How Milwaukee's Beer Money Built a Street of Mansions and Then Tore Every One Down: Grand Avenue

In October of 1980, a wrecking crew pulled up to the grandest house on the grandest street in Milwaukee and started tearing it down, two days before the demolition permits were even issued, in a city that had voted to save it. That house was on Grand Avenue, the street where the beer money, the meatpacking money, and the railroad money of a whole city built a row of mansions that were supposed to last forever. John Plankinton came to town with four hundred dollars, bought a single cow, and built a meatpacking empire and three mansions side by side for his family. Frederick Pabst built a Flemish palace two blocks down. Alexander Mitchell, the richest man in Wisconsin, built a French pile with thirteen fireplaces. Most of those mansions are gone now. A few are still standing, and you can walk through them today. And the difference between the ones that lived and the ones that died is not what you would guess. This is the story of a lost street of Gilded Age mansions, the fortunes that built them, and the one quiet thing that decided which ones survived. CHAPTERS (added after upload) Subscribe for more lost history like this:    / @wisconsinrevealed   More Wisconsin stories:    • The Most Famous Person From Every Wisconsi...   Grand Avenue, John Plankinton, Elizabeth Plankinton mansion, Pabst Mansion, Alexander Mitchell house, Wisconsin Club, Milwaukee history, Cream City brick, Gilded Age Milwaukee, lost mansions.