Page 265 - La Société canadienne d'histoire de l'Église catholique - Rapport 1961

COMMERCIAL HISTORY OF MILWAUKEE. 261
The years of 1844 and 1845 disclosed a greater want of grain
warehouses. Mr. HIGBY imported a warehouse from Sheboy-
gan, and planted it on the dock just back of the now Martin
Block. And this same warehouse ie a great traveler. He then
walked it over to the lake shore, wherc it stood several years
as an appendage to ~IIGBY'S Pier. Then it took up its line of
march and landed down by the depot of the Milwaukee and
Mississippi Railroad. Dr. WEEKS built the Checkered Ware-
house in 1844. The Reed Warehouse was built the same year.
Mr. SWEET built the Red Warehouse at the north end of
Walker's Point Bridge, in the year 1845. This was the first
warehouse built with special reference to the storage of wheat,
and systematically arranged for the better handling of wheat
by elevators, &c. Mr. Dousa~~s built the ycllow warehouse
about this time. Mr. SWEET entered upon the construction of
his mammoth warehouse, so callcd then, and which is really a
very superior building, in the year 1847, and which was com-
pleted in 1848. This building contained the first steam engine
employed for the elevation of grain. Dr. WEZKS built the
spacious blue warehouse the same year, and from this on, fol-
lowed the construction of Mr. NEWHALL'S, and the many other
spacious private warehouses in our city, until now We witness
the completion cf a building capable of holding 400,000 bush-
els, and receiving and discharging 100,000 bushels of grain per
day. It took three days, in 1841, to ship the 4000 bushels of
wheat, I spoke of, as the first shipment made from Wisconsin.
Now, I suppose, if need be, more than as many hundred thou-
sands of bushels could be shipped in the same time.

Brick Buildings.
Turning from warehouses, I will speak of the first brick
buildings built in the city. In 1840, but one brick building
was in the town. That was a small one story dwelling house,
owned and occupied by Mr. SIVYER, standing on an alley near
the corner of Mason and Jackson streets. The Rev. LEMUEL