Property Record
1942-1944 S 24TH ST
Architecture and History Inventory
| Historic Name: | Julius Jahnke |
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| Reference Number: | 30370 |
| Location (Address): | 1942-1944 S 24TH ST |
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| County: | Milwaukee |
| City: | Milwaukee |
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| Year Built: | 1890 |
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| Additions: | 1911 1913 |
| Survey Date: | 1994 |
| Historic Use: | house |
| Architectural Style: | Front Gabled |
| Structural System: | |
| Wall Material: | Clapboard |
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| Other Buildings On Site: | |
| Demolished?: | No |
| Demolished Date: |
| National/State Register Listing Name: | Not listed |
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| 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. MOVED TO PRESENT SITE SOMETIME BETWEEN 1911-1913. PROPERTY TYPE KNOWN AS A POLISH FLAT. Explore the south side of Milwaukee, and you will see many structures like this one: a modest frame house, atop a raised basement with a separate outside entrance. This is a “Polish flat,” a two-family dwelling with the main living unit in the house above and a second apartment in the basement underneath. A century ago, "Polish flats" provided affordable housing for thousands of Milwaukee's working-class immigrants. As a vernacular house type, it looks simple enough, but it raises some questions why no other working-class ethnic immigrants adopted this design, and why was it only built in Milwaukee. Hundreds of Polish flats were built between about 1890 and 1915, when Polish immigrants and ethnic Germans from Poland arrived in Milwaukee. After 1900, many Polish flats with their characteristic raised-basement apartment were built. The Jahnke House was similar to houses built before the turn of the century, begun as conventional single-family cottages that were later raised on masonry or wooden basements to create the lower apartment. Its upper part was built around 1890 on another site. A modest, single-family worker's cottage, clad in clapboard, it bears the scaled-down trappings of the Queen Anne style: a large three-part front window, and an attractive wooden front porch, trimmed with the mass-produced spindlework. Sometime between 1911 and 1913, Julius Jahnke bought this cottage, moved it to its current location, and placed it atop a tall concrete-block basement to create the characteristic lower-level apartment. Jahnke lived in the top unit with his wife. |
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| Bibliographic References: | MILWAUKEE ETHNIC HOUSES TOUR, CITY OF MILWAUKEE DEPARTMENT OF DEVELOPMENT, 1994. Buildings of Wisconsin manuscript. |
| Wisconsin Architecture and History Inventory, State Historic Preservation Office, Wisconsin Historical Society, Madison, Wisconsin |