Hidden away amidst the Hillside housing development at North 9^th and Somers, the former home and bakery of Oswald Jaeger is barely discernable from neighboring thoroughfares. Just a glimpse of the turret can be seen while traveling northbound on Interstate 43. My curiosity has long been piqued by the blue spire that can narrowly be seen from behind the Leinenkugel’s Brewery building for just a moment, shortly after the McKinley/Fond du Lac exit.

Oswald Jaeger arrived to Milwaukee in 1872 working as an apprentice baker for several years until beginning his own establishment in 1879 at North 4^th and Cherry Streets.¹ In 1881, Jaeger purchased the gabled building at 916 Central Avenue (now West Somers) where he continued his bakery practice.² The building, formerly that of another baker, was constructed circa 1876³ in the heart of the German-American neighborhood occupying much of Milwaukee’s northwest side. Immediately next door, the turreted corner piece of the bakery, which initially drew my attention, was constructed between 1894⁴ to house portions of the baking operation as well as a dwelling for the Jaeger and his family. The westernmost buildings housed the offices for the Oswald Jaeger Baking Company.⁵

The character and context of Oswald Jaeger’s bakery buildings have been significantly altered. The facades have since been muted, painted an all-encompassing shade of white save for the bright blue roofline of the original two buildings. The neighborhood that had formerly surrounded the Austrian native’s bakery was condemned by the City of Milwaukee in the 1950s and replaced with the present labyrinth of apartment buildings.⁶

In 1905, Oswald’s son, Armin took over the bakery practice and continued the family owned operation as Oswald Jaeger Baking Company until his retirement in 1968 at which time Jaeger Baking was sold to Beatrice Foods in Chicago.⁷ The former Jaeger Baking Co. has since been purchased and merged into a number of the nations largest packaged bread and bakery manufacturers including Metz Baking Company, Earthgrains, and Sara Lee Bakery Group.⁸

¹ , Frank Abial. History of Milwaukee, Wisconsin: from pre-historic times to the present date, embracing a summary sketch of the native tribes, and an exhaustive record of men and events for the past century; describing, the city, its commercial, religious, educational and benevolent institutions, its government, courts, press, and public affairs; and including nearly four thousand biographical sketches of pioneers and citizens. Chicago: Western Historical Company, 1881. p. 1213

² “Real Estate Transfers, “ Milwaukee Daily Sentinel (Milwaukee, WI), September 16, 1881.

³ “Milwaukee, Wisconsin.” 1876. Rascher Fire Insurance Maps, Wisconsin. Volume 1, Sheet 94.

⁴ “New Stores Built, “ Milwaukee Journal (Milwaukee, WI), October 21, 1894.

⁵ “Milwaukee, Wisconsin.” 1910. Sanborn Fire Insurance Maps, Wisconsin. Volume 3, Sheet 263.

⁶ “Historic Designation Study Report: St. John’s Evangelical Lutheran Church Complex” (City of Milwaukee, Department of City Development, Historic Preservation Commission, Fall 1990). p. 4.

⁷ “Deaths: Armin F. Jaeger, “ Milwaukee Journal (Milwaukee, WI), June 15, 1979.
⁸ “Sara Lee to Add Lots More Ovens With Deal, “ Milwaukee Journal Sentinel (Milwaukee, WI), July 3, 2001.

Significant numbers of Dutch immigrants began arriving in Milwaukee as early as the mid-1840s and 1850s, most settling in cabins on the hillside northwest of the flats along the Milwaukee River.⁴ The neighborhood that grew here, relatively bounded West Reservoir to the north and Galena in the south between 10^th and 18^th Streets⁵, was fondly referred to as Hollandsche berg or “Dutch Hill” by the early settlers.⁶

The majority of these early Dutch immigrants were Protestant Seceders seeking religious freedom after having broken from the state controlled Reformed Church of the Netherlands. Prior to 1847, these Seceders were subject to fines and other forms of government persecution.⁷ As such, the church was an important entity amidst the Dutch communities popping up in the newly settled midwest, each forming Dutch-speaking congregations as religious and social centers of the community. An account from the New York Sun published in the Milwaukee Sentinel & Gazette in December 1848 tells of “Hollanders emigrating—Religious persecution continues to drive Christians from Europe to this country. Hollanders…to settlements secured in Wisconsin and Michigan…”⁸

As such it is no surprise that Dutch Hill was home to at least three congregations established to administer to the religious welfare of the Hollanders. The First Holland Presbyterian Church at 18^th and Walnut, later renamed Perseverance Church⁹, the afore mentioned Second Holland Presbyterian, and the Reformed Holland Church at 10^th and Brown¹⁰.

Dutch settlement in Milwaukee continued between the mid 1840s and 1890s. However, despite the settlement of Dutch Hill in Milwaukee, the majority of Hollanders arriving in Wisconsin settled permanently in Sheboygan, Fond du Lac, Columbia and La Crosse Counties. In the half century of immigration to Wisconsin, the state was home to the 3^rd largest Dutch population in the U.S. behind Michigan and New York.¹¹ While Dutch emigration to Wisconsin began to decline in the 1890s, other states like Michigan, Illinois, Iowa, New York and New Jersey continued to welcome a steady flow of immigrants from the Netherlands.¹²

¹ “Milwaukee, Wisconsin.” 1910. Sanborn Fire Insurance Maps, 1876-1967-Wisconsin. volume 3, sheet 261.

² “Religious Calendar, “ Milwaukee Daily Sentinel (Milwaukee, WI), October 13, 1869.

³ Flower, Frank Abial. History of Milwaukee, Wisconsin: from pre-historic times to the present date, embracing a summary sketch of the native tribes, and an exhaustive record of men and events for the past century; describing, the city, its commercial, religious, educational and benevolent institutions, its government, courts, press, and public affairs; and including nearly four thousand biographical sketches of pioneers and citizens. Chicago: Western Historical Company, 1881. p. 837

⁴ Henry S. Lucas. “The first Dutch Settlers in Milwaukee,” Wisconsin Magazine of History: Volume 30, Number 2, December 1946. p. 181.

⁵ Kathleen Neils Conzen. Immigrant Milwaukee, 1836-1860. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1976, pp. 146-147.

⁶ “Reminscences of Arend Jan Brusse on Early Dutch Settlement in Milwaukee” contributed by Henry S. Lucas. Wisconsin Magazine of History: volume 30, number 1, September 1946. p. 89.

⁷ “The First Dutch Immigrants in Milwaukee.”

⁸ “Hollanders Emigrating,” Milwaukee Sentinel & Gazette (Milwaukee, WI) December 12, 1848.

⁹ “History of Milwaukee, Wisconsin: from pre-historic times…” p. 837

¹⁰ ibid. p. 942

¹¹ Paul Jakubovich, “Historic Designation Study Report: Van Ells Drug Store” (City of Milwaukee, Department of City Development, Historic Preservation Commission, 2001). p. 8.

¹² ibid. p. 9.

However, in order to understand Mr. Orth’s decision, we should probably delve a little into the multi-layered history of Riverwest. As with many interesting Milwaukee tales, we find our origin with Byron Kilbourn and one of his entrepreneurial shenanigans. In the mid-1830s, Kilbourn had envisioned a great canal that could stretch from the Milwaukee River to Rock River in Jefferson County and thereby connecting to the Mississippi. Ground broke for the Rock River Canal in 1838, but due to insufficient buy-in and lack of funding, construction came to a halt in 1842 leaving a canal between North Avenue dam and the corner of what is now MLK and McKinley.

Resourceful man that he was, Kilbourn promoted the unfinished stretch as an ideal location for mills and factories, and, at this point, an industrial district developed along the canal utilizing the water for power and transport. As it happens, water transport was quickly replaced by railroad (the beerline), which at some point was constructed to run alongside the canal.

In 1884, owners of the “canal lots” quit-claimed a portion of their land to the city of Milwaukee to fill in the canal for a public road—presently Commerce Street. Michael Orth was one of the many business owners to relinquish a portion of his “canal lot” to the city. M. Orth & Sons, later Wisconsin Lakes Ice Company, had two icehouses in the vicinity of Humboldt on either side of North Avenue. One stood at the river bend just south of North Avenue at East Garfield and Commerce behind the Milwaukee Road roundhouse and repair shops. The other icehouse of M. Orth & Sons stood on the west river bank just north of North Avenue along with a blacksmith and wagon repair shop and a stable.

Since his arrival from Saxe-Weimar, Germany in 1854, Michael Orth had been in the ice dealing business along with his elder brother Daniel, and from what I can decipher, had resided on east side of Humboldt south of Commerce at the riverbank for at least twenty years. In 1881, Michael Orth Sr., took his sons Daniel and Michael Jr. into partnership as M. Orth & Sons following his brother’s retirement. At the time his home was constructed, M. Orth & Sons took on other partnership and became known as Wisconsin Lakes Ice Company in 1891.

North of this industrial district along Commerce Street in the south end of Riverwest, , Humboldt Boulevard north of North Avenue remained a country road, which in the late 1800s led to the summer estates of Milwaukee’s German industrialists. As such it seems appropriate that Michael Orth would construct his mansion along a portion of this leisurely thoroughfare uphill from his icehouses.

However, the elaborate Orth mansion was constructed in 1891 at the tail end of the gold coast era, and by the time Michael Orth Sr. died in 1905 the city was expanding to include the former country road. Orth’s daughter, Augusta, and son-in-law, Carl Weisel, remained in the home while operating Weisel Sausage company at 2113 North Humboldt (originally located at 1127 N Water aka Fitzgibbons Pub), which has since been razed and replaced by condos.

The only building attributed to the Orth Family is the home of Michael Orth Jr. Constructed four years prior in 1887,the home still stands in the lot directly north of the razed mansion. Michael Orth Jr. continued the family ice dealing business as Everpure Ice Company well into the twentieth century. In the 1960s, the Orth mansion was demolished for the construction of the afore mentioned Clark station—to stand opposite of an earlier 1920s filling station at the present site of the BP gas station.

My family has lived in this city for generations. My grandfather grew up on Sherman Boulevard. My grandmother grew up in Clarke Square at South 19^th and Scott, and when I drive her past her old house, she can still recall all the details of where Alice lived, and whose porch she played on.  She gasps and grabs my arm when we drive past Ascension Lutheran on Layton Boulevard and she swoons at the thought of the Eagles Ballroom because that’s where she met my grandfather.

I lived for the majority of my pre-adolescence on Milwaukee’s north side at 67^th Street and Villard just south of Silver Spring. My stepfather taught me to ride a bike in the parking lot of Lancaster Elementary School. My mother and I made frequent trips to Northridge Mall on Saturdays where we window-shopped and munched on Buddy Squirrel cheese popcorn, which I still purchase for her whenever I go to visit. I remember frequent trips to Builder’s Square as my stepfather took to fixing up our first house. I went to school at St. Peter-Immanuel on 76^th and Acacia, watched fireworks in Noyes Park, and posed for many a picture with the bronze statue of a deer in Brown Deer Park. My family moved in 1994, but I remember coming back periodically to visit the Milwaukee County Zoo and driving along I-43 passing by the densely constructed houses as we crossed Keefe, North, Locust, Highland, thinking that this was the city that I was really from. This was my home.

In 2003, I returned for college. As it goes, I was a teenager entering into adulthood. I was moving back to the city to be near a downtown. No way I was moving to Madison for college. As the progression would have it, over the four years of undergrad Milwaukee got smaller, running into people from various aspects of my life on a regular basis. At first I hated it, I was losing the anonymity that I had when first moving back. I studied abroad, traveled Europe anonymously for a month, and I began touting the greatness of Milwaukee to everyone that I met. Though I supremely enjoyed Europe, I couldn’t wait to come home. I’m pretty sure I got off the plane and went immediately to Comet, something that has become an unofficial tradition for me.

Why do I love Milwaukee? This is where my family is from, blue collar through and through, generations of ironworkers, machinists and seamstresses living and raising their families. Because when I was eating Ramen and baked potatoes, I would drive along Lake Drive to feel better about life, marveling at the elaborate houses all the way to the “Witch’s House” in Fox Point. Because every house that I lived in represents a pivotal point in my life where I figured something out about myself from Oakland and Greenwich, to Astor and Land, to Fratney and Hadley.

Milwaukee and I grew up together. This is where I came to understand, appreciate, and revere this city for all that it is, like coming to understand and appreciate your parents after years of senseless rebellion. Milwaukee is one of the few places where I could think that my German heritage is dull and commonplace. Milwaukee is the only place where I could learn to love that German heritage because I am from Deutsch-Athens lauded once for its wealth of arts, literature, music and culture, and as I blast my Juniper Tar record, sipping Anodyne coffee in my tiny alley house in Riverwest, I can say the same today.

As such, my interest for Milwaukee’s collection of plank roads was sparked by my discovery of the A.F. Heuer & Sons Grocery building along Fond du Lac Avenue, a wonderful structure constructed along the thoroughfare in 1892. The former grocery struck me with an element of surprise, perhaps a product of its vibrant color scheme. However, much of Fond du Lac Avenue’s older buildings have disappeared and the original context of the avenue is largely skewed; the avenue is an interesting array of new construction and vacant grassy lots separating the scattered remnants of the thoroughfare before urban renewal and interstate construction. Nonetheless, a number of intriguing buildings remain hinting to Fond du Lac Avenue’s former hey day and origin as an old plank road and later a state highway.

Plank roads developed in the states after their success had been touted in numerous European cities. The early ancestor of Wisconsin’s highways, plank roads were thought to be a cost effective and efficient means to reach the outlying countryside and other burgeoning cities throughout the state. According to the pioneer history of James Buck, there was a so-called “plank road craze” that swept through Milwaukee between 1849 and 1851 preceding the subsequent railroad boom that would sweep through the state in the following decade.

In late 1849, The Milwaukee Sentinel and Gazette claimed that no improvement was needed in the city of Milwaukee as a plank road connecting to Fond du Lac for its inherent advantages to trade and travel for the businessmen of Milwaukee. The Milwaukee and Fond du Lac Plank Road organized in the 1850′s.  Maps from the 1850s show the Fond du Lac Road originating at Walnut Street between 12th and 13th Streets at what is now referred to as 12th Lane. Presently, the freeway spur passes Fond du Lac Avenue over its former terminus connecting to the thoroughfare to the Fond du Lac-McKinley I-43 interchange.

Unfortunately, plank roads proved to be a short-lived craze as the wood planks began to show imperative need for repair or replacement giving way to rot and decay after only a few years. The early state legislature, which chartered these highways, mandated that these roads be funded by private interests; consequently, these companies often abandoned their plank road rather than grapple with the pending need for reconstruction. Despite the Fond du Lac road’s anticipated value, it was listed in an equity sale as early as 1855 amidst the railroad boom occurring throughout Milwaukee and Wisconsin. In 1869, the state legislature directed city and town supervisors to declare deteriorating and abandoned toll roads to be made public highways though it would not be until the 1890s that Wisconsin’s interests returned to improving the early highway system.

Though plank roads fell out of favor as the primary means to reach Milwaukee’s hinterland, they continued to grow as major arteries in the city particularly with the campaigns to improve roads and highways in the late nineteenth century leading up to the establishment of the State Trunk Highway System in 1917. Transecting the otherwise formulaic grid plan, streets such as Fond du Lac, Teutonia, Lisbon, Green Bay, and Forest Home offer views into the heart of neighborhoods and bustling five corner intersections in various locations through out the city.

The architectural development along many of these major arteries in the nineteenth century and continued growth in the early twentieth century is evidence of their importance to Milwaukee and to the neighboring cities through which they traveled. After the rail depots have been razed and the tracks removed, many of Milwaukee’s former plank roads remain as a testament to these times and their incorporation into county, state, and national highways in the 1920s.

Originally Posted June 11, 2011:

Locust Street Festival has for the past several years has been one of my favorite weekend festivals/block parties. It’s the kick off to festival season and an official sign of summer. Beer in the street, the one day a year to have breakfast at Nessun Dorma, live music, and familiar faces at every turn. This may be old news to some, but it recently came to my attention that Locust Street days is a celebration to commemorate the Common Council’s vote against widening Locust Street between Holton and Humboldt as had been proposed in the 1970s in order to facilitate traffic to UWM. Though at the time, it seems there were mixed sentiments in the neighborhood about such an expansion, the festival originated in celebration of preserving this narrow thoroughfare and ultimately the neighborhood of Riverwest. It would be fair to say that such an expansion would have marred the Riverwest neighborhood, severing the community in half: north versus south. A distinction that still slightly exists due to zoning codes and the natural progression of neighborhood expansion over time, but a separation that would have been far more overt had Locust been widened to a boulevard.

The results of this planning are present west of Holton where Locust was widened to a boulevard. Four lanes of traffic alienating north from south leaving the south side of the Locust barren without its keystone corner structures and street side facades. The boulevard slices into the south side of the street awkwardly revealing the once secluded rear homes and yards. The bottleneck at Holton and Locust Streets is an indication of how the proposed boulevard would likewise continue into the south side of Locust between Holton and Humboldt as well. Despite it’s awkwardness, the bottleneck is a sign of a preserved Riverwest; its walk-ability, its hailed sense of community, and the landmarks that are a part of our everyday lives: Sunrise Food Market, a pint at Riverwest Public House, or a show at Linnemanns.

I write to you, Milwaukee, from the exit row of an AirTran flight bound for Washington, D.C. A bittersweet opportunity put me in route for an intense week of Preservation Leadership Training; an invaluable opportunity no doubt, one that I accept in lieu of my favorite street festival. However, as you watch bands play on Weil, have a Stein, and take a look at the streetscape that could have been lost. To Linnemann’s, Sunrise, Riverwest Public House, and many more, Cheers.

The introduction of interstates and freeways has marred our perception of the neighborhoods that our current city lies upon. Freeways transected neighborhoods like the Third Ward and Bronzeville, and wiped out large portions of once thriving commercial centers as in the Park East corridor. Standing at the corner of Third and Juneau, surrounded by vast expanses of concrete, new hotels, and parking structures, it’s hard to imagine this intersection as a bustling epicenter of the west side comprised primarily of German immigrants and their children. At the time of Milwaukee’s incorporation, the city was comprised of three competitive settlements each complete with their own commercial center and residential districts. In Kilbourntown later referred to as the west side, business radiated outward from Third and Juneau, then Third and Chestnut.

It is at this intersection which our own current community struggles for an icon of culture and history, that Milwaukee’s west side German community once struggled for their own symbol of prosperity and success. In 1891, George Koch purchased the Nicholas Senn Block following the surgeon’s relocation to Chicago. George H. Koch was born in Milwaukee in 1863. His father, John Koch, was among the German immigrants that arrived in Milwaukee in 1848 and is said to have “laid the foundation for Milwaukee’s prosperity.” (History of Milwaukee, City and County, Bruce, p. 628) George Koch had previously worked at Frankfurth Hardware, which relatively encompassed the Nicholas Senn Building with storefronts on both Third Street and Juneau Avenue. According to the Milwaukee Sentinel, at the time of Mr. Koch’s purchase the Senn Block was comprised of,  “a number of stores, offices and assembly halls, and is the most prominent building in that part of Third Street.” A similar article refers to the corner as one of the busiest on the west side. (The Milwaukee Sentinel, Wednesday, July 15, 1891;pg. 3; col A)

At the time of purchase, Mr. Koch was employed at the Merchants’ Exchange Bank. The former surgeon’s building would soon house the new West Side bank, a branch of the Merchants’ Exchange, and George Koch would be the manager. The Milwaukee Journal describes the financial institution as, “one of the most important additions of the year to the business institutions of that rapidly growing part of the city. It will be known as the West Side bank, branch of the Merchants’ Exchange bank…It will be opened in the building on Third and Chestnut streets. The directors will be Rudolph Nunnemacher, Chas. Pfister, Fred Vogel, Frank Kipp and J. Goll…” In order to prepare for the new bank’s opening in May 1893 the building underwent,  “extensive repairs and has been partially rebuilt. The front has been remodeled and the first floor, which will be occupied by the bank, has been elaborately fixed up and supplied with all modern banking facilities.” (The Milwaukee Journal, Saturday, April 29, 1893; pg. 3; column A)

However, the West Side branch of the Merchants’ Exchange Bank would be a short-lived endeavor. The 1890s was a time of acquisition and consolidation of small businesses into large conglomerates. In this manner, the Merchants’ Exchange Bank was consolidated with First National Bank. As national banks were not to have branches, the West Side bank was being shut out by First National bank’s acquisition of the Merchants’ Exchange. By 1894, a group of men sought control of the branch in order to establish an independent banking institution to serve the west side community. Among these gentlemen were Adam Gettleman of Gettelman Brewing Co., George H. Koch, Charles Pittelkow of Pittelkow & Siegert, O.J. Flebing, Henry J. Killilea, Fred Usinger of Usinger Sausage Co., Gustav Wollaeger, Otto Schorse of Schorse & Co. drug store, Otto J. Schoenleber of Ambrosia Chocolate Company, and Bernhard Uhrig of B. Uhrig & Son.  The successor of the short lived Merchants’ branch, opened for business on July 2, 1894 under the same name, the West Side Bank until 1967.

The men involved in the founding of the West Side Bank were largely first generation German-Americans having grown up and worked in the industries of their immigrant fathers, which lined the neighboring streets of the west side. Adam Gettelman served as bank president, O.J. Fiebing as vice-president, George Koch as cashier, and Alfred G. Schultz as assistant cashier. In Bruce’s History of Milwaukee, City and County these men are described as, “natives not only of Wisconsin, but of Milwaukee interested in the welfare of the city and ready at all times to cooperate in anything that will contribute to Milwaukee’s upbuilding…Mr. Koch like his associates, was keenly interested in all public affairs and matters of general concern and his influence was ever on the side of progress and improvement.”

The complete list of stockholders included O.J. Fiebing, George H. Koch, A.G. Schultz (son of pioneer, Daniel Schultz) , V.J. Schoenecker (V. Schoenecker Boot & Shoe Company), F.W. Schroeder (F.Schroeder & CO), A. C. Zinn (Milwaukee Malt & Grain Company), Chas. Pittelkow (Pittlekow & Siegert), H.J. Killilea, Udo Dorestan, W.J. Fiebrantz, O.H. Schomberg, Geo. T. Schluze, Victor Schlitz (nephew of Joseph Schlitz), Otto J. Schoenleber, William Schmidt, Geo. P. Mayer (F. Mayer Boot & Shoe Company), Chas Polacheck, Ernst Hahn, F. Richter, Fred Usinger, C. W. Milbrath, Otto Schorse, J. Winkler, William Earles, John Koch, Adam Gettelman, A.C. Krez, F. L. Schmitz, George Schweickhart (Adam Gettelman’s father-in-law and founder of Menomonee Brewing company later named A. Gettelman Brewing Co.), Charles Manegold.

In the spirit of Woman’s History Month, I thought it appropriate to highlight Milwaukee’s matriarchs and the buildings associated with their lives. The most obvious and one of the earliest is Beulah Brinton and her home at 2950 South Superior Street in Bay View, an independent city prior to its annexation in 1887. For that matter, the blocks of homes surrounding the site of the former Bay View Rolling Mill are likewise associated with Brinton as these were the homes of the women and children she helped. As such, Beulah Brinton is an important figure for Milwaukee, Women’s history, and the settlement movement.

Beulah Brinton was Milwaukee’s pioneer in the settlement movement and social work. Her home served as a social and recreational center for those living in the neighborhood surrounding the Milwaukee Iron Company. Beulah opened her home to her neighbors seeing that the wives of the mill workers hailing from England, Ireland, Scotland, and Wales were in need of education, medical care and recreation. She aided these new comers with life skills and acculturated them to a new society. Beulah used her home as a pioneer community center teaching these women English, cooking, sewing and childcare. As reading was very important to Beulah, her own personal collection of 300 books soon served as Bay View’s first lending library. An excerpt from Beulah Brinton of Bay View, written by Daisy Estes Kursch (Beulah’s great granddaughter), states “An interviewer from the Milwaukee Journal stated that ‘Like Ruskin, she pictured the working man as the hope of the world, and living as she did close to the steel mills, she saw him as a mill worker.’” Various accounts describe Beulah’s work as being akin to that of Jane Addam’s Hull House in Chicago. As such, Bay Views first community center was named in Beulah’s honor in 1924.

In addition to her community work, Beulah Brinton published two books concerning the Civil War: Man is love in 1873 and Behold the Woman in 1887 as well as publishing the Bay View Herald in the 1880s with her son Warren. Except for a brief period in the 1920s, Beulah Brinton resided in the home on South Superior Street until her death in 1928. The home remained within family ownership until 1974 and currently serves as the home of the Bay View Historical Society.

The New York native married foundry man, Warren Brinton, in 1854; consequently, the pair moved to a variety of cities throughout the states following work. In 1862, the Brinton’s moved to Wyandotte, MI where Beulah’s cousin, Eber Brock Ward, owned the Eureka Iron Works. It was just four years later that Ward established the iron mill in Bay View, Wisconsin where Warren Brinton later secured a position around 1870.

The Milwaukee Iron Company ushered in the Industrial Age for the City of Milwaukee, though the rolling mill wasn’t actually located in Milwaukee. The rolling mill established an industrial economy, which would forever remain a facet of the city’s culture. In 1866 Detroit capitalist Eber Brock Ward, founded the Milwaukee Iron Company on a site just south of the current Hoan Bridge, ideal for its accessibility to the port and railroads, and consequently, its ability to accommodate cargo from Michigan and Pennsylvania.

Between 1868 and 1870, Ward recruited skilled workers from England, the home of the Industrial Revolution, to build and work the blast furnaces that revolutionized the rolling mill, producing high quality rails from raw iron ore deposits around Dodge County. Former practice had re-rolled soft metal rails that had been misshapen from extensive use. The result was an English-speaking neighborhood of predominantly skilled industrial workers from England, and an industrial company settlement that would become Milwaukee’s first suburb, Bay View, in 1879.

The Milwaukee Iron company built boarding houses and rental cottages for newly arriving workers; however unlike other industrial cities, the mill did not require workers to live in factory owned housing but encouraged them to build or purchase homes in the neighborhood surrounding the rolling mill by offering lots and cottages at affordable prices as well as donating land for churches. The workers predominantly lived in the vicinity nearest to the rolling mill while the managers and business owners tended to live in the land farther south. Constructed in 1872-74 with Late Gothic influence, the home of Beulah Brinton stands out amongst the surrounding Italianate houses and puddlers’ cottages located just two blocks south of the site of the former rolling mill.

There it stood, the inspiration for this post and what I hope will be many more, at the intersection of West Fond du Lac and Cypress: 2451 West Fond du Lac Avenue. Largely out of its original context, sitting somewhat forlorn and forgotten amidst boarded up homes and vacant lots, former A .F. Heuer & Sons grocery beckoned. Within these walls, at least seven members of the Heuer family resided above the grocery, over half of them worked there as well. The property was originally acquired by August Heuer in 1883 and for several years the Heuer family home was listed without address, but instead described as the north west corner of Fond du Lac Avenue and 25^th Street. August worked as a general laborer, mason, and a driver for nine subsequent years while living adjacent to the site of his future store. In 1892, the family grocery was constructed, and by 1893, August and his family had moved into the apartments above. August F. Heuer operated the store and lived on premise with various members of his family for forty years until 1933 after which time his name disappears from City Directories along with the A. F. Heuer & Sons grocery. The building remained in the family ownership of William C. Heuer who remained on the premise several years after until 2451 was sold in the mid 1900s.

Previously the site of the Old Empire Hotel and Tavern, the twelve story structural steel building was constructed in 1928 at the northeast corner of West Wisconsin and North Plankinton. The building was designed by Charles Kirchoff Jr. and Thomas Leslie Rose also responsible the former Second Street Bank currently home to the Milwaukee County Historical Society. The crowning occupant of the multi-use building is the Riverside Theater initially intended for movies and vaudeville shows. At the time of construction, West Wisconsin Avenue was a flourishing entertainment district with shopping in the John Plankinton Arcade and numerous movies houses and theaters lining the downtown thoroughfare. Like so many of Milwaukee’s theaters, the Riverside was nearly destroyed by fire in 1966, and later threatened with demolition. In 1982 after the residing theater group decided against renewing their lease, real estate developers had their eye on the property for a shopping mall or parking structure. A grassroots campaign to “Save the Riverside” ensued, and with the generous help of Joseph Zilber, the theater was restored and reopened in 1984. Since 2005, the Riverside has been utilized as an amazing concert venue thanks to the Pabst Theater Foundation. Along with the Pabst Theater and Turner Hall, both of which had themselves been threatened with demolition, the Riverside continues to be visited by a new generation of patrons following to the successful campaigns for their restoration and adaptive reuse.