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Property Location
Property Features
George and Alexander Murison, Scotch cabinetmakers, opened their shop in Portage in 1853. George Murison continued the shop as sole owner after 1857-1858. In 1880, Goerge Murison moved from the Emporium Block at the northeast corner of DeWitt and Conant to a new building at 310 DeWitt (25/18), then the south portion of the current building. In 1892, Murison added the north wing, replacing a frame grocery. Portage contractor Alexander Carnegie completed the wing. At the turn of the century, Murison purchased furniture from wholesalers and closed his craft shop. His undertaking business had also grown from fabricating occasional coffins for home funerals to managing the funeral itself. Wallace Murison joined him as Murison and Son Company in 1893. In 1914, the partnership incorporated as George Murison and Sons Company with George Murison, Sr. and his two sons Wallace and George A. Murison. After George Murison's death in 1914, the firm included Wallace Murison as president and director of the funeral parlor and ambulance service and George A. Murison as its secretary and treasurer and director of the furniture portion of the business. In 1917, the company remodeled Murison's Furniture Emporium adding the two story glass front and the third floor. George Murison, Jr. sold the business to Jack Weiss and Saul Black in December, 1950. Otto Pflanz became employed with the Murison Funeral Service in 1944. In 1946 at Wallace Murison's retirement, he purchased this portion of the business which became known as the Murison-Pflanz Funeral Service. One year after Weiss and Black purchased the store, Pflanz moved the funeral service to the former J.B. Wells home at 430 W. Wisconsin (35/1). By 1955, Black and Wells ran Black's Furniture Mart. Black's Furniture closed in 1983 (Portage Daily Register 12/13/1917; 1943 [9/15: 1/3-4]; 1944 [9/15: 1/5-6]; 1/12/83; 8/8/1950; Democrat 9/14/1928; Columbia County Historical Society 1982;Milwaukee Journal 1951 [4.1L 4.1-3, 6/1-2]; Columbia County Historical Society 1982).
National And State Register Of Historic Places Listings
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Local firm's jubilee anniversary
Sep 14, 1928
Portage Democrat
Beck Funeral Home
February 15, 1978
"Lester Beck, Undertaker. In 1913, Lester's father, Fred Beck, and Robert Kietzer formed a partnership as undertakers and, in 1917, Fred went on his own in the business. In those days the dead were...
