Property Record
1029-1031 N Doctor Martin Luther King Jr Dr (AKA 1029-1031 N 3RD ST)
Architecture and History Inventory
| Historic Name: | Bauer Building |
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| Other Name: | The Spice House; Black Forest Imports |
| Contributing: | Yes |
| Reference Number: | 108681 |
| Location (Address): | 1029-1031 N Doctor Martin Luther King Jr Dr (AKA 1029-1031 N 3RD ST) |
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| County: | Milwaukee |
| City: | Milwaukee |
| Township/Village: | |
| Unincorporated Community: | |
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| Year Built: | 1876 |
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| Additions: | |
| Survey Date: | 1984 |
| Historic Use: | retail building |
| Architectural Style: | Commercial Vernacular |
| Structural System: | |
| Wall Material: | Cream Brick |
| Architect: | |
| Other Buildings On Site: | |
| Demolished?: | No |
| Demolished Date: |
| National/State Register Listing Name: | Old World Third Street Historic District |
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| National Register Listing Date: | 3/19/1987 |
| State Register Listing Date: | 1/1/1989 |
| National Register Multiple Property Name: |
| Additional Information: | A 'site file' exists for this property. It contains additional information such as correspondence, newspaper clippings, or historical information. It is a public record and may be viewed in person at the Wisconsin Historical Society, State Historic Preservation Office. Good example of smaller cream brick store. Original cast iron sills and lintels partially replaced cornice. From the 1850s through the 1920s, the commercial activities of Milwaukee's German community centered here on North Third Street, which linked Milwaukee's main thoroughfare, West Wisconsin (then Grand) Avenue, with the German neighborhood atop Brewers' Hill just to the north. The link grew stronger in the 1880s and 1890s, when North Third also became the route of the major streetcar line leading north from downtown. North Third Street proved a good place to do business, and many German-immigrant entrepreneurs set up shop here. They particularly prospered in the decades after the Civil War--as Milwaukee was evolving from an agricultural processing, trading, and wholesaling center into an industrial city, and immigration continued to swell the city's north-side German neighborhoods. As business boomed, merchants tore down their wood-frame stores and hired architects to design larger, costlier brick and masonry structures. Old World Third Street Historic District preserves nineteen of these. Despite alteration of many of the 1870s and 1880s storefronts, most upper stories retain their original architectural character. Taken together, they offer a block-long glimpse of Milwaukee's late-nineteenth-century commercial life, when the city's foremost German-ethnic merchants sold and plied their trades here. The Bauer Building is the oldest structure in the district. Dating from around 1858, it is a small Italianate block, three stories high, clad in cream brick. Intricate foliated lintels adorn the windows. |
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| Bibliographic References: | 1876 Rascher Atlas. Buildings of Wisconsin manuscript. |
| Wisconsin Architecture and History Inventory, State Historic Preservation Office, Wisconsin Historical Society, Madison, Wisconsin |