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MPL Blogs: Explore By Tag

Showing entries tagged: History


The Library That Became a Department Store

By MPL Staff on Oct 3, 2017 1:03 PM

More than a century ago, a former home of the Central Library became a department store. In 1880, the ornate Library Block building opened with retail on the 1st floor and the Library moved in on the 2nd floor.

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The Beer Garden That Brought Sound Movies to Milwaukee

By MPL Staff on Sep 3, 2017 8:40 AM

In 2017 the Oriental Theatre celebrated its 90th anniversary. On September 3, 1927, sound movies debuted in Milwaukee at the Garden Theater, which is better remembered for its pre-Prohibition incarnation, Schlitz Palm Garden. Read more about the beer garden that brought sound movies to Milwaukee.

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200 Nights That Shook Milwaukee: The 1967-1968 Open Housing Marches

By MPL Staff on Aug 28, 2017 9:38 AM

On August 28, 1967, 200 NAACP Youth Council protestors started marching across the 16th Street Viaduct to the South Side in support of 6th Ward Alderwoman Vel Phillips’ proposed open housing ordinance to ban discrimination in the selling and renting of housing.

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1947, The Blizzard That Stopped Milwaukee Cold

By MPL Staff on Jan 17, 2017 5:00 PM

"It's a Wonderful Life" was playing at the Alhambra Theater in Downtown on January 28, 1947. Paperboys delivered The Milwaukee Journal after school. The front page carried the U.S. Weather Bureau forecast of "an inch or so of snow" for Wednesday, January 29. They were wrong.

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