This massive power plant building dominates the view to the south of the downtown and has been one of the landmarks of Port Washington since it was built. Now a part of the Wisconsin Electric Co., the plant was begun in 1930 and the first portion, having a steel frame and clad in brown brick, was opened in 1935. This portion is a fine example of the kind of the "stripped classical" type of Neoclassical design seen also on the Port Washington Post Office. Subsequent additions were built in 1943 and 1948-1950. These additions were designed to match the original portion and they combined to create what is now by far Port Washington's largest historic building. This building is still very much in use and is largely intact today, although the four tall smoke stacks that were originally associated with it have since been replaced by two even larger ones. Besides its architectural distinction, the power plant is also of even greater significance because of its importance to the history of engineering. For many years after it was first opened, the Port Washington plant was "the most thermally efficient plant in the world" thanks to the pioneering work done by its designers on the use of pulverized coal as fuel. In recognition of this status, the plant was designated a National Historic Mechanical Engineering Landmark in 1980 by the American Society of Mechanical Engineers.

The Wisconsin Chair Company (non-extant) operated in Port Washington on and near this site from 1888 to 1954. The company was for many years a dominant employer and industry in Port Washington, The first few years of the company’s existence were financially difficult. However, in 1891 the firm acquired the patent to the MacLean swing rocking chair. This rocker set the company on a course toward rapid success. By 1892, the company gained a national reputation for the quality of its rockers. Practically overnight, the Wisconsin Chair Company had become the largest employer in Port Washington and one of the fastest growing companies in Wisconsin. At one time the company employed one sixth of the workers of Ozaukee County. The Wisconsin Chair Company had become the largest manufacture of floor rockers in the world and seemed invincible until the evening of Sunday, February 19, 1899.

Pier Street was originally platted as an alley. However, the alley began to be used as a street and widened because of a large pier built by Barnum Blake where the alley met the lake. Barnum Blake operated many early businesses in town and was heavily involved in land speculation. Known as Blake’s Pier or Middle Pier, it was built sometime between 1848 and 1856. Blake’s Pier, the second of three commercial piers built off the shore at Port Washington, served 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. 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.

Port Washington has been known as the "City of Seven Hills" due to the topography upon which the city is built. The location of the seven hills are as follows: North Bluff, South Bluff, west end of Main Street, north end of Wisconsin Street, Webster street at the high school, Orchard Lane, and at St. Mary’s Catholic Church. A number of these hills have interesting local nicknames. The original layout of the city is a grid that ignored the topography. Some grading was done to impose the grid pattern. However, a number of streets were simply connected with stairways. Today these stairways provide beautiful natural niches within the city. The stairway here will take you up St. Mary’s hill. View from top of Stairs (Click image to enlarge) and from the bottom

The Port Washington Light Station was built in 1860 and replaced an 1849 tower located near this site. In 1935, with the construction of the harbor breakwalls and lighthouse, the tower was removed from the light station and the building converted into a residence for U. S. Lighthouse Service personnel. Today the building is utilized as a local history museum and research center by the Port Washington Historical Society. It has been restored and serves as a museum depicting the life of a light keep family in the 19th century. Visitors tour the living quarters and the light tower that includes a spectacular view of Lake Michigan. The former generator room has additional museum exhibits that feature historic Port Washington artifacts. The building is listed on both the State and National Register of Historic Places. 

The earliest records of services being held in the Catholic faith in Port Washington were those held in the homes of parishioners in 1847, when the congregation contained just three families. By 1849, the congregation numbered twelve families and a small frame church (non-extant) called St. Mary's Church was built in that year on two lots donated to the congregation by Hiram Johnson, for whom Johnson St. would later be named. By 1860, regular services were being held, a school had been started and plans for a church were begun. In 1916, a new school building (446 N. Johnson St.) was built on the site of the 1860 church and 1870 school buildings and was later expanded in 1952. By 1881, this predominantly German-speaking congregation numbered almost 1100 members and plans for a new church were begun, the plans being provided by prominent Milwaukee architect Henry Messmer. The large new cut stone Gothic Revival style church was finished at a total cost of $70,000 in 1884 and its size and highly prominent position upon the bluff top instantly made it the city's most visible landmark. The church is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. From the front of the church, follow the stairway down to Franklin street and enjoy the view.

7.	Theodore Noesen Building 329-333 N. Franklin St.

Located on a prominent corner lot, built in 1857, the three-story-tall Theodore Noesen Building is built out of cream brick and is the most intact of the downtown's Federal Style buildings and also one of the most intact of all the downtown’s oldest buildings. The original first story storefront has now been replaced by a later but not inappropriate one and the six-over-one-light windows in the stories above are also not original. Never-the-less, the overall appearance of the building today is very close to its original one.

The Federal Style Theodore Victor Building is a two-story building that was built between 1855 and 1858 to house three stores and it was, in the 1850s and 1860s, one of Port Washington's largest and most impressive commercial buildings. As originally constructed, this square plan building had a limestone-clad east-facing main facade with three equal-width storefronts spread across its first story and ten flat-arched windows spread across its second story.

The three-story tall, rectilinear plan, cream brick Wisconsin House Hotel building was built in 1855, after the first one, built in 1852 on the same site, was destroyed in a fire. The resulting six-bay-wide building is one of the downtown's most impressive buildings and is also one of its most typical examples of the Italianate style. This building was built for Adam Even and it served as a hotel for a number of years, but this usage had ceased by 1885. By that date also, the building's first story was given over to a saloon (the north half) and a harness shop (the south half) and these spaces were to know many other usages over the years that were to follow. In addition, a one-story brick annex wing was added to the south side of the building in 1926 and later owners combined the first stories of both the original building and the annex into a single retail store.

This fine Art Deco style building was built in 1930 to house the Schumacher Monument Works, whose works had had long occupied the site. The visible portion of the basement story is clad in polished granite, and the bulk of the facade is clad in dressed limestone. A beautifully designed and executed entrance is centered on this facade and consists of a broad, simple limestone pediment that is supported by two massive fluted pilaster strips. The building was designed by the Green Bay architectural firm of Foeller, Schober, & Berners and is still largely intact today.

The Bink Building is one of the finest of all Port Washington's Queen Anne style commercial buildings and its significance is enhanced by its highly intact state. Queen Anne style buildings are notable for their asymmetric design and for the variety of design features that go into their composition and the Bink building is a good case in point. The most prominent feature of the design is its canted corner entrance, which is surmounted by a two-story-tall round turret that is topped by a stilted pointed dome crowned with a finial. Such an arrangement is found on many of Wisconsin's better Queen Anne style commercial designs, but it is rare to find features like this in such an intact state. Considering that this building was built in 1891, it is also remarkable that both the first story storefront of this building and the windows throughout are still intact and in largely original condition. Michael Bink operated a saloon in its first story. Later, the Poole Funeral Home occupied the building.

Barnum Blake, prominent early Port Washington businessman, was involved in many enterprises such as lumbering, retail/whosesale trade, land speculation, and operated one of the three commercial piers. He had this building built in 1854. Although the design of the facade of this building fits within the overall framework of the Italianate style, the arched window elements and corresponding arched portion of the cornice are also analogous to the arched elements found in the contemporary "Rundbogenstil" designs that were then fashionable with the German-American community in nearby Milwaukee and even in Madison. This ethnic variation of Romanesque Revival style had been brought over to America by German-trained architects and found favor with many German immigrants who came to this part of Wisconsin in the 1850s.

Built on the site of the old Union House Hotel, which was built in 1850 as a commercial building and expanded and converted into a hotel between 1867 and 1875, is the Wilson House Hotel. This hotel served as a headquarters for firemen battling the famous 1899 Wisconsin Chair Factory fire that at one point threatened the entire city. Like so many of the buildings in the downtown, the first story of the Franklin Street facade of the Wilson Hotel has been greatly altered over time, but fortunately, a sympathetic recent renovation of the building has undone some of the damage

14.	First National Bank of Port Washington 122 N. Franklin St.

The First National Bank was formed in 1909 and its new bank was designed by Cedarburg, Wisconsin architect William F. Hilgen and built in the same year. The exterior of the bank is still highly intact and is in excellent condition.The First National Bank building is the only Neo-Classical Revival style building in the downtown and one of only two in the city that display the signature feature of a colossal order portico dominating the main façade. The design of this facade is well done and is very correct in its use of the classical vocabulary, but it is unusual in that all of the facade's exterior surfaces including the engaged columns themselves are clad in white, smooth-surfaced terra cotta tiles that have something of the appearance of smooth white marble.

15.	Martin Zimmerman Building 114 N. Franklin St.

When the Wisconsin Chair Co. factory burned down in 1899 it took with it almost all the buildings on the east side of the 100 block of N. Franklin St. One of the buildings that replaced those that had been destroyed was the Martin Zimmerman Building, a fine, two-story, rectilinear plan Commercial Vernacular form building that was built in 1907 to house Zimmerman's saloon. Zimmerman's building was one of the first in the city to be built out of concrete block, which, in combination with its use of an arched entryway and arched first story store window, gave the building a Richardsonian Romanesque Revival feeling that was enhanced by the roughness of the rock-faced concrete block that was used. Fortunately, the Zimmerman building is still almost totally intact today, the only significant change being the filling in of its first story store window and the replacement of the original entrance door.

The fine Colonial Revival style Smith Bros. Restaurant Building was built by the brothers in 1954 to house their very well known seafood restaurant. The previous restaurant was located on a portion of the site of the present building, but was destroyed by fire in 1953, necessitating the construction of the present building. Two-stories in height and clad in red brick, the Smith Bros. building is rectilinear in plan and is one of the largest buildings in the downtown and perhaps the best known to visitors. Designed by Milwaukee architect William J. Ames, the building is a fine, highly intact, late example of the Colonial Revival style.

To the south, across the west slip, is a simple Astylistic Utilitarian form building built by the Smith Brothers between 1922 and 1938 as a net storage and workshop facility for their commercial fishing operations. The Smith Brothers and their descendants have probably been the best known of Port Washington's commercial fishing families over the years, thanks in part to the very well known restaurants they have operated in conjunction with their other operations. This highly intact building has become the most visible resource associated with the commercial fishing history of Port Washington. The recent demolition of the two adjacent buildings, including the Smith Bros. smoke house building, now means that it is the last remaining intact historic building associated with Port Washington’s commercial fishing heritage.

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