Sheboygans first hotel was likely Warren House Hotel, which opened in the 1830s

SHEBOYGAN – Perhaps Sheboygan’s first hotel, the Warren House was among one of the first buildings constructed in Sheboygan someday during the 1830s. The precise date has been misplaced to time, according to clippings from the Sheboygan County Historical Research Center.

Prior to 1850, the Gibbs brothers ran a hotel at that spot on Pennsylvania Avenue. Following the Gibbs brothers, Francis Geele and Edwin Gaertner shaped a partnership in 1850. They operated a {hardware} store in one half of the building for a few years.

In those early pioneer Sheboygan days, a hotel was particularly important to vacationers because cities have been days aside — in contrast to the fast journeys we’ve today with our fashionable freeway systems.

According to a letter submitted to the Evergreen City Times in 1859, the Chilton Times wrote a word about Sheboygan. The Times said Sheboygan had one great benefit over many other western cities: “She has got a good hotel. We mean the Warren House kept by J.H. Gibbs. Mr. Gibbs gives good accomodation and his charges are reasonable. We advise any of our citizens who travel that way to give the Warren House a call, and we will warrant them to be satisfied.”

In the early days, the Warren House Hotel was a fashionable place to keep, have a supper and bid on property via an public sale at the firm. Local papers would promote the particulars.

Nicholas Burkhardt bought the property and operated a saloon in the half of the building where the {hardware} store operated. In the early 1860s, Teddy Levec leased the saloon, which was later taken over by a man named Mudge. A stage was created in the building, and Mudge ran vaudeville reveals in connection with his saloon, which attracted sailors from the Great Lakes delivery trades.

Later, the Evergreen City Bank — the first banking establishment in Sheboygan — operated on the ground flooring of the construction.

Around 1911, the Warren House was torn down. The Milwaukee-Northern Railway constructed a building on that spot utilizing some of the timbers from that unique Warren House. That building, too, met the wrecking ball in the early Nineteen Thirties, according to a Press clipping.

Today, as best that might be estimated, the space where the Warren House stood is primarily a parking zone close to Stefano’s Slo Food Market. No identified photograph or sketch of the metropolis’s first hotel is in existence today.

Gary C. Klein has written Throwback Thursdays since 2017, masking dozens of companies, people, sports activities and occasions from the early days of the space to current historical past. He has been a photographer for the Press since 1993. He might be reached at 920-453-5149 or gklein@gannett.com. Follow him on X (previously Twitter) at @leicaman99. Check out his other work at www.sheboyganpress.com/workers/4383066002/gary-c-klein/.

This article initially appeared on Sheboygan Press: Sheboygan’s first hotel was likely Warren House on Pennsylvania Avenue