North Grant Boulevard Historic District, Milwaukee City, Milwaukee County, Milwaukee, WI, 53210

North Grant Boulevard Historic District

Milwaukee City, Milwaukee County, WI

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The North Grant Boulevard Historic District [‡] was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1995.

Description

The North Grant Boulevard Historic District is a linear residential area that includes the buildings on both sides of North Grant Boulevard between West Meinecke and West Locust Streets. Stretching a distance of six city blocks, the District is a broad, 105-foot-wide, linear, north-to-south-running street which is distinguished by having a single wide roadway flanked by extra wide parkways planted with double rows of deciduous shade trees between the curb and the sidewalk.

All of the buildings in the district were built as single-family houses. The first houses were built in 1913 with the peak years of construction occurring in the years between 1920 and 1922. The houses are uniformly set back from the street. The buildings themselves are mostly small scale, 1-1/2 to 2 stories in height, compact in form, and low to the ground, which makes the relatively small lots appear more ample in size, and accentuates the estate-like character of the district. Brick and stucco are the primary cladding materials, and the buildings are detailed in stone, wood metal and glass. One house is entirely clad in stone. A few clapboard-sided houses also occur in the district. Most of the houses feature broad, simple roofs with the jerkinhead gable being the most common profile. Asphalt clads most of the roofs although there are examples of tiles, terra cotta, and cement asbestos as well. The majority of the residences on Grant Boulevard are bungalows, but the district also contains a number of houses designed in the Arts and Crafts, Colonial Revival, Mediterranean Revival, Tudor Revival, and Prairie styles.

Historical Background

The Boulevard Park Subdivision extended from North 39th Street to North Sherman Boulevard and from North Avenue to West Meinecke Street; it was annexed on December 8, 1909, and the plat was recorded on February 25, 1910. The First Continuation of Boulevard Park encompassed land from North 39th Street to Sherman Boulevard and from West Meinecke to West Wright Streets; it was annexed on December 8, 1911 and the plat recorded on March 5, 1912. The Second Continuation of Boulevard Park extended from North 39th Street to Sherman Boulevard between West Wright and West Clarke Streets, while the Third Continuation of Boulevard Park extended the subdivision north from West Clarke to West Center Streets. The city annexed these two parcels together on January 20, 1914. The Second Continuation plat was recorded on March 10, 1914, while the Third Continuation was platted on December 30, 1914.

Within the Boulevard Park Subdivision, North 39th, North 40th, and North 41st Streets were laid out to be 60 feet wide, while the lots fronting those streets were generally 40 feet wide by 118 or 119.5 feet deep. Grant Boulevard, the centerpiece of the subdivision, was laid out with a 105-foot roadway with generous lots 50 feet wide by 120 feet deep along the east side of the thoroughfare and 50 feet wide by 150 feet deep on the west side of the street. The lots fronting on Sherman Boulevard were even more spacious at 50 feet wide by 165 feet deep.

The northernmost two blocks of Grant Boulevard, between Center and Locust Streets, located in the northwest quarter of Section 13, have a slightly different history. The property had passed from S. Brown to B. Brazee in 1841 with a smaller 42-acre parcel passing to J. Cramer and later to E. Pavenstedt and to H. Deetjen in 1857. In 1868 and 1869, A. Zillmer acquired this land and held it until he sold it to the Residence Realty Company on September 14, 1912. It encompassed the area between North 39th Street, North Sherman Boulevard, West Center and Locust Streets. The Residence Realty Company was incorporated on September 10, 1912 with John G. Reuteman, August Richter, Jr., and G. P. Plischke as officers. The Residence Realty Company platted the land as Residence Park, and the plat was recorded on August 11, 1914. The area was annexed by the City of Milwaukee on September 1, 1914. The width of the roadways and sizes of lots conformed to those of Boulevard Park.

Although nominally identified as a boulevard on the various plats described above, official boulevard designation from the City of Milwaukee was something that the developers began to petition for right after the First Continuation of Boulevard Park was platted in 1912. Boulevard status conveyed more than just prestige. The concept of a series of 100-foot-wide boulevards that would ring the city at the city limits was proposed as early as 1877, but it took the creation of the Park Commission in 1889 for serious boulevard planning to begin. The park commissioners lobbied for the creation of boulevards and pleasure ways to link the various public parks scattered throughout the city and its environs. Chapter 167 of the State of Wisconsin Laws of 1895 created the official boulevard designation and gave Milwaukee's Common Council the power to designate thoroughfares as boulevards upon the recommendation of the Park Commission. Official designation prohibited heavy vehicles such as drays, wagons, trucks and sleighs from "carrying goods, merchandise, timber, stone, building material, wood, manure, dirt or other articles" along boulevards except to deliver necessary items to residences fronting on the boulevard. By 1914 the ordinance was expanded to give the Park Commission control over the planting and care of the parked plots along boulevards as well.

Grant Boulevard's proximity to Sherman Boulevard, located just one block to the west, may have been the reason that its designation as a city boulevard was a long and drawn-out affair. Sherman Boulevard was created to link two city parks: Washington Park on the south and Sherman Park on the north. Sherman Park was named after Civil War general William Tecumseh Sherman, and the boulevard was named accordingly. Like traditional boulevards, Sherman Boulevard's 120-foot width is divided into two roadways by a landscaped median strip.

Grant Boulevard did not link two parks like its neighbor, although its northern terminus is Sherman Park. Grant Boulevard was originally planned as a traditional boulevard with a 25-foot center plot flanked by two broad roadways. The property owners and the Boulevard Park Land Company conferred with the park board in 1910, however, before construction of the street had commenced and indicated their preference for a wide center roadway with side parked lots that "would be of greater practical value and also give the street a better appearance." The Board of Park Commissioners agreed with the request, but Common Council approval was postponed for a number of years. The request for designation as an official boulevard was reintroduced on November 29, 1913, and again in 1917, when it was finally approved in a vote of the Common Council on November 19, 1917. By the time it was designated, some thirteen thoroughfares, or portions thereof, had been designated as boulevards by the Common Council.

Both Boulevard Park and Residence Park reflect the trend of the prezoning era to create first class residential neighborhoods free of commercial and industrial encroachments by using deed restrictions that would ensure that a certain type and quality of building was constructed in a subdivision. Both Boulevard Park and Residence Park established restrictions against the manufacture, sale or other dispersal of alcoholic beverages and prohibited saloons and other establishments that would serve such substances such as hotels and restaurants. Deed restrictions also prohibited livery, boarding or sale stables, and any business that would be detrimental to the interests of a first class residential neighborhood. Residence Park did allow professional persons to conduct some of their business in their homes. The developers also established a uniform setback from the center line of Grant Boulevard in order to preserve the estate-like quality of the lots. In Boulevard Park and its continuations, the setback was established at 77 1/2 feet; in Residence Park the setback was 82 1/2 feet, and buyers were responsible for grading the land to an elevation not to exceed 21 inches above the established grade of the street. Both developments restricted construction on Grant Boulevard to single family residences. Each subdivision spelled out minimum valuations for the houses to be constructed. In Boulevard Park the amount began at $3,500 but it was increased to $5,000 and even $6,000 by 1919. Residence Park maintained a standard figure of $3,500, although most of the houses built there far exceeded that figure in cost. Violations of this covenant would result in the forfeiture of the property and its reversion back to the developers or their successors. In Residence Park the original covenant had an expiration date of January 1, 1985, but there were no time limits set in Boulevard Park.

Building permit information indicates that house construction began around 1913, and by 1918 approximately 34 of the extant structures had been built. Between 1919 and 1922 some 69 houses were erected, the largest number of these, 25, were built in 1921 alone. As available lots were built up, construction tapered off, and the last house built during the boulevard's period of significance was erected in 1931 at 2774 North Grant Boulevard. The Boulevard Park Land Company dissolved as a corporation on March 12, 1926, as had the Residence Realty Company on January 16, 1924.

Many of the extant houses along Grant Boulevard were either architect designed or contractor-built for the original owner-occupants of the properties. There were a number of instances, however, where it appears that real estate companies or builders, such as Paul J. Wick or Walter Truettner, purchased lots, erected houses on speculation, and subsequently sold them to homeowners. Examples of this include Nos. 2756, 2762, 2770, 2804, and 2822. While most of the original owners were generally long-term occupants, some owners sold their properties within a year or two of purchase, leading one to speculate that they may have been capitalizing on the appreciation of their property.

Grant Boulevard attracted a prosperous upper middle class segment of society. The first residents came from neighborhoods around Brewer's Hill, North Tenth, and North Eleventh Streets, and from nearby west side streets. Owners included professionals in the real estate, insurance and brokerage fields and proprietors of various stores, as well as some physicians, dentists and attorneys. A number of contractors in the building trades lived here, as well as upper management executives of large corporations. The greatest number of residents by far were the officers of small manufacturing and service corporations, most of which seem to have been family-owned. The businesses ranged from printing companies to leather products to dairies. Perhaps the most recognizable name among these businessmen was Philip Koehring, owner of the still extant Koehring Company, manufacturers of construction equipment. Koehring moved from Grant Boulevard to a Tudor Revival style mansion he built on Lake Drive in 1930.

Residents of Grant Boulevard had surnames of predominantly German and Jewish ethnicity, such as Rosenberg, Rothman, Goldback, Hersh, Kramer, Marquardt, and Orth. Like many of the West Side neighborhoods, family and business ties seem to link a number of the Grant Boulevard residents. There are a number of instances of officers of the same corporation living here, reflecting marital or family ties. There are also examples of multiple households with the same surname: three Lauers, four Hackbarths, two Breithaupts, and two Glienkes. Having attained a secure professional status, most of the original owners appear to have been in their late 30s or 40s when they moved to Grant Boulevard. Many stayed in their houses for twenty years or more before they moved to other houses on Sherman Boulevard or other parts of the Sherman Park neighborhood. The stability of the neighborhood is exemplified by the number of families who are known to have lived on Grant Boulevard from the 1920s or 1930s into the 1970s: Mayer (No. 2316), Leichtfuss (No. 2311), Koester (No. 2370), Scholl/Reisweber (No. 2424), Puls (No. 2443), O'Day (No. 2517), Herbst (No. 2550), Lauer (No. 2564), Gengler (No. 2602), Hoerig (No. 2636), Weber (No. 2658), Hackbarth (No. 2702), Kuemmerlein (No. 2731), Reichardt (No. 2804), Lefco (No. 2837), Herbst (No. 2850), Senn (No. 2870), and Schober (No. 2862).

Grant Boulevard remained a gracious thoroughfare for a good portion of its history. The wide parked lots resulted in an unusually attractive streetscape, giving the street an estate-like quality that belied the relatively modest size of the houses. The wide expanse between sidewalk and curb was planted with double rows of elms, which matured to a cathedral-like arch above the street. The fact that the boulevard dead-ends at Sherman Park reduced the amount of through vehicular traffic that now detracts from the pastoral character of most of the city's other boulevards.

Several factors began to negatively impact the boulevard's traditional stability in the 1950s and 1960s when more resident turnover became apparent on Grant Boulevard. Probably the most significant factor was the proposed Park West freeway corridor and the uncertainty that it brought to the neighborhood. The State of Wisconsin, the City of Milwaukee, and Milwaukee County cut a wide swath between West North Avenue and West Meinecke Street through the city's West Side extending all the way west from downtown to Sherman Boulevard by razing all the buildings for a proposed freeway. On Grant Boulevard, some seventeen residences were razed in the block between West North Avenue and West Meinecke Street, leaving standing just six houses at the south end of the boulevard separated by the right-of-way of the proposed roadway from their companions to the north. One house was also left standing on the southeast corner of West Meinecke Street, No. 2370. Protests by West Side residents halted the demolition at the east curb line of Sherman Boulevard, and a lengthy debate ensued as to the necessity of building this loop of the freeway system. Ultimately, the plan to build the freeway was abandoned, and most of the land has remained vacant ever since. A great deal of disinvestment occurred on Grant Boulevard and in the surrounding area during the ensuing decades. Some infill townhouse and duplex construction in a pseudo-Victorian style occurred on Grant Boulevard in the 1980s which resulted in a change in the width of the roadway between West North Avenue and West Meinecke Street that further eroded the historic character of the south end of Grant Boulevard. Dutch Elm disease took its toll on the boulevard's magnificent tree stock, and most of the trees were cut down in the 1960s. The boulevard has since been replanted with a variety of deciduous trees.

One stabilizing factor was that Grant Boulevard's population took on a decidedly religious character between the mid-1940s and mid-1970s, when some 23 residences were used as church parsonages or to house personnel of various religious institutions. Grant Boulevard at that time acquired the nickname "parsonage row" or "ministers' row." Most of these houses have since returned to non-sectarian ownership.

Today, Grant Boulevard continues to hold its own in an economically and racially diverse neighborhood. Adherence to the early deed restrictions has prevented the housing stock from being subdivided into rental units by absentee landlords, although a few violations have occurred. The neighborhood also successfully prevented the construction of a church on an empty corner lot at No. 2577 , which would have detracted from the exclusively residential character of the boulevard. Recognition of the boulevard's special architectural character led to local historic designation by the City of Milwaukee in 1985.

Significance

The houses in the Grant Boulevard Historic District represent a veritable catalogue of the styles and building materials that were popular for middle class residential construction in Milwaukee between 1913 and 1931. Rather than being representative of the large, showy, formal houses built along such thoroughfares as Lake Drive, Newberry Boulevard, Highland Boulevard or Hi Mount Boulevard by the city's wealthiest residents, the houses along Grant Boulevard are interesting for their consistently homey, informal quality illustrating the housing ideals of the prospering middle class in the early twentieth century. The houses on Grant Boulevard had no pretensions to being mansions. They are not particularly imposing from the street, and their interiors reflect a family-oriented, informal lifestyle. Few of the houses on Grant Boulevard, for example, were built with accommodations for live-in servants. They are also modest in size with only two or three bedrooms and an informal floor plan of average-sized rooms opening off one another, often with the front door leading directly into the living room rather than into a reception hall. Most of these houses were architect-designed or unique custom-built structures constructed by residential builders. The houses are excellently crafted of quality materials such as brick, stone, stucco, and tile and are finely finished on the interior with handsome wood trim, French doors, built-in cabinetry, fireplaces, and leaded glass. It is this high level of craftsmanship that distinguishes Grant Boulevard from the residences on nearby streets. The houses on Grant Boulevard were also constructed early in the era of the automobile, and most included an attached or detached garage as part of the original construction that was designed to complement the house in materials and style.

In the first two decades of Grant Boulevard's development, some of the most popular domestic architectural expressions were a family of styles known today as the Progressive styles to distinguish them from the historically based Period Revival styles.

The Progressive styles were very popular in Milwaukee. This group of non-historical architectural modes includes the Craftsman Bungalow, the American Foursquare, and the Prairie styles. These were considered to be the clean, functional, modern architecture of their era. Because these styles were all popular with the middle class during the years between 1912 and 1925 when Grant Boulevard was built up, they are well represented in the district. One exception is the American Foursquare style, which on Grant Boulevard tended to assume enough architectural attributes of more high style modes, such as the Prairie and Craftsman, to be generally classifiable with those genres.

The Craftsman style was promoted by a number of architectural theorists, especially Gustav Stickley, through the press and magazines as the ideal domestic architectural expression for the working and middle classes. It was characterized by simple massing, plainly used materials, including wood, wood shingles, stucco, and brick, or combinations of these, heavy sturdy woodwork, and wide overhanging eaves with exposed rafter ends. Although most closely associated with the bungalow house type, the Craftsman mode was also popular for more substantial 2-story houses. These simple, functional dwellings are typified by the Charles Puls house at 2443 built in 1916 to the designs of R. E. Oberst, the Frank Schmidt house at 2565 built in 1919, the L. H. Rotter house at 2676 built in 1921, the David Rothman house at 2677 built in 1921, and the Hans J. A. Christiansen house at 2818 built in 1917.

The bungalow was a new housing type that became popular after 1900. It is generally thought of as an informal one-story house with a wide front porch. It was enthusiastically embraced by the working and middle classes in Milwaukee. In response to the great demand for bungalows, the local professional architectural community developed this housing form to a high degree.

One of the most important distinguishing qualities of Grant Boulevard is its outstanding bungalow architecture. Grant Boulevard, in fact, has one of the city's finest and most varied collections of bungalows encompassing some 55 examples. Virtually all were either architect-designed or constructed by prominent builders who specialized in high-end, custom-built houses. These bungalows illustrate a considerable range of stylistic variation. The Craftsman-inspired bungalows on Grant Boulevard were built mostly between 1913 and the early 1920s and are often brick or stucco-clad with bold, simple massing and a chaste appearance. Examples include the William E. Goeldner house at 2410 (1913) designed by architect Charles J. Keller, possibly a relation to builder William C. Keller/ the Paul Wick-built residence designed for Joseph B. McMullin at 2750 (1916); the Waldemar C. Glienke house at 2745 (1919) designed by Leiser & Hoist; the Karze/Thurner residence at 2662 (1919) attributed to builder Bernhard Donath; Donath's house for George C. Otto at 2452 (1919); and the Peter W. Sprecher house at 2728 (1920), William C. Keller, builder.

The Grant Boulevard Historic District is significant as an example of an innovative residential planning concept particularly characteristic of early twentieth century Milwaukee, the boulevard subdivision. In the era before zoning became an accepted planning tool, neighborhoods tended to evolve in a haphazard fashion. After platting, real estate developers or contractors would sometimes erect a number of residential properties in an attempt to set by example the standards of construction for an area, but generally purchasers of lots were more or less free to build whatever they wished on their property. Setback requirements and density restrictions were virtually nonexistent. As a result, costly houses sometimes found themselves adjacent to small cottages crowded two, three or even four to a lot. Houses, stores, taverns, livery stables, machine shops, and boarding houses could share a single block. The resulting neighborhoods lacked a unifying visual character and were often malodorous, noisy, and congested. While today we consider some of these older surviving neighborhoods as charmingly diverse and picturesque, it is hard to appreciate how unpleasant and unhealthy it would be to live next door to a livery stable or a small, noisy factory or workshop handling hazardous substances. Even the prosperous gold coast neighborhoods lined, with the opulent mansions of the city's most affluent residents were not immune to unsavory encroachments. Newspaper accounts throughout the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries relate how vigorously wealthy West Wisconsin Avenue residents protested commercial developments such as the construction of a public livery stable on their street or how the socially elite homeowners on North Prospect Avenue fought the construction of high density apartment buildings. With no legal recourse, there was not much the residents could do other than try to buy out the proposed noxious use.

As the city grew denser and more hazardous, a shift occurred in public residential tastes and expectations. The growing middle class, able to afford their own private transportation or to use the expanding and increasingly efficient public transit system, could move farther out from the center of the city in their quest for a better quality of life and a healthier environment. Meanwhile, necessity no longer dictated that the residences of the growing class of affluent industrialists, manufacturers, and entrepreneurs, be within virtual sight of their places of business as had been the case for most of the nineteenth century. The demand for exclusively residential precincts by these groups, resulted in the emergence of the "first class" restricted subdivision, laid out by developers with larger than average lots, restrictions on density and prohibitions against noxious industries and troublesome businesses such as taverns and livery stables. Deed covenants created a legally enforceable proscription against residentially incompatible activities. Many covenants further specified that only substantial houses costing over a certain amount of money could be built. On Grant Boulevard, both Boulevard Park and its continuations and Residence Park were subject to these restrictions.

This trend toward the increasing use of deed covenants coincided with the development of the boulevard system in Milwaukee which produced such gracious thoroughfares as Highland Boulevard, McKinley Boulevard, Washington Boulevard, and Newberry Boulevard, among others. The importance of wide landscaped streets or boulevards as urban planning tools has its roots at least as far back as Renaissance Europe, but the large scale, nineteenth century, government-sponsored rebuildings of Paris and Vienna prompted American civic leaders to take a hard look at America's urban areas and formulate plans to make them more beautiful and liveable. Such influential individuals as Frederick Law Olmsted conceptualized boulevards as broad, linear green spaces, essentially linear parks, that could connect or terminate at spacious parks. Improving city life through better urban design received more attention following the Chicago Columbian Exposition of 1893, whose impressively designed grounds were dubbed "The White City." Groups such as the American Civic Association also promoted the benefits of rational urban design that would improve city residents' lives and health.

In Milwaukee the first boulevarded street was a short stretch of West Wisconsin Avenue between North 8th and North 11th Streets. It, however, was more the product of an accident than a plan. It was created to rectify a situation that occurred when the old portion of Wisconsin Avenue east of North 6th Street was finally connected to the newer portion of Wisconsin Avenue west of North 8th Street by the removal of an impassable natural bluff, and it was discovered that the two streets did not align. To solve the problem, it was decided to create a short section of wide, ornamental boulevard that would serve as a transition zone for the misaligned roadways and also provide an attractive gateway to the exclusive residential area that lay to the west. The press reported optimistically as early as 1848 that the resulting 150-foot-wide boulevard on West Wisconsin Avenue would be extended west to the city limits in emulation of the boulevards of Paris, but this dream went largely unfulfilled. In 1877 another proposal was put forward to ring the city with a series of 100-foot-wide boulevards, probably in imitation of the Ringstrasse in Vienna, but identifying a source of funding and establishing jurisdiction over their construction and maintenance proved elusive.

It took the creation of the Park Commission in 1889 before serious boulevard planning could take shape. The park commissioners lobbied tirelessly for the creation of boulevards and pleasureways to link the various public parks they were establishing throughout the city and its environs. The intent was to extend the parks visually throughout the city by way of treelined and landscaped thoroughfares and to provide green breathing spaces in congested areas. Chapter 167 of the State of Wisconsin Laws of 1895 created the official boulevard designation and gave the Milwaukee Common Council the power to designate thoroughfares as boulevards upon recommendation of the Park Commission. Official boulevard designation under city ordinance provided not only prestige but prohibited heavy commercial vehicles from using the thoroughfare except for deliveries to the residents who lived along the thoroughfare. By 1914 the ordinance was expanded to give the Park Commission control of the planting and care of the parked plots along the boulevards.

The advent of the boulevard system coincided with a growing demand for higher class exclusively residential areas. The boulevards with their large lots, tree-lined streets and accessibility to public parks were the natural recipients of this upper income residential expansion. Because boulevards were created in all parts of the city, one of the unique outcomes was that residential enclaves of high quality houses were created throughout the city in long, linear strips amidst much more modest surrounding neighborhoods. As a result, for many years in the early twentieth century, Milwaukee did not have any single "best" address, but rather a series of prestigious boulevards scattered throughout the city, although some boulevards were much more exclusive and expensive than others. Sometimes the Park Commission spearheaded the creation of a boulevard to achieve a park purpose, as it did Newberry Boulevard to link Lake Park and Riverside Park in 1897. In other instances, developers laid out boulevards in their subdivisions to serve as an amenity or centerpiece with which to attract high income homeowners. In these cases, the developer and property owners would usually petition the city to receive official boulevard designation after the street was already developed or the lots sold. Such local thoroughfares as Highland Boulevard, McKinley Boulevard, Hi Mount Boulevard, and Grant Boulevard were developed in this way. Unlike the Park Commission boulevards, these real estate developer boulevards do not usually connect two parks, although they are sometimes in close proximity to a park, such as Grant Boulevard which terminates at Sherman Park. Because these "developer boulevards" were not intended to provide a driving link between two parks, they did not need wide dual roadways to handle heavy traffic. Unlike the traditional boulevards with their center medians separating two broad roadways, Grant Boulevard opted to have a single center roadway flanked by wide side parked lots planted with double rows of trees. This put the houses farther from the street and created broad parklike lawns. Boulevards like Grant Boulevard were used primarily to create exclusive, prestigious, residential enclaves that were distinct in character from the surrounding streets rather than to achieve Park Commission objectives.

To summarize, unlike the private, gated subdivisions of St. Louis or the expansive, multi-block mansion neighborhoods found in most cities, Milwaukee's various types of boulevards created a network of open public green spaces throughout the congested city, distributed upper income housing more evenly throughout Milwaukee's residential districts, and also allowed for improved traffic flow between the city's parks while accommodating and showcasing the era's newest and most desired mode of transportation, the private automobile. Grant Boulevard is an outstanding example of a "developer boulevard." It was planned primarily to create an artificial enclave of high quality housing in the midst of a more modest residential area, rather than to enhance or extend the city's park system.

Research of original building permits indicates that most of the houses in the Grant Boulevard Historic District were architect- or builder-designed. Some 31 firms are represented on the boulevard and range from the high-profile, prestigious office of Eschweiler & Eschweiler to such little-known individuals as Joseph G. Schier, an architect for the Schlitz Brewing Company, who apparently moonlighted in house design. A majority of these architects, like most of their clients in the district, were of German-American ethnicity.

In addition to established architectural firms, it is known that some prominent builder-contractors also erected houses there. An individual like Henry R. Mayer may have contracted out his actual design work to small architectural offices, while some builders like Walter G. Truettner designed for clients himself and had an in-house architect working for his company.

‡ Adapted from: Carlen Hatala; Les Vollmert, Historic Preservation Officer, Milwaukee Department of City Development, North Grant Boulevard Historic District, Milwaukee County, WI, nomination document, 1993, National Park Service, National Register of Historic Places, Washington, D.C.

Street Names
North Grant Boulevard


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