Property Record
2433 W KILBOURN
Architecture and History Inventory
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Reference Number: | 29262 |
Location (Address): | 2433 W KILBOURN |
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County: | Milwaukee |
City: | Milwaukee |
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Survey Date: | 1984 |
Historic Use: | house |
Architectural Style: | Queen Anne |
Structural System: | |
Wall Material: | Clapboard |
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Demolished?: | No |
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National/State Register Listing Name: | Not listed |
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Additional Information: | Walter E. Wetzel owned the Metropolitan Club which hosted black entertainers in the midst of Jim Crow laws. He lived here in 1950. With white hostility pressing in on all sides, the African-American population in Milwaukee worked on creating an encouraging and vibrant community within the confines of segregation. By the 1940s, black owned businesses like barber shops, shopkeepers, and law offices led to the emergence of a modest sized middle class, and paved the way for nightclubs and entertainment. Like most segregated cities in America, a string of safe and acceptable locations for African-American performers began to materialize in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Black entertainers like Billie Holliday, Duke Ellington, and Louis Armstrong passed through on this route, known as the Chitlin Circuit; a network of clubs and venues around the Midwest, the South, and the East Coast. During the heydays of jazz, passing entertainers could be seen and heard playing at inner core clubs like the Metropole, the Flame, and Moon Glow. |
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Bibliographic References: | Wright's Milwaukee (Milwaukee County, WI) City Directory. St. Paul: Wright Directory, 1950 Print. Jones, Patrick D. The Selma of the North: Civil Rights Insurgency in Milwaukee. Cambridge, MA: Harvard UP, 2009. Print. pg. 21. |
Wisconsin Architecture and History Inventory, State Historic Preservation Office, Wisconsin Historical Society, Madison, Wisconsin |