A Visit to the Pabst Mansion

Last day in Milwaukee.

The Wisconsin office bought this fried chicken feast for my last lunch and we all sat and ate it together. That was nice.

I can't get enough pictures of Miller Park. I would like to be inside when they retract that dome.

I had time for one last touristy activity before returning to the airport. I went with..

The Pabst Mansion!

Nearby sign:

Captain Frederick Pabst

(1836-1904)

Of German birth, Pabst became a ship's captain in the 1850s and moved to Milwaukee in the 1860s. He later joined his father-in-law's brewery (founded 1844), which was renamed the Pabst Brewery in 1889. By the 1890s it was the world's largest lager beer brewery, and he was Milwaukee's leading citizen.

The captain's elegant Flemish Renaissance Revival mansion was designed by George Bowmen Ferry and constructed on fashionable Grand Avenue 1890-93. Its pavilion housed the Pabst Brewery exhibit at the World's Columbian Exposition in 1893. Between 1908 and 1975 five Catholic archbishops resided here. In 1978 Wisconsin Heritages, Inc. purchased the property.

Pabst also erected the city's first skyscraped (1891-92), rebuilt the Pabst Theater (1895), operated by the Whitefish Bay Resort, headed the Wisconsin National Bank, owned a local hotel and many saloons, a hops farm and street railway in Wauwatosa, and hotels and restaurants elsewhere in the nation.

This is the aforementioned World's Fair pavilion that was later slapped on to the side of their house. The family used it as a summer porch.

Currently it serves as the tour center and gift shop.

I didn't buy anything in there but I was amused while I perused.

The Catholic bishops that lived in the mansion really Jesused up the pavillion. Luckily they didn't do too much damage to the rest of the building.

I liked that this place was owned by a beer baron because there were lots of classy beer references hidden all over the place. This column is wrapped in hops.

A fun fact was that the mansion had electricity but the power plant was owned by the factories and the power went out when they closed for the night. So many of the fixtures were set up to provide both electric and gas lighting.

Pabst clearly stole his facial hair fashion from Adolphus Busch. Sad.

I'm pretty sure that this was cardboard treated to look like a tin ceiling. The wallpaper in this place was hard to understand or believe.

I don't know if it had a purpose or they were just trying to be cool but the tiles in the conservatory didn't have grout and there was sand underneath, which caused them to slightly shift around when walked upon.

I really liked their taste in artwork. A lot of it was depictions of people having a good time.

I may need this painting. Cherubs and the Mystery of Brewing.

The bannisters had giant hops on them.

I guess Pabst Brewery bested and then ate one of its rivals, the Valentin Blatz Brewing Company. They bought a lot of the stuff from an auction at the Blatz mansion and a few pieces of it were on display here.

"I'm from Milwaukee, and I ought to know! It's Draft Brewed Blatz beer, wherever you go." The sailor dude is Bert Lahr, who played the Cowardly Lion in the 1939 The Wizard of Oz.

This was a fun servant call system.

I think the way you know you're rich is when there's a mural on your home safe.

Milwaukee airport did not disappoint in its array of cheese related clothing.

Sweet Justice in the Upper Peninsula

I had some righteous business to attend at the courthouse in Iron Mountain, Michigan. The arm of Milito justice is long indeed!

Did some blog writing with my free time on the plane. These are some artisan, handcrafted words you're reading right now.

Oh this old thing? It's just a pen I picked up at the Conrad Hotel in Cairo, Egypt. It overlooked the Nile. It's not a big deal.

The plane bathroom had funny fake Delta family photos on the walls. This is truly some hard hitting journalism.

I arrived late enough that all of the rental car places were closed. So I stayed at a crap hotel near the Milwaukee airport and went back and grabbed a car in the morning.

I was thinking about how much more horrible this trip would become if I got snowed in.

So after 2 flights I still was a 3.5 hour drive away from dealing out sweet justice in Iron Mountain.

It was pretty desolate country up there.

Once arrived in Iron Mountain I was on the hunt for some local cuisine. Lucky for me I was in pasty country. Long time readers may recall that I first encountered the pasty from whence it came: Cornwall County, England. At the time I described it as "basically a hot pocket that doesn't make your stomach sad" and I think I will stand by those profound words.

So Cornwall was full of miners and they ran out of things to mine, so they migrated. You may be shocked to learn that Iron Mountain, Michigan had a few things that needed mining. So some of those Cornish dudes settled in the area and brought their delicious Hot Pockets with them. And the rest is history.

This sign was so fun. Not only does it explain how to pronounce "pasty", but it refers to them as Yooper food.

As you can see from the map, Iron Mountain is in Upper Peninsula Michigan, or UP for short. So Yooper describes someone from the UP. I thought that was kind of fun.

The ladies at Jean Kay's had delightful northern accents with plenty of "eh"s for me to enjoy. Eh.

I went with the classic steak and potatoes with rutabaga. It was fantastic.

While I waited for my hearing I did some paper copying at the Dickinson County Library.

It was a cute little library. I had to give them my driver's license to get this internet access placard thing.

I then headed over to the Dickinson County Courthouse. There was a Michigan Historic Site sign out front:

Dickinson County

In 1873, John Lane Buell exposed one of the richest deposits of iron ore in the world. His discovery, known as the Menominee Iron Range, led to the development of the area and the subsequent creation of Dickinson County in 1891. The last of Michigan's eighty-three counties to be organized, it was named for Donald M. Dickinson, a prominent Detroit attorney and postmaster general in the first administration of President Grover Cleveland (1885-1889). Three of Michigan's largest iron mines were located in Iron Mountain, which had an abundant supply of water power and was served by two major railroads. Iron Mountain became a center of commerce and distribution for the range and was the natural location for the county seat once the county organized.

It was fake lawyering time!

Needless to say I had no idea what the hell I was doing. I'd never talked to a judge in court before and it was pretty terrifying. The courtroom seating was very pew-like. It was kind of like being in church except that the potential punishments for misbehavior were very real. I mostly recall uttering a string of "yes your honor" and "no your honor" and then it was over. The first hearing was over. I then realized I was going to have to make this journey at least two more times before this quest was completed.

Welp. Back to Wisconsin!

I stayed the night at the Milwaukee Athletic Club. It was a pretty nice place downtown and didn't cost too much. I was amused because their little "m" symbol was the exact same as the Missouri Athletic Club in downtown St. Louis. It's such a snooty place that I hadn't realized that it was a chain. 

I decided to check out what this fellow beer town had to offer with a little bar hopping.

I started off real with a visit to Jackson's Blue Ribbon Pub, located in the historic Pabst Brewery.

I was hanging out with Matt Iseman, host of American Ninja Warrior just last week so when it popped onto the tv at the bar I was very amused.

I asked "what's the most Wisconsin food you serve at this joint?" and they pointed me to the fried cheese curds with buffalo sauce on the side. They were very rich. I couldn't finish the whole basket.

Next I went to Wolski’s Tavern located on Milwaukee’s lower east side. The place has been open since 1908 and seems to have a local cult following. I didn't really get what all the fuss was about. It was pretty much a neighborhood bar. 

They did have a fun little gimmick: "We’ve become known for our “I Closed Wolski’s” bumper stickers, which end up posted all over the world. Stickers are earned, not purchased, and require a late night at the bar." I had more hopping to do and so was not the recipient of any bumper ornamentation.

Other bars were also in attendance. I don't know. I had a hoot.