Any city that once called itself the “Machine Shop of the World” is bound to be longer on grit than glamour. There was, however, a time when a select few Milwaukee residents could live like minor royalty in the heart of an industrial metropolis. The regal figure in this handsome carriage, parasol held high against the sun, is Anna Plankinton, half of one of the most affluent couples in Milwaukee’s history.
Anna’s husband, John Plankinton, was a Pittsburgh butcher who moved to Milwaukee in 1844, two years before the city incorporated. Plankinton reportedly bought a cow for $9 on his very first day in town and was soon selling it, carefully disassembled, over the counter of a small Downtown meat market. The entrepreneur grew from there, switching to hogs and eventually winning a national market for his packed pork. Monthly sales skyrocketed from $1,000 in 1845 to $1 million in 1880.
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The most tangible sign of Plankinton’s success was the mansion looming in the background of this photograph. In 1863 he bought a fine home on Grand (now Wisconsin) Avenue at 15th Street and proceeded to make it a spectacular home, with gold-plated doorknobs, massive crystal chandeliers, a mahogany-paneled elevator and – a real novelty – electric lights, all set in a 7-acre private park.
The last Plankinton departed before the mansion was sold to Marquette University in 1918. After years as a classroom building, it was demolished in 1975, leaving this photograph to preserve a 19th-century irony. John Plankinton’s mansion stood a half-mile due north of his Menomonee Valley packing plant, a clamorous, foul-smelling complex alive with the squeals of the 4,000 hogs that were turned to ham and bacon there every day. From her perch of Victorian splendor, Mrs. Plankinton could look out directly over the slaughterhouse that paid for it all.
TAKE A CLOSER LOOK:
- William Plankinton, John’s son, lived in a home of comparable splendor right next door.
- In 1884, a reporter called the mansion’s interior “the most elegant in the city.”
- Mrs. Plankinton’s coachman was a particularly well-dressed member of a sizable domestic staff.
- The family’s showy carriage was an aptly named Victoria.
