Oscar Wilde In America

A Selected Resource Of Oscar Wilde's Visits To America

Milwaukee

Wisconsin

Grand Opera House

Sunday, March 5, 1882

The Decorative Arts

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Verification

Newspaper report

The Milwaukee Sentinel, Mar 6, 1882, 5

Venue

(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

Accommodation

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.

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