"Blue Ribbon View" - Milwaukee 1905

A grandfather taking his grandson and family dog on a slow lazy summer afternoon rowboat trip on the Milwaukee river as it winds through downtown Milwaukee. They’ve stopped to take in the “Blue Ribbon View” of the iconic Pabst Building, headquarters of Pabst, the “Blue Ribbon” Beer Company.  Established in Milwaukee in 1844 as the Jacob Best Company, it was later renamed after Fredrick Pabst in 1889. The Pabst building, a 14-story neo-gothic building competed in 1891, was Milwaukee’s first skyscraper, standing for 90 years until it was demolished in 1981.

Behind and to the left of the Pabst Building is Milwaukee’s City Hall, completed in 1895 and still in use today.  The 15-story structure was the tallest habitable building in the world for 4 years; eclipsed by the Park Row Building completed in New York City in 1899.

The bascule type draw bridge in the center of the scene is the original Wisconsin Ave. bridge, which was replaced by a vertical lift bridge in 1975. Within the Milwaukee city limits there were 21 movable bridges, 13 bascule and 8 lift type, most spanning the Milwaukee River.

Crossing the bridge, on the right, a fading glimpse of the delivery wagon for the A. F Gallum & Sons, as it heads east on Wisconsin Ave.  It was the 4^th largest leather tanning operation in the U.S. in the 1905, maintaining tanning operations until 1993.  Milwaukee was the world’s largest supplier of tanned goods in the early part of the 20^th century.

The docked steamship is the SS Christopher Columbus, a passenger excursion liner that sailed the Great Lakes from 1893 to 1933. She was the only “whaleback” type ship ever built for passenger service, with an estimated capacity of 4,000-5,000 passengers.  The highlight of her sailing career was ferrying passengers to and from the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago.  The following 40 years she provided general excursion transportation within the Great Lakes.