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Walking into a dilapidated building of any kind can be pretty sad. But stepping inside the former Resurrection Lutheran Church, 2602 W. Auer Ave., felt especially poignant.
The building itself was the result of an incredibly dedicated and driven congregation, whose story is an interesting one – we’ll get to that – and witnessing it so battered and bruised feels like a rebuke to that spirit.
But seeing it just three years to the month from a photo that showed it still lived-in and cared-for is also a brutal reminder of how quickly ruin can set in when a building goes unloved.
The former church is currently owned by the City of Milwaukee, via a tax foreclosure, and the Department of City Development’s real estate arm has it listed for sale at $32,100, including the church and the adjacent parsonage.
The two buildings have a total of 14,760 square feet on a 12,600-square-foot corner lot in the Franklin Heights neighborhood.
A buyer could use the space for retail, office, artist studio, restaurant or even a residence, but it cannot be torn down for a parking lot or occupied by a number of prohibited business types, including social service facility, pawn shop, tobacco or e-cigarette retailer, auto repair or body shop facility, gun shop, liquor store, payday or auto-title loan store, medical service facility, child daycare or other uses prohibited by zoning.
The property must be taxable after the sale, and the buyer must restore or renovate the building and fully occupy it with a permitted use within 18 months of the sale closing date.
You can see all the details on the listing sheet.
It’s a tall order considering the condition of the structure, but someone with the desire and drive could make something happen here. Especially when you consider how the church came to exist in the first place.
Born in a butcher shop
The idea for a new North Side Lutheran mission with English services seems to have come from Rev. Dr. William G. Frick, who was pastor at the Church of the Redeemer on 19th and Wisconsin, which was the first Lutheran Church in the state to hold services exclusively in English.
Frick helped arrange for the arrival in Milwaukee of United Lutheran Church Field Missionary Rev. C. P. Weiskotten, who set up shop in a vacant butcher shop at 1672 N. Hopkins St. and held its first service on June 28, 1914 which drew three adults – Fred Forrer, Elizabeth Bogh and organist Miss Hanson – and two children.
The following Sunday, a Bible school was launched with 18 people attending. That day’s service also saw the first baptism.
In September, the small congregation obviously had big plans as it had already secured an option to buy a piece of land on the northwest corner of 26th and Auer, not far from the storefront church.
On Oct. 26, the congregation was officially organized as the English Evangelical Lutheran Church of the Resurrection with 16 communicant members, and on Nov. 1 adults Mabel Horsch and Gussie Rank were confirmed and first communion service held with 16 communing.
At that point the Sunday school already boasted 70 members and one of them was likely 10-year-old Eileen Steller who was also the church organist, the youngest in the city. Her family, members of the congregation, owned a nearby jewelry store.
“Already the young congregation has taken steps to secure its own church home,” the Sentinel reported the next day. “It has an option on a lot on Auer Avenue at 26th Street. Every effort is being put forth by the members, both Sunday school and congregation, to secure the lot.”
Sunday evening services were added and a Women’s Mission Society was organized.
The effort to build a church of its own was fast-tracked in mid-February 1915 when Weiskotten received notice that the congregation would have to leave the storefront by April 1 as the neighboring grocery planned to expand and open a dry goods store in the space being used by the church.
Weiskotten told reporters that the church was growing so quickly it would soon have had to find a new space anyway.
A community comes together
What happened next seems rather amazing.
On Feb. 22, five days after receiving its eviction notice on Hopkins Street, the church held a groundbreaking ceremony on 26th and Auer and on Feb. 28 the cornerstone – containing a copy of the Sentinel, church papers and a list of 33 members and 75 Sunday school children – was laid by Weiskotten at an event with Rev. Frick and other clergy and about 400 other people in attendance.
“The edifice will be a 23x40 steel frame structure with seating for 200,” the Sentinel reported. “Plans call for a bungalow style building which will be converted into a residence for the pastor when the growth of the congregation necessitates the erection of a more spacious church building.”
The church was built almost entirely by volunteers – and seems to have been designed by church member Peter Breen, who was a contractor and carpenter – and with mostly donated materials.
Though the building permit names neither architect nor builder, there is, among the permits, a drawing of roof supports that is on Breen's letterhead.
“On Monday a ‘carpenter bee’ will be held with unemployed workmen willing to furnish the labor to erect the framework,” the paper added.
In the end, it took a total of 40 days from the eviction notice for the church to be entirely completed and at a cost of just $1,500. The new church opened free of debt.
The final service at the storefront was on March 28 and the first service in the bungalow was on April 2, Easter Sunday.
On April 11, the building was consecrated and celebrated its first marriage.
A little over a year later, Rev J.F. Beates was called from St. Paul, Minnesota to serve as the first regular pastor at Resurrection and in September 1916, the congregation voted to build a parsonage to the west of the church.
Beates also oversaw the creation of a fund for a new church building and the construction of the $4,000 parsonage, which still stands today.
The growing congregation voted unanimously to become a self-sustaining parish, free from its relationship with Redeemer, on April 18, 1920.
However, on Aug 23, 1923 Beates died and was replaced, on Jan. 1, 1924, by Rev. Lloyd W. Steckel, who jump-started the effort to build a new and bigger church.
Born in Mulberry, Indiana, Steckel had attended Thiel College in Pennsylvania, graduating in 1901. Three years later, he graduated from the Chicago Seminary.
In 1906, he married Chicago’s Agnes Hanson and then served congregations in Chicago; Mishawacka, Indiana; Platteville, Wisconsin; and Albert Lea, Minnesota before coming to Milwaukee.
The congregation voted to build anew on May 19 as the, “necessity for enlargement was imperative.”
A “rapid campaign for funds was finished by the time the congregation was 11 years old,” a 1929 history of the church noted.
The architect
By August, plans were being drawn for the new building by architect LeRoy Gaarder, who I suspect was connected to Steckel, as Gaarder had designed churches in Platteville and Albert Lea, both places where Steckel was a pastor before coming to Milwaukee.
Gaarder was born in 1891 in Highland, near Dodgeville, the son of a Norwegian immigrant father and a mother born in Wisconsin. Gaardner attended school in Highland and Dodgeville before spending a year at St. Olaf College in Northfield, Minnesota.
He later attended night classes from 1913 to 1917 at the University of Minnesota while working in the Minneapolis offices of architects Cecil Chapman (1913), Mather & Boerner (1914), Howard Parsons (1915) and Purcell & Elmslie (1916-1917).
In 1917, Gaarder returned to Dodgeville to open his own architectural practice.
During World War I he served as a private in Company A of the 311th Engineers Regiment, which was part of the 86th Infantry Division, and after the war he moved to Albert Lea to resume work as an architect.
In addition to designing a number of churches and other buildings, Gaardner moved to Washington, D.C. where he was appointed to serve as consulting designing architect on the staff of the Public Buildings Administration (PBA) during the Depression.
Later, during World War II he was a project planner for the regional office of the PBA in Seattle.
Between these positions, and afterward, he practiced in Albert Lea, working at least into the 1960s. He died in Albert Lea in 1984.
His designs for Resurrection must have gone quickly and smoothly as by Aug. 17, the last service was held in the chapel, which appears to have been torn down, despite some vague references to it having been moved.
A new church building
While demolition and construction were underway, the congregation held its regular services in the Comfort Theater at 24th and Hopkins (which still stands today, remodeled into a convenience store) and special services at Auer Avenue Methodist Church at 24th and Auer, which also still stands.
On March 29, 1925, the cornerstone was laid and by June 7, the gymnasium section of the building was completed enough to host the first service in the new building, though the building wouldn’t be officially finished and dedicated until Nov. 8.
The new Gothic Revival structure cost $110,000 and could seat 550 in the nave.
It sounds big, but considering membership had already reached 504 by 1927, it may have only been just big enough for services on high holidays.
In 1929, bowling alleys – open to the public and available for party rental, as well as hosting open and league bowling – were added, presumably in the basement, and operated by A. C. Giesenschlag.
On March 13, 1938, Steckel led the Sunday service but was not feeling well. He went to the hospital the following day and stayed nearly a week before returning home. “He walked into the house and up to his room, and there his heart gave way and he died a few hours later,” The Mulberry Reporter wrote.
Steckel was just 59 years old. He left behind a wife and two.
He was replaced at Resurrection by Rev. Albert E. Birch, then Rev. Irwin R. Kraemer, who had been a chaplain in World War II, serving in North Africa and Italy.
Times had changed
Upon Kraemer’s death in 1958, Rev. George T. L. Jacobsen arrived and oversaw the church as the neighborhood changed around it.
But while some congregations opted to find new homes in the suburbs, Resurrection resolved to stay.
A 1963 article in the Sentinel attempted to explain why, “some dwellers in suburban and residential areas remain loyal to old, struggling churches in changing neighborhoods instead of joining the congregations of their faith nearer home?
“Resurrection church is ‘home,’ said Fred Peterman (Glendale). ‘My wife was confirmed and baptized there. We have been going there for years and the church must hold onto its members’.”
James D. Leigh, 2841 N 78th St., said, “we have old ties there. My wife’s folks belong and we have been members a long time.”
Long-time choir director Carl Vandre, 4421 N. 71st St., said, “the church has a real job to do in the area on N. 26th St. and W. Auer Ave. We must contact the new people and welcome them into the church. If we all do our part there is a real future for the church.”
“Loyalty of parishioners living in the outskirts is appreciated but not expected," said pastor Rev George T. L. Jacobsen,” the article stated.
While about 10 families left the congregation each year, the pastor said, he added that about 15 new families joined annually.
“Though the neighborhood is changing it is not run down, pastor said,” the paper wrote. “Negro families are moving in, elderly couples are remaining and the younger families are moving out.
"There has been no influx of Negro members into the congregation, though the vacation bible school now has 14 negroes. Membership during the last 10 years has not suffered the decline of the typical church in transition.”
At that time Resurrection had a congregation of 1,232 men, women and children, a confirmed membership of 815 and communing membership of 605. About 200 members were inactive.
Compare that to a decade earlier when there 894 baptized, 711 confirmed and 569 communicant members.
While 75 percent of the membership lived within a mile of the church in the early 1950s, more than half the members in 1963 drove more than a mile to reach Resurrection.
“Our greatest need as a congregation is to put our roots deeper into the neighborhood,” the pastor told the paper, noting that it was launching a stewardship campaign that autumn.
Jacobsen said that the congregation considered selling the property and moving in 1957, but instead invested $70,000 in renovating it. A year after his arrival, another $45,000 was spent.
On Fridays, the church opened to neighborhood young people for “Fun Night” with organized games, and seniors dances were held on Saturdays.
Later uses
Lutheran Social Services opened a center in the building in the mid-1970s, and Theodore Mack – a former Pabst employee who, as owner of People’s Brewing in Oshkosh, was the first African-American brewery – operated one of two Crispus Attucks Youth Homes in the building in the late ‘70s.
Resurrection’s situation had not improved but instead had declined and in 1979, the church merged with Incarnation Lutheran on 15th and Keefe.
Today, members of the Incarnation congregation that had been at Resurrection recall that the merger was "a synod-driven action that was started in the mid '70s."
By the early 1990s, the church was home to Greater Westside Church of God in Christ, notable for the fact that its pastor for many years was Willie Hines Sr., father of the eponymous Milwaukee alderman and Common Council president.
In 2017, Pastor Rosslind Prescott-McClinton wanted to open a peaceful place of learning and basketball for neighborhood kids, dedicated to the memory of her son Michael J. Prescott Jr., who had been shot two years earlier.
Prescott-McClinton had started a ministry in 2002 and opened a pay-what-you-can thrift store and operated a meal program for the needy.
After Michael’s death, Bishop Sedgwick Daniels of Holy Redeemer – where Prescott-McClinton had served before she opened her own mission – offered her and her husband, Pastor Micky McClinton, space at the old Resurrection, which had that gym that was perfect for basketball.
Her friend Pastor Jeff Stupar, of Wauwatosa’s Honey Creek Church, raised $75,000 and brought a team of volunteers to rip up and replace the old gym floor, re-do the roof, paint and add air conditioning.
The congregation also donated lunches and school supplies for the roughly 85 kids that arrived daily at the MJP Peace Center, which opened in September 2017 with an event that drew Ald. Khalif Rainey, Milwaukee Bucks Senior Vice President Alex Lasry and Lt. Gov. Rebecca Kleefisch.
Alas, it seems that this program didn’t last much more than two years and the most recent occupant of the building was the Sista 2 Sista Global Ministry, which also seems to have been there for about two years.
The building has now been vacant for three, though it looks, especially on the inside, like it’s been decades.
Sista 2 Sista’s Facebook page has photos taken on the altar exactly three years to the month before I visited and while it looked like it maybe could’ve used a little paint touch-up, it was otherwise cared-for and in decent shape.
The building today
Not now.
Windows have been broken out, perhaps stolen. There is trash everywhere in the building and signs that folks have been living in the parsonage, if not also in the church.
That incredible new gym floor – still emblazoned with the MJP Peace Center logo – sits in darkness.
If any remnant of the bowling alleys survive, I couldn’t tell because every route I found to the basement looked far too precarious to risk ... entire steps were missing from each staircase.
Up in the choir loft, an old organ and Leslie speaker disintegrate in one corner.
One community member recalls that in recent years illegal raves were held in the building, which could explain some of the interior damage.
It’s all especially heartbreaking considering the kind of community effort that came together to create this church in the first place.
That kind of community drive seems like the only way to create a future for this threatened site.
For more stories like this one on Milwaukee history, check out all the Urban Spelunking stories here.
Born in Brooklyn, N.Y., where he lived until he was 17, Bobby received his BA-Mass Communications from UWM in 1989 and has lived in Walker's Point, Bay View, Enderis Park, South Milwaukee and on the East Side.
He has published three non-fiction books in Italy – including one about an event in Milwaukee history, which was published in the U.S. in autumn 2010. Four more books, all about Milwaukee, have been published by The History Press. A fifth collects Urban Spelunking articles about breweries and maltsters.
With his most recent band, The Yell Leaders, Bobby released four LPs and had a songs featured in episodes of TV's "Party of Five" and "Dawson's Creek," and films in Japan, South America and the U.S. The Yell Leaders were named the best unsigned band in their region by VH-1 as part of its Rock Across America 1998 Tour. Most recently, the band contributed tracks to a UK vinyl/CD tribute to the Redskins and collaborated on a track with Italian novelist Enrico Remmert.
He's produced three installments of the "OMCD" series of local music compilations for OnMilwaukee.com and in 2007 produced a CD of Italian music and poetry.
In 2005, he was awarded the City of Asti's (Italy) Journalism Prize for his work focusing on that area. He has also won awards from the Milwaukee Press Club.
He has been heard on 88Nine Radio Milwaukee talking about his "Urban Spelunking" series of stories, in that station's most popular podcast.
