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Historic Overview of Port Washington |
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Today, Port Washington is the county
seat of Ozaukee County and has in 1990 had a population
of 9338. In 1835, though, when Wooster Harrison, the
first settler of the land that was to become the city of
Port Washington arrived, all this land was included
within the boundaries of the larger and as yet undivided
Washington County and was then without formal
governmental organization. Harrison, arrived on the site
with several other land speculators and traders and the
site they chose was a beautiful one whose natural beauty
was still apparent when it was described in the 1881
history of the county. Two bluffs, three quarters of a mile apart from north to south, with an elevation of a hundred feet at the lake, recede westward a distance of half a mile, where they are joined by a bluff, running north and south, forming walls on three sides, from the base of which the land takes a gradual slope to the lake, leaving a natural basin. Through the west bluff is an aperture, by which Sauk Creek finds its way to Lake Michigan. Back of this hill are a number of smaller elevations, extending along the banks of Sauk Creek; resting on these knolls are handsome residences, many of them having terraces fringed with shade trees and flower beds.(1) Harrison and his company landed on this site on September 7, 1835 and during the fall laid out a town on 16 acres of gently sloping land at the mouth of Sauk Creek where it emptied into Lake Michigan. Harrison, like so many other town founders of that time, settled along a river or stream because it provided both a reliable source of water and the only readily available means of generating power for industrial purposes. He also settled on the shore of the Lake for a similar reason; the ships that sailed it provided the only reliable means of transporting large numbers of people and goods in the day before roads and railroads had been developed. After creating lots to sell, Harrison and his fellows next set about building six or seven modest new buildings for their own use and to impress visitors. These were built out of milled lumber that had arrived by ship rather than use the logs that were everywhere in evidence on the site. The first name of the new community was Wisconsin City, but, finding that there was already a city of that name in the territory, they then renamed it Washington City. Harrison and perhaps a few others resided in the new village until 1837, when the speculative bubble that had brought them there in the first place burst. As a result, interest in the village disappeared and all involved left the buildings and the village and went their different ways. Harrison didn't return until 1843, by which time a squatter named Aurora Case had turned one of the 1835 buildings into a kind of hotel for travelers using the old Indian trail that linked the city of Milwaukee thirty miles to the south with Sheboygan thirty miles to the north. Harrison reclaimed his house (where he was later to entertain Abraham Lincoln for a night) and he and his fellow townspeople were soon joined by a sizable number of people from the eastern states who were primarily of Yankee and English stock. In that first year, the first religious service in the community was held in a private home by members of the Methodist faith followed in 1845 by the Presbyterians and 1847, the Catholics. In 1844, the first schoolhouse in the village was built and the name of the community was changed form Washington City to Port Washington. The first town meeting was held in April 1846 and a slate of officers was elected. In the same year, Woodruff & Richards began the first brick yard in the village, which followed in 1847 by the development of the first saw mill in the area by Harvey and S. A. Moore, who dammed Sauk Creek and erected a mill on the west bank. They were followed in 1848 by George and Julius Tomilinson, who erected the first grist mill, which was also run by water power from Sauk Creek.(3) Building such a mill was usually a crucial step in building up a town in the days before the coming of the railroads because the locale surrounding a mill was a natural gathering place for area farmers and was thus a logical place around which to build a trading center. This held true in this place as well. With the Tomlinson’s mill in place, the rich gently rolling prairie that surrounded the village became more attractive to settlers wishing to engage in agricultural pursuits. Another much more controversial event that occurred in 1847 was the naming of Port Washington as the county seat of what was then still Washington County. This led to a battle royal between Port Washington and other area communities for the honor of being the county seat that was not ultimately resolved until 1852, when an exasperated state legislature finally divided the county in two and made Port Washington the seat of the newly created Ozaukee County. In 1848, the same year that Wisconsin became a state, Port Washington received its village charter and became officially the Village of Port Washington. Most of the village's earliest settlers were transplanted Yankees and persons of English descent, but by 1848, the first members of what would prove soon to be the dominant ethnic group arrived in the village in large numbers from Germany and also from Luxembourg. The coming of the latter two groups was also accompanied by the creation of the Port Washington congregations of both the German Lutheran and the German Methodist churches in 1853. Eventually, three commercial piers were built off the shore at Port Washington to serve the settlement's thriving shipping interests. The first pier, located at the foot of Jackson Street, was built by either Wooster Harrison or Solon Johnson around 1843, and was known as the North Pier or Old Pier. Blake's Pier was constructed sometime between 1848 and 1856 at the foot of Pier Street by Barnum Blake, a lumberman. The third, the South Pier, was located at the site of the present south breakwater, and was owned by Lyon Silverman, who also served as an early sheriff. (4) By 1855, Port Washington had a well-established business core centered around the intersection of Grand Ave. and Franklin Street, and residential plats were beginning to be established to the north and west of it. Most of this development was concentrated for the most part within the area bounded by Sauk Creek to the south, Milwaukee St. to the west, Jackson St. to the north, and the Lake to the east, which amounted to land at the base of the north bluff that sloped very gradually down towards the creek and the lake, an area that corresponded to the original plat of the village. Some of the new businesses in this core also marked the beginnings of an industrial base in the village, being ones that were over and above those such as milling, that were practical necessities in that day. The architectural styles found in Port Washington in the mid-1850s were also typical of other Wisconsin communities of the day. The oldest houses tended to have been built in the Greek Revival style or were vernacular expressions of it and were mostly built of wood, as were the community’s first commercial buildings. Coexisting with them were brick buildings of various types designed in the Federal style that included everything from residences and retail stores to hotels and small factory buildings. By 1859, however, the newly fashionable Italianate style was beginning to be seen in the newest commercial buildings in Port Washington, although the style apparently never became a popular residential style in the village. By the beginning of the Civil War, the village had begun to grow outside of the boundaries of the original plat. The government lighthouse that had been built in 1849 on the top of the bluff overlooking the city had been joined in that same year by the first St. Mary's R. C. Church. Both buildings were replaced in 1860, the church with a new and larger stone building (non-extant) and the lighthouse with a new brick Greek Revival Style building (311 N. Johnson St.), which is still a local landmark and a museum today. In the opposite direction, the new South Addition to the original plat that was located on the south side of Sauk Creek was at first known locally as "Canada" because of the population of immigrants of Irish origin who had come there by way of Canada and Newfoundland. The Civil War slowed the growth of the village but by end of the War, immigrants of German origin were the most numerous of the newcomers to the village. The advent of the 1870s saw the Village caught up in both governmental and private efforts to improve transportation in the area Efforts to create a protected harbor were begun when the Federal Government, concerned about the sixty miles separating the deep water ports of Milwaukee and Sheboygan, authorized funds for the development of an artificial harbor at Port Washington in 1870. Upon the completion of the dredging of what is now [1985] the west slip, residents were hopeful of creating even greater water born commerce. However, it soon became apparent that the harbor was not safe from the roiling torrents of water every time lake Michigan was overtaken by a storm. Attempting to correct the problem, the Federal Government agreed to finance the construction of the north slip, designed to dispel damaging wave action. But this effort also failed. Many times after serious storms, the harbor had to be rebuilt, dismaying both the designers and the townspeople.(6) Only slightly less difficult, but ultimately more successful were local efforts to secure a railroad for the village. Recounting the whole story is beyond the scope of this work, but the effort was ultimately successful and by 1873 the newly created Milwaukee, Lakeshore and Western Railroad had been built north from Milwaukee to Port Washington and on north to Sheboygan and Manitowoc. Soon thereafter, growth started to move out into the vicinity of the depot. In October, 1881, for instance, Messrs. Dix and Kemp founded the Port Washington Malt Co. and built a new brick two-story 100x120-foot malt house near the railroad depot (non-extant)at a cost of $16,000. By 1882, the village had reached a point where another advance in its governmental status was deemed necessary, so in that year application was made and permission was given to reincorporate Port Washington as a city, which it has remained to this day. One of the most important events in the history of Port Washington occurred at the end of the decade in 1889, when a group of local men formed the Wisconsin Chair Co. and erected the first portions of their factory just to the east of N. Franklin St. flanking the inner harbor. The creation of the Wisconsin Chair Co. was an event of special importance because this locally owned company was to become the principal employer in Port Washington for the next sixty years. Beginning in 1889, the company eventually became one of the nation’s largest producers of school furniture and at one time employed a sixth of the population of Ozaukee County. Not surprisingly, this company was also of enormous economic importance to the city of Port Washington up until the mid-1950s. Some idea of the impact of this company can be judged from population figures. In 1885, before the factory was begun, the population of the city had been 1500, but by 1892 this had climbed to 1800, by 1893 it had reached 2500, and by 1898, 3450. This doubling of the population was in large part due to the spectacular growth of the Chair Co. and this growth was naturally reflected in the city's built environment. The effects of this new industry on Port Washington was profound and can be seen in every part of the older portions of the city. Within two years of its opening, new cream brick hotels and commercial buildings began appearing on both West and East Grand Ave. and on N. Franklin St. and the city's brickyards, which were already being kept busy supplying hundreds of thousands of their well known cream bricks for the Chair Company's new buildings, apparently had plenty more left over to satisfy the sudden demand within the city for new residential construction as well. The intensive survey could not help but note the sudden increase in the number of brick houses in the city starting around 1890. Some of these, such as the cream brick Queen Anne style house (300 E. Pier St.), built in 1894 for brickyard owner Gottlieb Gunther, were among the more stylish new residences in the city, while others, such as the numerous cream brick Front Gable vernacular form houses scattered throughout the older residential areas of the city, were among the more humble. The point is that they were all new in the 1890s and apparently owed their existence directly or indirectly to the arrival of the Chair Co. Other buildings of importance that are no longer extant were also built during this period as well, the most notable being the old Port Washington High School (315 N. Wisconsin St.), a vernacular example of the Richardsonian Romanesque revival Style built of brick in 1892 and destroyed in 1982, and the old Hill School (762 W. Grand Ave.), which was also built of brick in 1893, expanded in 1896 and again in 1904, and destroyed in 1972. An admittedly biased but nonetheless accurate account of the difference this company made to Port Washington was printed in the Semi-Centennial Issue of the Port Washington Star in 1898. Ironically, it was less than a year later that a disastrous fire would totally destroy the Chair Co. factory, which by 1899 all but ringed the inner harbor. Fortunately for the city, Dennett was persuaded to rebuild the factory in Port Washington, and by the first year of the new century, the company's new and enlarged factory was again working to full capacity. Some of the other manufacturers that the author of the above alluded to were are mentioned in the Industry section that follows, chief among them being J. Gilson, the founder of the Gilson Manufacturing Co. in 1894, makers of gasoline engines and chair irons (this company is today's Bolens Manufacturing Co.), whose S. Park St. factory was established in 1894 and soon became Port Washington's second largest industry. As for the large Chair factory itself, it is now completely gone, having been totally destroyed twice, the first time by fire in 1899, the second time by demolition, in 1959 after the plant had closed. In 1902, J. F. Thill built a new three-story Neoclassical Revival style-influenced hotel building (101 E. Main St.) that immediately became the biggest hotel in the city. Finished in the same year and destined to become one of the city's show pieces was the new Ozaukee County Courthouse (109-121 W. Main St.), built at a cost of $65,000 to a Richardsonian Romanesque Revival Style design by Milwaukee architect Fred Graf. Another major event in the life of the city, but one whose effect on the built environment is much harder to discern, was the arrival in 1905-1907 of the Milwaukee Northern Railway, an interurban electric-powered train service based in Milwaukee that operated an interurban that ran between the cities of Milwaukee and Sheboygan. Port Washington's location midway between these two larger cities made it a logical place for the company to establish a powerhouse (non-extant) for the system, which it eventually did between 1904 and 1908 on the site where Charles Mueller's tannery had been on the Sauk Creek side of E. Grand Ave. almost at the foot of Franklin St. This train service existed until the end of World War II, although its original Port Washington powerhouse was demolished when the new power plant was built, and it was one more factor in the growth of the city. By 1908, a pictorial booklet on Port Washington contained the following overview of the city's assets. The prosperity of the city gradually plateaued in the 1910s and most of the building activity that took place during this decade was in residential construction, rather than commercial development. These house were built in the new real estate developments that had sprung up around the city since 1892, when Foster, Coe, & Keeney had launched their Lake View Heights subdivision just to the east of the soon to be built Gilson Manufacturing Co. factory.(9) Houses built in Port Washington during the 1910s were predominantly designed in the Bungalow style or the simpler vernacular forms. Only a relatively small number of American Foursquare and Craftsman Style houses and their vernacular variants were built throughout the city’s residential areas in the years between 1910 and 1920 and the advent of World War I gradually brought a halt to all construction for the duration of the war. By 1923, a front page article in the January 17, 1923 Port Washington Herald contained the following boosterish inventory of the city. Port Washington has more than two miles of concrete paved streets, natural drainage unsurpassed, a complete new sewerage system, a $250,000 electric light, power and water plant, a well-equipped high school, a fine graded school, the biggest parochial school outside of Milwaukee in Wisconsin, a motorized fire department, two banks, three foundries, a big raincoat factory, the largest chair rocker factory in the world, a quality brick yard known in all western metropolitan cities, pea cannery, six garages, four hotels, four general merchandise stores, a modern movie house, tire shop, two exclusive groceries, four meat markets, three hardware stores, two drug stores, two exclusive shoe stores, a bakery, three jewelers, a leather heel factory, an opera house, two furniture stores, two city parks, a community beach, a two-basin harbor with 14-ft. clearance for vessels, a good dockage, one railway, one inter-urban line, a government light house, seven complete fishing outfits with an annual business of more than a quarter of a million of dollars, a fish products packing concern, three cigar factories, a two-hundred barrel flour mill, a grist mill and flour and feed store, two undertaking establishments, two interurban truck lines, a large lime kiln, four printing offices, a K. C. [Knights of Columbus] club house, a Masonic Temple, two coal yards, a pattern works, a florist with modern greenhouse, three electrical shops, a plumber, a marble works, and the usual complement of business and professional men. Population, 1920 census, 3450. A good place to locate factories and homes.(10) The 1920s were relatively quiet years insofar as the building of large scale projects was concerned. Most of the construction in the 1920s was residential in character and, for the most part, consisted of single Period Revival Style single family homes built in the newly developed areas in the Northwest Addition around the north end of Milwaukee St. and in the area around W. Grand Avenue and Larabee St. in Boerner's Plat and the City View Addition. By the end of the decade Port Washington would also acquire a new firehouse (102 E. Pier St.), built in 1929. The year 1930 was an especially momentous one that would see the beginning of important new additions to the city scene. First was the acquisition of a site for a new high school (427 W. Jackson St.) whose Tudor Revival Style original portion designed by the Green Bay architectural firm of Foeller, Schober & Berners would be built in the following year. Second was the choosing of a site at the foot of the south bluff for the new $25,000,000 electric power plant of The Milwaukee Electric Railway & Light Co. (TMER&L) (ca.146-150 S. Wisconsin St.), the first quarter portion of which would be completed by 1935 and would for many years be the most efficient coal-burning power plant in the world. Third was the beginning of a city-wide movement to acquire the 62-acre Gunther estate on the lake shore at the foot of and including part of the north bluff for use in greatly expanding the existing Lake Park. This movement was successful and by 1934 had resulted in the creation of the beautiful lake front park designed by Boerner and Boerner, a landscape architecture firm based in Milwaukee, known as Lake Park. Yet another significant building constructed in 1930 was the fine Art Deco style building built for M. J. Schumacher at 302 N. Franklin St. to another design by the Green Bay firm of Foeller, Schober & Berners. After 1930, though, the advent of the Depression began to have a chilling effect on the city and after a number of new Period Revival style houses were finished in the N. Milwaukee St. and Larabee St. areas in 1931, building construction of all kinds soon fell off to almost nothing save for the big power plant and park projects already mentioned, the latter of which also used W.P.A. labor. Building construction did not really resume again until 1937, when the new Port Washington U. S. Post Office (104 E. Main St.) was built and residential construction once again began to take place in the newer areas around the city. Also built at the end of the decade was the new St. Alphonsus Hospital, the original portion of which was built in 1941. Never-the-less, new commercial construction was scarce, the only new buildings of this type built in the downtown core that have survived being the new W. D. Poole Funeral Home (104 W. Main St.), designed in the Tudor Revival Style by Milwaukee architect Roy O. Papenthein and built in 1941, and the William F. Schanaen Building at 125 E. Main St., designed in the Art Moderne style by Foeller, Schober & Berners and built in 1942. World War II effectively halted all non essential construction projects for the duration of the war, the principal exception in Port Washington being the continued expansion of the TMER&L power plant in 1943, which saw the addition of a second $7,500,000 unit to the plant. After the war, however, construction boomed throughout the city, with the initial emphasis being on the construction of new residential housing in the new sub-developments that sprang up to the north and west of the city. Of these, the most significant in terms of the intensive survey was the Schanen Acres development because of the City's decision to actively support it, which was based on the fact that the houses would be prefabricated units made by the Harnischfeger Co. plant in Port Washington and ownership preference would be given to returned World War II veterans. The thirty Colonial Revival style houses that were built in the Schanen Acres development between 1948 and 1950 mark the beginning of the post war period in Port Washington, just as they mark the end of the period that is of concern to the intensive survey. Since 1950, the population of the city has more than doubled, growing from 4755 to 9388. This growth has been accompanied by expansion in every direction, and much has changed in the older parts of the city as well. Much still remains of the historic city, however, and it may be worthwhile to recall again the ending of Sister M. Jane Frances Price's History of Port Washington, written only fifty-three years ago in 1943. One may turn from the smoke stacks of the Power Plant and the Chair Factory to the still wild bluffs and gullies, to the quiet pasture lands to the north, west, and south of the city, or out across the wide blue expanse of Lake Michigan, — all part of the panorama viewed from the hill tops of the City of Port Washington, Wisconsin.(11) Footnotes: 1. History of Washington & Ozaukee Counties, Wisconsin. Chicago: Western Historical Co., 1881, p. 507. 2. Ibid, p. 508. 3. Ibid, p. 513. This mill was afterwards purchased by R. Stelling in 1853, and it is still extant today (115 S. Milwaukee St.). 4. Port Washington: 1835-1985. Port Washington, 1985, p. 7. 5. Ibid., p. 12. 6. Ibid. pp. 8-9. Even today, despite great improvements, the harbor is still not considered safe during heavy weather for the large coal carriers that service the power plant. 7. Port Washington Star, July 4, 1898, p. 1 (Semi-Centennial issue) 8. Port Washington: The Little City of Seven Hills. Port Washington, 1908, rear cover. 9. Broadside printed as a supplement to the June 4, 1892 issue of the Port Washington Star. This broadside notes that "More then forty buildings were put up [in Port Washington] during 1891, and twice that number will be put up the coming summer." 10. Port Washington Herald, January 17, 1923, p. 1. 11. Price, Sister M. Jane Frances. The History of Port Washington, In Ozaukee County, Wisconsin. Chicago: De Paul University, July, 1943, p. 67. MA dissertation. |
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