[milwaukee-electric] Re: Milwaukee-area Lustrons (1948 to 1950)

[Gary Schnabl]

On 7/8/2010 3:41 AM, Don L. Leistikow wrote:
> Gary S and list:    Yes, I remember them.  That was long ago.
>
> I recall some of them on the north side of town.  Capitol Drive rings a
> bell as does Burleigh Street, in Wauwatosa.
>
> Surely there must be a way to trace these Lustron Homes.... sided with
> porcelain enameled metal panels.  No painting, ever, just hose the house
> down.  Ranch style construction, too.
>
> Perhaps tracing their location via Building Permits for 1948 thru 1950.
> If those records are now on internet files, the search could be quickly
> completed.
>
> Don L.
>    
Yes, there are about six of them between 81st and 91st Streets in 
Wauwatosa--from a bit north of Burleigh to around North. I think that 
another Lustron was near Blue Mound Road, too.

A Lustron could easily be moved, even with its ten tons of porcelain 
steel. The one I suspected that Aaron lived in is now essentially 1/2 
block away on Marion or Sercombe (the original name for 39th Street). 
Records are inconclusive, as government records were not always 
accurate. However, that Lustron was repainted yellow, as some white 
shows in places.

Sometime during the Great Depression, Lincoln Creek was rerouted from a 
meandering surface creek from Sherman and Congress through or skirting 
my grandfather's thirty acres north of 42nd and Capitol Drive then 
headed roughly SE to cross Capitol Drive twice--at 36th and 34th 
Streets--and then did a 180 inside the AO Smith plant's 160 acres at 
35th Street. The original Lincoln Creek hindered Lake Street (now 
Capitol Drive) from around being built west of 27th Street to around 
35th Street or whatever until the 1920s or so.

All of those half dozen or so Lustrons on my uncle's paper route in 1948 
were withinh 1/8 mile of the former route of Lincoln Creek, suggesting 
that they all were erected on newly reclaimed city lots after the creek 
detour at Congress Street--essentially an EW trench dug by the WPA or 
the CCC. I alerted the Lustron Registry to get those three Milwaukee 
maps that show the original Lincoln Creek, because most of the very few 
vacant lots that I noticed during 1950 were on the original Lincoln 
Creek's route.

I suspected that Aaron's Lustron was on West Hope Avenue--the 3700 or 
3800 blocks (even numbered). Assuming that my recollection as an 
11-year-old kid was OK. We kids played many hundred games of hardball 
baseball from 1952 through 1955/56 in the large empty area, now occupied 
by a middle school, west of 36th Street and Hope. Aaron's house was on 
one of a few lots next to that field.


Gary

-- 

Gary Schnabl
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