Shake Rag Alley Center for the Arts is a nationally known non-profit school of arts and crafts that was founded in 2004. We offer workshops in the visual, performing, and literary arts for adults and children, and we strive to cultivate creativity in the community. Part of our mission is to preserve the historic buildings on campus, which are included in Mineral Point’s Historic District–the first in Wisconsin to be listed in the National Register of Historic Places.

The 2.5 acre campus is open to the public from dawn to dusk. The park-like setting was landscaped in the 1970s by Madison florist Al Felly. From 1970 to 1990, Felly renovated and rebuilt the buildings, established the gardens, and invited artisans to work in the buildings on this spot he called “Shake Rag Under the Hill.” Historically, “shake rag” areas of town referred to those that were disreputable or impoverished. They can also be incubators for creativity.

After the Felly’s sold the property in 1990, various owners ran the site until it was purchased by local artists and community members in October 2004 as the home of Shake Rag Alley Center for the Arts.    

The Coach House is a Federal Style wood frame building, built around 1840. Although there are no records listing stagecoach stops from that era, Shake Rag Street (known as Hoard Street prior to the late 1940s) was a main route to other mining communities, so it is possible that this building was an inn or boarding house. Old photos show that a two-story front porch covered the front of the house, which explains the upper story door on the front facade, and is now permanently closed. The Coach House is the main office for Shake Rag Alley, and has three lodging rooms upstairs for instructors and students of Shake Rag Alley, and the public. 

Just behind and attached to the Coach House is the:

Art Cafe – Built in 1972 by Robert Camardo (Al Felly’s nephew) as an antique furniture restoration shop, the Carriage Barn was connected to the Coach House through the original stone root cellar, which is still in use today as a tunnel between the buildings. In later years, it was expanded and converted into a cafe, and is now used for meetings and events, and is still known as the Art Cafe.