Assembling a prime site: Mitchell, Tweedy and Wolcott

The site for the Northwestern Branch had been assembled from a number of farms that belonged to several prominent Milwaukee families. Of the 375 acres, a third belonged to John L. Mitchell, a twenty-five year old former lieutenant in the Union army who was the son of Alexander Mitchell, one of the most powerful businessmen in Milwaukee.

Railroad land creates opportunity

Alexander Mitchell had been the president of the Executive Committee of the Wisconsin Soldiers’ Home Society, which had convinced the Lady Managers to offer their funds and property to the Board of Managers of the National Home as an incentive to locate a branch in Milwaukee. Mitchell had been a director of the Milwaukee & Mississippi Railroad, which had been constructed in the early 1850s through the future home site; he had purchased large tracts of land along the right-of-way, which then had been mortgaged to raise funds for investment in the railroad. The Milwaukee & Mississippi Railroad was going through bankruptcy in 1867, and Alexander Mitchell, as principal stockholder in the Milwaukee & St. Paul Railroad, was in the process of absorbing the failing rail line.

The second largest parcel in the tract belonged to John H. Tweedy, another of the Milwaukee & Mississippi Railroad directors and a long-time business associate of Alexander Mitchell. Dr. Erastus B. Wolcott, the local manager of the National Home’s Board of Managers, who had been responsible for selecting the future site of the Northwestern Branch, had been a director of the Milwaukee & Mississippi Railroad with Mitchell and Tweedy. (21)

The Milwaukee site was served by the railroad and by two major roads leading west from the city. Grand Avenue on the north, which ran along the north side of the Menomonee River valley, and National Avenue on the south which ran on the south side of the river valley.

The sylvan Lapham bluffs

The site was situated on the bluffs at the west end of the river where the river turns from the northwest to flow east into Lake Michigan. The bluffs on which the Home was to be constructed had been the site of geological investigation by Increase A. Lapham, one of the first scientists in the Wisconsin Territory. Lapham was the founder of the US Weather Service.

The elevation of the site made it a prominent location and offered extensive views of the surrounding countryside. The site had ample water supply in four small spring-fed lakes, and the soil was suitable for farming, particularly on the flat terrain at the base of the bluffs on the east side of the site. Existing farmhouses on the site allowed immediate occupancy by new Home members transferred from the Wisconsin Soldiers’ Home in May 1867.

Work on the grounds began in May 1867, when the Board-appointed landscape gardener, Thomas Budd Van Home arrived in Milwaukee to determine the plan for the Home site (22).

The architect for the original buildings at the Northwestern Branch was Edward Townsend Mix, a locally prominent architect who had worked for several of the families represented in the Wisconsin Soldiers’ Home Society (23).