| Additional Information: | A 'site file' exists for this property. It contains additional information such as correspondence, newspaper clippings, or historical information. It is a public record and may be viewed in person at the Wisconsin Historical Society, State Historic Preservation Office.
In the period just before and just after the Civil War, settlement on Milwaukee’s east side followed a simple principle: the higher the elevation, the higher the social status. The low land lining the Milwaukee River, site of tanneries, breweries, and the city’s other early industrial concerns, was also home to the city’s industrial workers, mostly German or Irish immigrants. The prominent hill rising above the river to the east was reserved for wealthier types. Many of Milwaukee’s early civic, professional, and financial leaders settled here, building elegant homes along tree-lined streets. The city’s first prestigious neighborhood, it attained a distinctive ethnic character, since most early leaders arrived from England, New England, or New York. Looking up at the heights, the German workers dubbed it “Yankeeberg,” or Yankee Hill.
Much of Yankee Hill’s former grandeur, fell to the urban-renewal wrecking balls of the 1950s. But the compact Cass-Juneau Street Historic District includes fourteen residential and religious structures, many with beautifully landscaped front and side yards. Start with the John Carey House. Dating from around 1862, it shows the Greek Revival style giving way to the Italianate. The house’s tall, narrow-arched windows with hood moldings are decidedly Italianate. But instead of a bracketed Italianate roof, the walls rise to a Greek Revival entablature with frieze windows beneath a looming pediment. |
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