Award-winning exhibit on Leon Lewis is in Hurley, Wisconsin, population 1,558
In a region with few Jewish residents, in a small Wisconsin town near the Upper Peninsula border, a tiny museum is remembering a Jewish man who infiltrated Nazi organizations.
The award-winning museum exhibit is bringing light to the story of a Jewish man from Iron County who helped organize a network to infiltrate pro-Nazi organizations in the 1930s.
Hurley, Wisconsin, population 1,558, at the border with the upper peninsula of Michigan, is celebrating a Jewish man who infiltrated Nazi organizations.
The exhibit tells the story of Leon Lewis, whose intelligence efforts helped expose extremist plans and protect Jewish communities before the United States entered World War II.
The Leon Lewis Exhibit at the Iron County Historical Museum has received the Wisconsin Historical Society’s Best New Exhibit award for exhibits costing under $5,000. The award was presented on Aug. 4. The museum is in Hurley, Wisconsin, population 1,558, at the border with the upper peninsula of Michigan.
Exhibit visitors learn how Lewis’ Los Angeles-based intelligence network operated during a period when Nazi sympathizers were organizing across the United States, uncovering assassination plots, sabotage plans and other Nazi threats before and during World War II.
It features a timeline of Lewis’ life alongside world events, spy reports, photographs, pictures of recognizable celebrities that were targeted by Nazi activities and a chessboard display that uses chess pieces to represent the spies, Nazis and fascists involved in Lewis’ intelligence network.
Kristin Kolesar, a volunteer with the Iron County Historical Museum, who created its Leon Lewis exhibit.
The exhibit was created by Kristin Kolesar, a volunteer with the Iron County Historical Museum, along with Lewis’ grandchildren, Laura Read, Tom Read, Laurie Jones and Robin Mazlo, who all live out of state.
The project began in spring 2024 when Kolesar received an unexpected phone call from Jerry Klinger, the founder and president of the Jewish American Society for Historic Preservation, based in Florida. Klinger offered to donate a historical marker to the museum in memory of Lewis and his work.
Lewis’ story remained largely unknown both in his hometown and in the cities where he had worked later in life, including within his own family. Members of his family did not learn about his spy work until many years after his death.
Lewis’ historical marker, standing outside of the Iron County Historical Museum.
Klinger had previously offered a historical marker honoring Lewis to Los Angeles and Chicago, where Lewis spent much of his career, but both declined, he said. The Iron County Historical Museum accepted the offer, prompting Kolesar to begin researching Lewis’ life and contacting his grandchildren.
“His grandchildren and I were finding out so much cool stuff that we decided it would be great to have an exhibit as well as the historical marker in the museum,” Kolesar said.
The exhibit was created through months of collaboration over Zoom calls between Kolesar, other museum volunteers and Lewis’ grandchildren, who shared family photographs, letters and personal papers.
“His role in preventing the spread of Nazism into the United States and therefore protecting all of the Jewish residents of America is a key takeaway,” she said.
A Wisconsin Historical Society’s award for exhibits costing under $5,000 has been granted for The Leon Lewis Exhibit at the Iron County Historical Museum.
The exhibit opened following the dedication of Lewis’ historical marker in August 2025. About 150 people were in attendance, including three of Lewis’ grandchildren. The exhibit will be permanently in the museum.
Paula vW. Dáil of Spring Green, Wis., a Jewish sociologist and author researching Lewis’ life for a biography, said the exhibit highlights an overlooked story of courage.
“What makes a person step up and do extraordinary things? Why would someone take the risks? He took tremendous personal risk, and yet he did it because he saw what was happening and felt compelled to act,” Dáil said.
In 1936, Lewis’ network exposed and prevented a planned mass lynching, by fascist leader Ingram Hughes, who intended to carry out a mob killing of 20 Los Angeles residents and spark nationwide violence against Jews. The plan was abandoned after Hughes suspected his group was infiltrated. But the Lewis network appears to have made a difference.
Leon Lewis
“He was born in this little tiny town in northern Wisconsin, and he was just an ordinary citizen. He was motivated to risk his life and his family’s safety to do this spy work. It’s realizing that you can be just an everyday person and you can have a huge impact on the world,” Kolesar said.
1,500 daffodils planted in front of the Iron County Historical Museum, honoring the 1.5 million children who perished in the Holocaust, planted as a part of the Worldwide Daffodil Project.
