Architectural Artifacts | Strategies for Finding & Reusing

Join the WTHP and members of Milwaukee’s historical preservation community to meet special guests Mike Jackson and H. Russell Zimmerman.

Mike Jackson, FAIA
National Building Arts Center, St. Louis, MO

Mike Jackson, FAIA, is a preservation architect in Springfield IL, where he was the chief architect for the Illinois Historic Preservation Agency for more than 30 years. He is the founding director of the APT Building Technology Heritage Library and the current board president of the National Building Arts Center.

This presentation will bring together the complementary artifact collection of the NBAC and the archives of the BTHL as research sources for the historic built environment.

H. Russell Zimmerman
Milwaukee’s Architectural Historian

H. Russell "Russ" Zimmerman is an accomplished author, historian, architect, founder of the Milwaukee-based Zimmerman Design Consultants and the Chairman of the Wauwatosa Landmark Commission from 1976-1980. Zimmerman currently resides in Wauwatosa.

Topics for Discussion:

National Building Arts Center
The National Building Arts Center (NBAC) holds the largest collection of built environment artifacts in the Unites States. The core of the collection comes from buildings in St. Louis but also includes artifacts from New York, Chicago, Philadelphia, and other U.S. cities. This collection was assembled by Larry Giles over a 50-year period starting in 1973. The NBAC aims to be a leading lender of building artifacts from exhibition and research on the historic built environment. In 2023, the NBAC partnered with the Pulitzer Arts Foundation on a major exhibit - Urban Archaeology: Lost Buildings of St. Louis.

Apartment Building Technology Heritage Library
The Association for Preservation Technology (APT)’s mission is to advance appropriate traditional and new technologies to care for, protect, and promote the longevity of the built environment and to cultivate the exchange of knowledge throughout the international community. In 2010 APT launched the Building Technology Heritage Library (BTHL), an online archive of period architectural trade catalogs, builders’ guides, house plan books and related technical publications that are rarely found in traditional libraries. Since that time, the BTHL has grown to almost 15,000 publications from North America, Great Britain and Australia. These documents, as primary source materials, can assist in the preservation of the historic built environment and other research goals.

Preservation Post: Newburg Menswear Building, La Crosse WI

The past 133 years have brought a lot a change to the four buildings at 320-326 Pearl Street. Originally four separate structures, a series of purchases by the Newburg Menswear Company combined the buildings into the single structure that we see today. 

The buildings were originally known as the following: 

  • 326 Pearl Street, historically the Gund Building, c. 1888 by Gund Brewing

  • 324 Pearl Street, historically the Newburg Menswear Building, c. 1888 as residence and commercial space for Peter Newburg Company

  • 322 Pearl Street, historically the Miller & Horne Building, c. 1889

  • 320 Pearl Street, historically the Trane Building, c. 1889 by James A. Trane & Company. This was the beginnings of what would become The Trane Company, a global leader and innovator in Heating, Venting and Air Conditioning.

View looking south at Gund Building, 326 Pearl Street.  Circa 1892.  Courtesy of Murphy Library Special Collections, University of Wisconsin – La Crosse.

View looking south at Trane Buildings 320 Pearl Street.  Circa 1892.  Courtesy of Murphy Library Special Collections, University of Wisconsin – La Crosse.

View looking southwest at 324 Pearl Street.  Circa 1950s.  Courtesy of La Crosse Public Library Archives – La Crosse.

Expansion: The Gund Building

Historic photos of these four buildings show first floor wood storefronts with cast iron columns dividing the bays and recessed door alcoves. Each second floor is composed of brick broken up by double-hung windows capped by arched headers with limestone keystones and anchored by a lug stone sill. Each building a variation on the same theme. 

Circa 1896 Peter Newburg purchased the adjacent Gund Building and expanded his clothing store.  The brick party wall was removed on first floor and was replaced with a row of cast iron columns.  Sometime prior to 1921, the front of the two buildings was removed and replaced with a white terra cotta façade with what was probably a bronze storefront.  The building was again remodeled circa 1937 when the adjacent Miller and Horne Building was acquired at 322 Pearl Street.  A new Carrara Glass Storefront was installed over all three bays of the building to unify the store’s appearance.

View of 320-328 Pearl Street looking south.  Circa 1980s.  Courtesy of Murphy Library Special Collections, University of Wisconsin – La Crosse.

Expansion: The Trane Building

The final expansion occurred circa 1973 when the Newburg Menswear Company purchased the former Trane Building at 320 Pearl Street. With this purchase, the entire front façade was ‘modernized’.  A black metal slip cover was installed over the second floor, pre-cast concrete panels covered the storefront transoms and a new aluminum storefront with brown tiles was installed for the first floor storefront. 

The main entrance was moved to the center of the renovated façade.  The Newburg Menswear stayed in this location until 1986 when it closed its doors for good after 100 years in business.  After a couple years of vacancy, the building was used as a beauty school, but the school was gone by 2010 leaving most of the building vacant. Sometime around 2010 the metal slip cover was removed, revealing the once grand facades of the building.

320-328 Pearl St, photo courtesy of Marc Zettler, 2017

Historic Restoration work

A questionnaire was submitted to the WI Historical Society in early 2019 – the result was that the building’s historic status was changed to contributing in the La Crosse Commercial Historic District. Once approved, the building became eligible for State and Federal Historic Tax Credits. Architectural drawings were completed by Zettler Design Studio, LLC in late summer of 2019, construction commenced in late fall of 2019. 

Work Included

Front façade restoration of all 4 bays of the building, creation of 4 luxury apartments on second floor, roof terrace (for residents), rehabilitation of back and side facades, and “white box” preparation for a first floor commercial tenant.

Construction for Phase 1 - focusing on the exterior and new second floor apartments - was completed in November 2021! Phase 2 will be the build-out for a commercial tenant on first floor.

For more information, please reach out to Marc Zettler, of Zettler Design Studio. Marc served as Preservation Architect for the project.