From History of Walworth County Wisconsin by Albert Clayton Beckwith, Vol. II, 
publ. 1912, Page 1350-1351
 
AUGUST MELGES.  The name of August MELGES is well known to the people who 
reside in the southern part of Walworth county and to large numbers who visit 
the popular resorts here, for he has been one of the leading innkeepers at the 
lake for many years, and has done much to make this one of the most attractive 
watering places in America, so he is well deserving of a place in the history 
of the locality along with other enterprising and public-spirited men of the 
present day.
 
Mr. MELGES was born in Demola, Westphalia, Germany, on October 5, 1839, and 
there he grew to manhood and received his education in the common schools, and 
there spent his early life; but not getting the start there that he desired 
and having heard so much of the great opportunities afforded by the great 
western republic, he emigrated to our shores in 1864, during the progress of 
the Civil war, and here he has since remained, having come to Walworth county, 
Wisconsin, in the early history of the same, and finding it to his liking, 
establishing his permanent home here.
 
Mr. MELGES was married to Ida SCHULTZ in 1872, to which union one child has 
been born, William A., who was reared and educated here, and who is now 
interested with his father in the property described in a following 
paragraph.  He was married to Clara FEGER, daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Jacob 
FEGER, of Chicago , and they have two children, Harry and Elenor.  Mrs. Ida 
MELGES died on March 19, 1911.
 
August MELGES is the owner of the popular Woodlawn Bay Hotel, at Delavan lake, 
this county, the site of which is one of the oldest upon that famous sheet of 
water, having been known as Stowe's Park away back into he days when the lake 
was still surrounded by a wilderness of trees, and the first summer resorters 
were just finding the lake.  The hotel then upon the property stood back from 
the water farther than the present structure.  It was finally destroyed by 
fire.  This excellent property came into the possession of August MELGES in 
the fall of 1888 and was leased by him for a number of years, having W. A. 
ERWIN, G. W. COLLINS and Jacob SNYDER, and others as proprietors, until 1896, 
when Mr. MELGES moved from Chicago to his lake property and assumed active 
management, and here he has continued to do a large and ever-increasing 
business to the present time, and in 1898 he built the present commodious, 
attractive and neatly furnished hotel, which is modernly equipped and in the 
midst of beautiful surrounds, and is popular with hundreds of guests who ever 
find here courteous and considerate treatment.
 
Mr. MELGES also took charge of the old "Petersburg," in 1909, this being the 
oldest resort upon the lake and here he has erected a modern and tastily 
arranged cottage.
 
Submitted by Carol