Historical and Architectural Resources Survey, 2013-2014, City of Waukesha, Waukesha County, Wisconsin

Heritage Research, Ltd.

From introduction: "In 2012-2013, the City of Waukesha applied for, and received, a historic preservation grant-in-aid from the National Park Service—a grant administered by the Wisconsin Historical Society (WHS). The objective was to provide an updated survey (a previous survey was completed in 1982-1983 by Howard Needles Tammen & Bergendoff of Milwaukee, Wisconsin) of the architectural and historical resources located within the City Waukesha. The ultimate purpose of such a survey is to identify those historic districts and/or individual properties that are potentially eligible for the National Register of Historic Places... A public meeting was held in October 2013 to launch the project. Press releases were issued to the local newspaper seeking historical and/or resource-related input from area residents. In addition, HRL staff reviewed the Wisconsin Historic Preservation Database (WHPD) to determine how many properties had already been surveyed. All of this preliminary work helped to facilitate fieldwork in the Fall of 2013 and Spring of 2014. One of the two primary goals of the resurvey effort was to identify and inventory properties built between the 1930s through the 1960s within areas developed during that period, the areas of which were identified on maps provided by the city. The second goal was to photograph all previously surveyed properties not already listed in the National Register of Historic Places, either in a district or individually, as well as to determine if any of those previously surveyed properties (not already listed in the National Register) were, at this time, potentially eligible for the National Register. As for Goal #1, “the identification and inventory of ‘new’ properties,” a total of 344 resources were photographed and entered into WHPD, which is maintained by the Wisconsin Historical Society but accessible to the public at www.wisconsinhistory.org/Content.aspx?dsNav=N:1189. The vast majority of the original building permits on file at the City of Waukesha were reviewed for those new properties and their permit dates were recorded in the “Bibliographic References” section of the WHPD/online record. In the case of properties that have permits that date to October or later, or if they were significantly large buildings, or if the permit cited when the structure was actually completed, the “Year Built” line of the online property record (as well as within this document) is identified as the following year, as that is the date the structure would have been completed and ready for occupancy. As for Goal #2, all previously surveyed properties that remain extant were photographed so that there is an updated digital image on file for all surveyed properties (however, excluding National Register-listed properties). During the course of this effort, as well as en route to those areas designated for review of “new” properties, it was found that a significant number of properties that had been expected to have been surveyed as of the 1981-1982 surveyed were, in fact, not. This resulted in a larger number of surveyed properties than was anticipated and included homes that range in date from the 1890s through the 1920s (again, old enough to have been previously surveyed)." Funding was provided in part by a 2013 Historic Preservation Fund grant to the City of Waukesha (project number WI-13-017) administered by the Wisconsin State Historic Preservation Office (grant number P13AF00108) and the State, Tribal, and Local Plans and Grants Division, National Park Service, U.S. Department of the Interior. Waukesha, Wisconsin is a Certified Local Government.

Historical and Architectural Resources Survey, 2013-2014, City of Waukesha, Waukesha County, Wisconsin

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