Property Record
325 BROAD ST
Architecture and History Inventory
| Historic Name: | Germania Hall |
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| Reference Number: | 230930 |
| Location (Address): | 325 BROAD ST |
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| County: | Winnebago |
| City: | Menasha |
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| Year Built: | 1963 |
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| Additions: | |
| Survey Date: | 2016 |
| Historic Use: | social recreational/fraternal hall |
| Architectural Style: | Contemporary |
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| Demolished?: | No |
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| National/State Register Listing Name: | Not listed |
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| Additional Information: | 2016- "Germania Hall was constructed in 1963 in a Contemporary style. This 1-story building is roughly L-shaped in plan with metal and brick veneered walls and a low-pitched gable roof. The building consists of two distinct masses: a rectangular mass located at the southernmost end of the building (clad in metal and brick veneer) and an L-shaped mass that comprises the building’s northern façade and wraps around its east elevation (primarily clad in brick veneer). The building’s primary elevation faces south and is asymmetrical in plan with a pair of glass doors located at the center of the southern building mass; these doors are sheltered by a flat-roofed projection with simple wood supports. A glass-walled entry vestibule projects from the ell on the building’s east side; this entrance is also sheltered by a flat-roofed projection with simple wood supports. This roof also provides shelter to another entrance (comprised of a single glass door with glass panels above and on one side) that is located in the southern wall of the northern building mass. The building’s north elevation faces Broad Street and contains three pairs of single-pane sliding windows in a concrete wall. The Germania Benevolent Society was a fraternal organization established in 1856 (then known as the Concordia Society). In 1862, a rival German organization, the Menasha Turner Society, was formed. The two groups merged in 1888 under the name German Unterstuetzungs Verein (changed in 1927 to German Benevolent Society). The group’s original meeting hall, a c.1860, 2-story brick building, got a new life in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries when it served as a public entertainment venue known as the “Germania Opera House.” In 1963, the original meeting hall, as well as three neighboring houses, were demolished to make way for a new Germania Hall. Although the new building served as a sometime meeting space for those of German heritage, its primary role was that of a public restaurant. In 1996, the Germania Benevolent Society disbanded and sold Germania Hall, which continued to function as a public restaurant and banquet hall through 2014. Although the building represents the evolution (and end) of one of Menasha’s oldest fraternal organizations, by the time the hall was constructed in 1963, its primary function had shifted from the headquarters of a German fraternal organization to a public restaurant and meeting place (although the facility continued to bear the “Germania Hall” name)." -"Menasha, Broad St: Tayco St to Racine St", WisDOT#4992-00-55/58, Prepared by Gail Klein, (2016). |
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| Bibliographic References: |
| Wisconsin Architecture and History Inventory, State Historic Preservation Office, Wisconsin Historical Society, Madison, Wisconsin |