HABS_report
HISTORIC AMERICAfl BUILDINGS SURVEY HABS No. WIS—251
IRON BLOCK
Location 205 East Wisconsin Avenue
(at southeast corner, East Wisconsin Avenue and North Water Street)
Milwaukee, Milwaukee County, Wisconsin.
Present Owner Promised Land Corporation, Milwaukee
Present Occupants Shops and offices and Use:
Statement of Significance:
The Iron Block is notable as one of Milwaukee’s most prominent early commercial buildings. It is one of a small number of pre—Civil War structures remaining in the central business district and is the city’s chief example of the use of cast—iron for a building’s facade. The architect, George
H. Johnson, was an English-born builder—architect who managed Daniel Badger’s Architectural Iron Works company in New York.
A. Physical History:
---1. Date of erection: 1860—61.
On March 20, 1860, fire destroyed a group of twenty—two small frame buildings on the east side of East Water (now North Water) Street and the south side of Wisconsin Street (now East Wisconsin Avenue) between East Water and Main (now Broadway). Two months later, Elisha Eldred, who had owned the structures at the corner of Water and Wisconsin, sold his lots to Martin for $20,000. Martin’s intention to erect an office and bank building on the site was enthusiastically reported by the local press, which then followed con struction work with keen interest, for the location was an important one, and the block, to cost $30,000—$40,000, promised to be most imposing. On May 17, 1860, the Sentinel carried a brief but glowing description of the proposed building. A front-page story of August 1, by which date construction had begun, elaborated on the plans, the interior and exterior design, and the use of iron facades. In May and June of the following year, the paper reported installation of the cornice and flag pole and on September 21, 1861, stated that the “edifice is now receiv ing its finishing touches.” (Still incomplete was the Masonic Hall on the top floor.) This last report was conspicuously less buoyant in tone than its predecessors.
• The anonymous author expressed some skepticism about the durability of the cast—iron fronts and outright dismay about the appearance of the exterior. He supposed, how ever, that the public——excepting architects——would admire it. Whether attracted by its looks or by its splendid location, a full complement of tenants——including one architect——soon occupied the building, as newspaper stories of late 1861 and 1862 attest.
2. Architect:
George H. Johnson, New York (possibly with Edward Townsend Mix, associate).
There is a tradition, as old as the block itself, that Milwaukee’s E. T. Mix had a hand in the project, and perhaps he did play some part, possibly serving as the architect’s local associate. But the designer of the Iron Block was, in fact, G. H. Johnson, then manager of the architectural department of Daniel Badger’s Architectural Iron Works in New York City. Johnson is named in at least one contemporary newspaper article, and confirmation that someone other than a Nil— waukeean had drawn the plans appeared in the Sentinel report of September 21, 1861. Herein the writer denounces the building as “miserably below the standard of excellence formed by our own artists,” calling it “a composite of different styles jumbled inharmoniously together, as though the builder had ransacked all the pattern shops of the East and bought up the worn out pattern of each, and ‘lumped them’ into a grand Western Palace.” Much more to his liking was the new Hassett and Chapman store just south of the Iron Block on Water, a Mix design. Johnson’s practice survived the withering review, and subsequent Sentinel articles labelled Martin’s block “beautiful,” “elegant,” and “magnificent.” Generally, it was well—received by nineteenth-century commentators. The building is listed on p. 25 of the “Catalogue of the Princif’al Works,” in Daniel Badger’s 1865 volume, Illustrations of Iron Archi tecture
---3. Original and subsequent owners:
The block was built for James Baynard Martin (1814—1878), a Milwaukee grain and real estate dealer, insurance executive and banker. It remained in the Martin estate until 1960, when Producers, Inc. of Evansville, Indiana acquired it for $640,000. Later it was sold to Polaris Real Properties, Inc. of Milwaukee; it was then purchased from this firm by the present owners, Promised Land Corporation, in 1967.