beginning," Common Council member Alex Schultz said prior to the vote to proceed with negotiations.

One of Kort's daughters, Cindy Kort, encouraged the city to engage in talks with the museum. "We feel our mom would support this collaboration," she said.

That feeling isn't universally shared, though.

Another of Kort's daughters, Kerry Williamsen, wants people to stop speaking for her mother, who died in 2015 after serving as Wisconsin's first poet laureate.

"We all knew Ellen in a different way, and we all have different thoughts of what she would think or say about this," Williamsen told The Post-Crescent. "In respect to her memory, my hope is that we each share our own thoughts and not speak on her behalf."

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Williamsen has an opinion on the proposal to build a 30,000-square-foot museum at Ellen Kort Peace Park. The seven-acre park along the Fox River, Williamsen said, doesn't have sufficient space to fulfill the missions of both the park and the museum.

The park was designed to provide a serene atmosphere where people can become one with nature and get in touch with their feelings, she said.

In October 2020, the Appleton council unanimously authorized a nonprofit group to begin raising money for a sexual assault survivors monument at the park.

"It would be nice if we kept to the original plan for the park as a beautiful healing place in our community," Williamsen said. "The Trout Museum has some great visions, but relocating to the Ellen Kort Peace Park just doesn’t work well."

A public listening session on the museum's proposal will be held from 5 to 6:30 p.m. Thursday at River Tyme Bistro, 425 W. Water St.

The council voted 9-3 last week to enter talks with the Trout Museum about its desire to build a new museum at the park. The museum currently operates at 111 W. College Ave. next to Houdini Plaza in downtown Appleton.

Executive Director Christina Turner estimated the cost of the new museum at $10 million. Monroe and Sandra Trout contributed $5 million to the Community Foundation for the Fox Valley Region to support the project.

Appleton has a master plan to develop Ellen Kort Peace Park as a passive park, and grading and trail construction have begun, but city staff expressed a willingness to to explore a partnership with the museum.

Contact Duke Behnke at 920-993-7176 or dbehnke@gannett.com. Follow him on Twitter at @DukeBehnke.