Wisconsin Stories: Our Towns

Our Towns Journeys
New Glarus Historical Society
http://www.swisshistoricalvillage.com
P.O. Box 745
New Glarus, WI 53574
Phone: (608) 527-2317

Greendale Historical Society
http://www.greendale.org
Public Library
5650 Parking Street
Greendale, WI 53129
Phone: (414) 421-8163

Drummond Historical Society
Public Library
Drummond, WI 54832
Phone: (715) 739-6290

The National Register of Historic Places
http://www.shsw.wisc.edu/histbuild/index.html

Dr. Samuel Blumer House
New Glarus, Green County

The National Register of Historic Places is the official Federal list of properties significant in American history, architecture, engineering and archaeology.

Here are several sites that provide some of the historic flavor of "Our Towns." The Dr. Sameul Blumer House is privately owned, and visitors should respect the owners' right to privacy.

Dr. Samuel Blumer House
The Dr. Samuel Blumer House in New Glarus is a fine example of Swiss ethnic stone construction

Pendarvis
Mineral Point, Iowa County

Pendarvis
Pendarvis in Mineral Point was built by skilled Cornish stonemasons in the 1830s. The Wisconsin Historical Society operates the restored historic site interpreting the history of Cornish settlement and Wisconsin's lead-mining days.

East Brady Street Historic District
Milwaukee, Milwaukee County
The earliest Polish ethnic neighborhoods in Milwaukee were established in the post-Civil War period. At the time, large numbers of Polish immigrants entered the city's steel, leatherworking and other materials-processing industries.

The majority of Poles who came to Milwaukee were part of the third wave of Polish emigration, which began approximately in 1865 and lasted into the 1920s. These were primarily economic emigrants who left the harsh conditions of their homeland. At first the new arrivals settled on the city's South Side, but growing numbers found employment and were able to purchase property in the East Brady Street area. As a result, by the early 1870s East Brady Street began to emerge as a center of Polish commerce, with a concentration of working-class Polish immigrants living in the surrounding neighborhood.

1200 block of Brady Street, facing West.

The district reached its peak in the late 1890s as a major commercial strip boasting bakeries, grocers, dry goods stores, livery stables, saloons and a bowling alley.

The district contains a few early working-class cottages, several blocks of commercial buildings and the St. Hedwig's Catholic Church complex at its center. Most buildings in the district were constructed between 1875 and 1931 and reflect a broad range of architectural styles. The earliest buildings are generally the simplest, with architectural embellishment appearing as the street grew in commercial and cultural importance.

With the exception of St. Hedwig's, the buildings of the district reflect the styles popular in Milwaukee during the period, including Italianate, Queen Anne, Classical Revival and German Renaissance Revival. St. Hedwig's Church, designed by local architect Henry Messmer, is a Romanesque-influenced building with decorative elements drawn from other styles and periods. In particular the copper-clad spire of the central tower recalls the 18th- and 19th-century churches of Eastern Europe.

In the 1920s the ethnic focus of the neighborhood began to shift to Italian, reaching its peak in the 1950s. By the 1960s, it was a haven for Milwaukee's counterculture youth movement. Today, the street features a collection of specialty shops and restaurants.