Tucked away along the Sheboygan River, twelve miles northwest of the city of Sheboygan in Town Herman, sits an unincorporated village once known as Lippers Mills. Today we know it as Franklin, the little settlement closest to Lakeland, its rapidly growing university neighbor.

What was for more than 100 years a dusty lumberyard is now a bright, stylish and expansive new home for Dulmes Décor.

But owner Gary Dulmes clearly values his company’s remarkable history as much as its handsomely renovated new digs at 822 North 14th Street in Sheboygan, where a succession of three lumber companies once sprawled.

A highly intricate, cohesively executed collaborative rescue effort between four Sheboygan County area fire departments, which worked to save three lives last August, garnered the Sheboygan County Technical Rescue Team a Hometown Hero Award during a Wisconsin State Assembly session at the State Capitol in Madison on Tuesday, Jan. 21.