John H. Owen had this Queen Anne house built for his family in 1894 and lived there until his death in 1913. During that time he was one of the most successful businessmen in the City of Milton. In the late nineteenth century, Owen, with his partner, S. C. Chambers, built a business related to the tobacco trade in southern Wisconsin. The leaf tobacco trade was one of the most important commercial businesses in northern Rock and southern Dane Counties during the late nineteenth century and early twentieth century. Because Chambers and Owen, as their firm was named, moved their business beyond just leaf tobacco trading, they achieved more success than any other tobacco merchant or trader in town.

Chambers and Owen began their association when they both started to work for the tobacco and notions business of George Button in the early 1880s. After Button died in 1891, Chambers and Owen took over that business and began to emphasize tobacco wholesaling. They built their own tobacco warehouse and began making their own cigars. But, more important than the fact that they made cigars was the fact that they distributed those cigars and many other brands of cigars and tobacco related products to a regional market. By Owen’s death in 1913, Chambers and Owen had become a regional wholesale distribution firm with markets throughout southern Wisconsin and northern Illinois.

S. C. Chambers was known as an expert salesman while John Owen was known as a good businessman who handled the paperwork of the firm while Chambers was on the road. Their skills made for a good partnership, but their good business sense to take an existing small business and expand it into a regional wholesaler was the move that made their company successful.

Owen built this house just as he and Chambers were achieving success and it is the second best example of the Queen Anne style in Milton. The best example was built in 1911 by Owen’s partner, S. C. Chambers. These two houses, the best examples of their style in the community, well illustrate the success of Chambers and Owen in the tobacco business.

In 1927, under the leadership of Owen’s son, A. Paul Owen, the company moved to Janesville and grew even bigger, until today, under the fourth generation ownership of the Owen family, Chambers and Owen is one of the Midwest’s largest supplier of primarily food products and management information to convenience stores.

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