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Wisconsin
Grand Opera House
Sunday, March 5, 1882
The Decorative Arts
Newspaper report
The Milwaukee Sentinel, Mar 6, 1882, 5
(Nunnemacher) Grand Opera House
Water and Oneida (now 144 E. Wells) Streets, Milwaukee, WI
Built: 1870-71 (Henry C. Koch, Architect, for Jacob Nunnemacher)
Opened: August 17, 1871
Seating: 1,000 (originally)
Renamed: 1890 (Das Neue Deutsche Stadt-Theatre—The New German Stadt Theater)
Destroyed (fire): January 15, 1895 [1]
Replaced: 1895 (The Pabst Theatre, Otto Strack, Architect; building extant)
[1] The University of Wisconsin-Madison Libraries web site erroneously gives the date of the fire as 1893
Grand Opera House and City Hall (right), Milwaukee, WI
Source: Milwaukee Public Library
Plankinton House Hotel
West Water and Second (now Plankinton) Streets, Milwaukee, WI [1]
Built: 1867
Opened: 1868
Extended: 1876-1880
Last additions: 1882
Fire: 1883, survived
Demolished: 1915
Replaced: 1916 by Plankinton Arcade (Holabird & Roche), a two-story commercial building
Extended: 1924 to seven floors (Holabird & Roche) extant as part of the The Shops of Grand Avenue, and retaining the statue of John Plankinton in the center of the circular atrium
[1] Later address was 123 Grand Ave., now 161 W Wisconsin Ave.
The Plankinton House Hotel extended, as it looked at the time of Wilde's stay in Milwaukee.
The original Plankinton House Hotel in Milwaukee.
Oscar Wilde In America | © John Cooper, 2025
