Stadt Opera House - Milwaukee, WI - Famous Fires on Waymarking.com

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SEEDS OF THE PABST

While the Pabst is not the oldest extant theatre in Milwaukee County (that honor belongs to the Ward Memorial Theatre of 1881 on the Veteran's grounds, the former federal enclave of Wood, Wis.), it is the fourth oldest continuously operating theatre on the same site in the United States, and that is one of the distinctions that led to it being designated a National Historic Landmark of the US in 1991. That site was at first a shipyard along the Milwaukee River and the eastern portion a black smith's shop, but when Swiss immigrant Jacob Nunnemacher and his sons sought a site for the first classy opera house in the city, it was here that they started construction in 1870. Ironically, these entertainment pioneers were in the same business as that of the Pabst brewery, libations. For years this handsome Grand Opera House served the various ethnic groups in the city, but by 1890 the need for a larger site for the German's theatre led Frederick Pabst, late of a captaincy on the great lakes steamers and now head of the brewery bearing his name, to purchase the opera house and drastically remodel it upon the same footprint, and christen it Das Neue Deutsche Stadt-Theater (or: The New German City Theater, as the main such theatre in a city would be called in his native Germany). The original Stadt Theater had stood where the parking lot for the Hyatt Regency hotel is now on third street. Originally, this new Stadt theater was to be of a revolutionary design by famous Chicago architects Adler and Sullivan, but apparently the tradition-minded burghers of Milwaukee, who made up over sixty percent of the city's population at that time, were taken aback by such a nontraditional design and persuaded the Captain to hire a local man more familiar with local tastes. It was then given to Carl G. Hoffmann in conjunction with local panorama scenic painters such as Georg Peter to design and decorate in a Germanic flavor complete with the names of German notables of the arts painted in ornate frames upon the archivolt of the auditorium, a device later expanded in the Pabst to literati of other nations as well.

The Stadt may have continued as it was for years had it not been for an opportunity for remodeling presented when a fire started in the basement kitchen of the attached cafe and caused extensive smoke damage and the necessity of rebuilding the basement areas of the theater as well. With this need to close the theater for a time, the occasion was used to have Pabst brewery architect G. Otto Strack redesign the boxes in the auditorium to better the acoustics and sight lines, and thus this man got his first opportunity to put his mark upon this theater, even though his design for it had been rejected in 1890. The Stadt continued for two more years until finally a disastrous fire reduced all but its foundation and some of its walls to rubble in January of 1895. Preparations for a charity ball had been under way with streamers of tarlatan radiating from a chandelier of open flames, one of which ignited the streamers. Though valiantly fought in near zero temperatures, the multitude of fire companies could save only the four bays of the attached commercial and office building which was separated from the theatre by a brick fire wall.

Vacationing in Europe at the time, the Captain when informed of the disaster, reportedly cabled: "Rebuild at Once!" to his architect on staff, Otto Strack. Herr Strack was not ignorant of theater design after having studied in Germany and having seen many theatres there, and then he also took a quick tour of the foremost theatres in the US within months after the fire. Since he had to build on the same foundation of the Stadt, there was no opportunity to enlarge before the next theatre season would begin in the autumn. Instead, he concentrated on devising the most fire proof theater built up to that time, and one of the most comfortable and ornate since it would now bear his employer's name: PABST.

Type of Structure: Private Building Construction Date: 01/01/1870 Fire Date: 01/01/1895 Structure status: Plaque Cause of Fire: Streamers of tarlatan radiating from a chandelier of open flames, one of which ignited the streamers. Documentation of the fire: [Web Link] Other: Not listed

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