When Johnny Came Marching Home

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“When you have a jewel such as this in the middle of your city, save it.”

-John Gurda, Milwaukee historian

In the last 150 years, countless American soldiers found that coming home was harder than fighting the war. Many had nowhere to go and had lost their support systems long ago. The horrors of war that haunted their dreams by night made learning a trade or getting a job next to impossible. Before the end of the Civil War, a Milwaukee woman understood that veterans needed help that was not available anywhere else. Lydia Ely Hewitt formed the West Side Soldiers Aid Society in 1862, and with help from a battalion of women, Hewitt opened several storefront shelters on North Plankinton Street near the current Riverside theater. The shelters provided hot meals, minimal medical services, and a place to sleep. 

Space in the dormitories was quickly filled, leading Hewitt to visualize a larger space for the increasing number of soldiers flowing into the city. Her core of volunteers, who demonstrated business acumen and skills at event planning, created a highly successful fundraiser that netted $110,000 ($2 million in today’s currency). With proceeds from the fair, 400 acres of land west of the city was obtained from the millionaire banker Alexander Mitchell. Shortly afterwards, Mitchell, along with meat packer John Plankinton and real estate tycoon George Walker, traveled to Washington D.C. where they convinced Congress to provide funding for a Soldiers Home complex to house as many as 3,000 Civil War veterans. 

Edward Townsend Mix, a prominent architect of the Gilded Age, designed a five-story Victorian Gothic tower in 1869. Constructed high on a hilltop, Old Main, as the iconic building came to be called, offered spectacular views of Milwaukee as the city expanded. The land that housed Old Main eventually contained a theater, a bowling alley, a firehouse, a hospital and a chapel. The 400 acres upon which these and other buildings sat was landscaped with lakes, carriage paths, fountains, a greenhouse, a bandstand and a large beer garden. It was here that wounded and traumatized Civil Warriors could rest and heal.

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Demolition by Neglect

But by 1989, the many functional buildings were in disrepair and the once beautifully landscaped grounds had dwindled to 90 acres. Years of water damage was destroying the building from within, and the Veterans Administration officially locked the doors. 30 years later, the roof caved in, causing major damage to the decorative slate roof and some of the upper floor windows. It was, as the New York Times stated, “Demolition by neglect.”

Old Main was unfit for people to live in, but too historic to lose. In the nick of time, a varied group of historians, preservationists, experts in restoration of historic buildings, and fundraising professionals came together with the shared vision of bringing the old soldiers home back to life. 

In 2023, a 60-minute documentary produced by Milwaukee PBS offered a history of the complex while chronicling the current project to restore several of the buildings. One of the film’s writer/producers, Maryann Lazarski, said people drive past the stadium and see what appears to be a haunted mansion in the distance. “It’s a huge part of American history”, she said. “It’s a National Historic Landmark with origins that trace back to President Abraham Lincoln’s last legislative act to create a network of soldiers homes across the country”. The PBS documentary, “A Hallowed Home for Heroes,” can viewed at milwaukeepbs.org/milwaukee-soldiers-home along with online extras that contain information and images not found in the documentary