Milwaukee Penny Postcards Provide City’s History

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Milwaukee City Hall

The Flemish-inspired City Hall has dominated the intersection of North Water and West Wells Streets since 1895. The eight-story building was constructed for $1 million and replaced the original City Hall building that occupied the site from 1861 to 1893. 

Similar in style to late 19th century Renaissance revival buildings from northern Europe, local architect Henry Koch topped a black granite base with a wide layer of sandstone and capped it off with brick structure garnished with terra cotta ornamentation. The 400-foot clock tower houses a 10-ton bell that was once among the world's largest. The building’s interior, with a colossal atrium, is still impressive to this day.

At the turn of the century, Water Street was lined with hotels, saloons, restaurants and other successful businesses whose trade was generated by the proximity to City Hall. Important visitors stayed at St. Charles Hotel and the Kirby House. To the left is the still-vibrant Pabst theater, and on the right was the red-light district where brothels operated until 1910. 

Davidson Theatre and Hotel

On September 8, 1890, the opulent Davidson Theatre and Hotel opened at 625 N. Third Street. Adjacent to the lobby was the Fountain Room, an exclusive dining spot for hotel guests and theatergoers. Four years after opening, the Davidson was severely damaged by fire and had to be rebuilt. In 1914, Broadway superstar Al Jolson appeared in The Honeymoon Express. Ticket prices ranged from 50¢ for the balcony to $2 for the best seats in the house.  In 1921 Ethel Barrymore starred in “A Constant Wife” with a top ticket price of $3.50.

Live performances were temporarily halted in 1915 for a prestige showing of D.W. Griffith’s film, The Birth of a Nation. Stage greats such as George M. Cohan, Sarah Bernhardt, Boris Karloff, the Marx brothers, Katharine Hepburn, Melvyn Douglas, Edward G. Robinson, Van Heflin, and Milwaukee’s own Pat O'Brien performed here.

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The Davidson closed in 1954, and the Grand Avenue shopping mall now occupies the site.

East Side High School

East Side High School (or East Division High School), at Cass and Knapp Streets, was built in 1887 and operated as a public school until 1915. When high school students were transferred to the newly built Riverside High School, at Locust and Bartlett, the building became Lincoln Junior High School.

Oprah Winfrey attended in 1967, a time when racial tensions in the city were at their highest. Basketball coach James Smallings taught his players the value of working together no matter what color they were. Lincoln’s teams often scored more than 100 points a game and won WIAA state titles in 1966 and 1967. The school is now Lincoln Center of the Arts, a highly regarded academy with bilingual and resident artist-based curriculums.

The Evening Wisconsin Building

The Evening Wisconsin newspaper building was located on the northeast corner of Michigan and Milwaukee Streets beginning in 1868. In 1924 the name was to the Wisconsin News and Evening Sentinel, running for another 15 years before discontinuing publication in 1939.  At that time the paper was owned by the Hearst Corporation.

Charles Kramer, the original owner and publisher, exacerbated his feud with Frederick Pabst in 1894 by covering a scandal involving the captain’s son, Gustave.  The younger Pabst fell madly in love with Shakespearean actress Margaret Mather, and they eloped to San Francisco. Milwaukee Journal publisher Lucius Neiman and Milwaukee Sentinel owner Guido Pfister were happy to suppress the story because of their friendships with Captain Pabst. But Kramer gleefully covered the entire affair, and the subsequent divorce, for his eager readers.

Hotel Gilpatrick

Now the site of the modern Hyatt hotel on Kilbourn, Irving Gilpatrick’s downtown hotel was the site of an attempt on presidential candidate Theodore Roosevelt’s life in October 1912.

After a fundraising event at the hotel, Roosevelt was shot at close range by John Schrank, a psychotic New York saloonkeeper. The would-be assassin aimed a .38-caliber pistol at Roosevelt's head, but a bystander deflected Schrank’s arm just as the trigger was pulled. The manuscript of a folded 50-page speech and a steel eyeglass case in Roosevelt’s coat pocket diffused the bullet’s momentum as it entered his chest. Roosevelt was taken to Johnston Emergency Hospital at Second and Michigan Streets where he reluctantly allowed the surgeons to give him a tetanus shot. Roosevelt proudly carried Schrank’s bullet in his chest for the rest of his life. The Gilpatrick closed in 1941.

The Gargoyle

The Gargoyle, a fashionable restaurant at 316 West Wisconsin Avenue, was opened by Gustave Pabst in 1906. Pabst assumed the presidency of the Pabst Brewing Company following his father’s death in 1904.  The Gargoyle was just one of the many outlets for Pabst beer created after the turn of the century. The enforcement of Prohibition in 1919 put many Milwaukee businesses in a precarious financial position. Beer gardens, saloons and large restaurants such as The Gargoyle that depended on sales of alcohol were forced to close.

In 1920, the Gargoyle was purchased by the Saxe brothers and remodeled into the Rialto, an 834-seat motion picture theater. The Rialto was not a moneymaker, however, and closed in 1925.

Majestic Theater Building

In 1907, the Schlitz Brewing Co. financed a 1,900-seat theater within a high-rise office building that was constructed adjacent to their hotel on Third and Wisconsin. The Majestic theater was the highly sought after Milwaukee stop on RKO’s prestigious nationwide vaudeville circuit. Harry Houdini, Fred Astaire, three-year-old Rita Hayworth, William Frawley (TV’s Fred Mertz), Jack Benny, the Marx brothers and James Cagney performed on the stage before the Depression forced older, stage-oriented houses like the Majestic to close. The former theater and office complex have been renovated into condominiums.

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Milwaukee Athletic Club

The Milwaukee Athletic Club was established in September 1882 to give men a place for gymnastics, body building and exercise. The organization also set up sanctioned boxing matches and basketball, swimming, track, and baseball games against other regional clubs. The MAC was housed in nine locations before constructing a $2 million building at Broadway and Mason in 1917.

The MAC currently occupies all 12 floors of the building. The space includes a dining room, private meeting rooms, Grand Ballroom, 66 overnight guest rooms, two cocktail lounges, library, barber shop, and racquetball and squash courts.

In 1985, California businessman Paul Kalmanovitz, the new owner of Pabst Brewing, removed some of Frederick Pabst’s valuable paintings from the club, ending a 65-year relationship with the brewery. The MAC also has a place in political history. Arthur Bremer, the Milwaukee man who attempted to kill Alabama governor George Wallace in 1972, worked as a dishwasher and busboy at the club in the late 1960s. He was terminated because his odd behavior disturbed guests and staff.

Mount Sinai Hospital

Mount Sinai Hospital was founded as a 15-bed facility in a former YMCA building at Fourth and Walnut Streets in 1903. Within four years the hospital needed more space, and a $7,000 addition added 10 private rooms and 2 eight bed wards to the facility. Even with the expansion, Mount Sinai was forced to turn patients away. Rabbi Victor Caro and Abraham Slimmer, a wealthy Jewish farmer, raised $10,000 and moved to a larger building at 12th and Kilbourn.

Because Jewish physicians were historically barred from practicing at other hospitals, Mount Sinai developed the Jewish medical profession in town. Medical students cared for patients as part of their education and did not receive a salary.

The original hospital building, near the Schlitz Brewery, still stands today.

Soldiers Home

A Soldiers Aid Society was formed in 1862, and downtown shelters provided hot meals, minimal medical services, and a place to sleep. When the shelters needed to expand, millionaire banker Alexander Mitchell helped the Society acquire 400 acres of land west of the city. Mitchell, meat packer John Plankinton and city founder George Walker built a Soldiers Home complex to house as many as 3,000 Civil War veterans. 

In 1869 architect Edward Townsend Mix designed a five-story Victorian Gothic tower that offered spectacular views of the city. The home added a theater, bowling alley, firehouse, hospital, and chapel as funds became available. The grounds featured lakes, carriage paths, fountains, a greenhouse, a bandstand and a large beer garden for wounded and traumatized Civil War veterans.