Melchior Bros. & the Corner of 3rd and Steele Streets

The first week of July 1945 saw the building at the southeast corner of 3rd and Steele vacant for the first time in its history. Melchior Bros. had closed after 50 years.

Butcher Henry Baumann built his frame store on the site in 1868 and leased out part of the building. Baumann bought the W 1/2 of Lots 15 and 16 from Frank Feuerstein who, a few years later in 1872, joined Baumann in the meat business. In September 1878 health forced Baumann to close his butcher shop. For reasons remaining unclear, he  put up a new 18' x 28' building, the last frame building with a false front constructed on Steele in Block 10.  Part of the new building was rented to tailor Anton Danek and the other part to butchers Wenzel Pavlik, H. Zimmermann, John Graf, Frank Groessl and others. A telephone was installed in 1878 and in 1886 the entire switchboard operation moved in. Then  Silas Doyen opened his drug store on the 2nd floor. After Henry Baumann died in July 1888, his  heirs continued the rentals, but in 1893 sold the building to Michael Melchior for $1,500.

Baumann's building was a little over 15 years old when it was razed in 1894 to allow Mr. Bacon to erect the double front, brick sided building that remains today. Built to house Melchior's boot and shoe store - with bicycle step ladders added to improve access - a section was added for men and boys' furnishings. G.I. McDonald and L. J. Meverden rented the upstairs rooms for their short-lived newspaper, The Press. Fred Wulf & Co. built an addition to the rear in 1926. Michael Cohn did the brickwork and Julius Busch did the carpentry. The addition was used for Dr. George Melchior's office and for the store's shoe repair. Later the doctor moved upstairs next to the room in which his sister offered piano lessons. Interestingly, while Michael's building was going up, his brother Mathias was getting ready to construct his own building across 3rd Street on the old Hennemann hotel site. The hotel had burned. When Michael Melchior Sr. retired, the business name changed from M. Melchior and Sons to Melchior Bros.

Michael Melchior, Sr. was born in Schwemlingen, Prussia where the family shoe making trade had been passed from father to son for generations. Melchior had been in the Ahnapee shoe and boot business with his brother-in-law Mathias Rinehart for some years before the early 1890s when that business partnership ended. Melchior's new boot business included his 15 year old son Hans (John) and his nephew Peter Melchior. Michael, Jr. had learned tailoring at Kohlbeck's and was working in Milwaukee when the new business opened. He came home to join the family venture.

Melchior's boots and shoes were handmade with leather that came from Milwaukee tanneries. Forty years earlier Luckenbach's and Van Meverden's Wolf River tannery could have supplied Melchior's needs, but that business had come to an end. The heavy, tough Milwaukee leather was made into footwear as fast as possible, which, for a plain boot, took about a day. The boots had tabs, enabling them to be pulled on easier. The company also made slippers for women and shoes for children. Imported French calfskin was the upscale leather of choice for so-called city slickers. One would think big city ways had not crept into Ahnapee, but they were there and it was the Yankees at the top of the pecking order.

Factory made shoes were already on the market on the market in Kewaunee County. Anton Ballering appears to have been in Kewaunee making shoes in the early 1870s. The 3-story Ballering shoe factory was built on the southeast corner of Kewaunee's Harrison and Milwaukee Streets in 1881. Ten years later, the company was facing bankruptcy.

Shoemaker Andrew Pavlik was making shoes in Stangelville by 1878 and planned to open a shoe manufacturing company thus providing an income for himself and his sons. Pavlik's manufacturing, on the property just south of St. Lawrence Church, was not successful and his sons scattered to other parts of Wisconsin. Andrew's grandson Frank sold the Lena Pavlik shoe store about 1980, thus ending 100 years of shoemaking in that line.

The well-known Anton Sisel of Slovan learned the trade from Ballering's son-in-law John Bangert. Sisel's shop is now a part of Old World Wisconsin. As things changed, Michael Melchior carried shoes made by F. Meyer and Co. in Milwaukee and traveled the countryside selling what he could. There were other members of the Melchior who did not associate with their father in his business. A son Joseph did go into shoemaking, but he did it in Gillett.

The southeast corner of 3rd and Steele held mostly meat markets and shoe stores, including Dick DeGuelle's, who took over from the Melchiors, and Ernest and Richard Bosman who purchased from DeGuelle. Richard Bosman and then Darrell Jeremissen operated radio shops from 1949 to the late 1950s. Bill Hackett opened his sewing machine company on the Baumann spot in 1961. His business remains family operated. The east section of the building has been the site of Dorothy Blahnik's Sears Catalogue Store, a pet store and beauty shops. Hackett's tenure has been the longest on the site. And among the shoemakers of Kewaunee County? Four generations of Rineharts served Kewaunee County for over 100 years.


Note: An asterisk on the postcard indicates the southeast corner of 3rd and Steele.

Sources: An-An-api-sebe: Where is the River?, c. 2012; Commercial History of Algoma, WI, Vols. 1 & 2, c. 2006 & 2012; Ahnapee Record. Postcard and photos are from the blogger's collection and T. Rollin.