City Streets
The Dreadful Legacy of Charles Nash
His greed led to the horrible Newhall House fire. Yet a street still bears his name.
Get a daily rundown of the top stories on Urban Milwaukee
His greed led to the horrible Newhall House fire. Yet a street still bears his name. Back to the full article.
Photos - Page 3
This really isn’t a fair assessment of Nash’s dealings with the Newhall. After he purchased the house in 1865, he oversaw a number of improvements to the property in the way of fire safety, including fire escapes, the removal of its trademark cupola, and a bridge that connected the fifth floor to the cross-alley bank building (which would have been accessible from the 5th floor servants rooms). These were during two different stints at owner of the hotel – the original group closed down the hotel in 1869 after they couldn’t find anyone to take the lease and shortly after sold it at the same price they’d paid for it in ’65. After the new owner defaulted in 1873, Nash was appointed the head of the Newhall Stock Company that owned the building until it burned. Nash and company did more than the law required of them in the name of fire safety and it seem doubtful he actually ever made much money from the place. He and his family actually lived in the hotel, once for a stretch in the 1870s and again in the years just before the 1883 fire.
Lute Nieman and his Journal savaged Nash, Antisdel and company after the fire without a great deal of evidence to back up their claims. Of course, when you write your own history – as the Journal has done twice – you can make scandal-mongering into intrepid journalism easily enough. Nash was no more guilty of negligence than a hundred other men who owned old buildings in Milwaukee at the time.
I don’t mean to be critical or anything, it took a few years of digging to get through all the Journal’s baloney. I have a book on the fire coming out next year.
So, Nash owned a fire trap and isn’t responsible because safety isn’t free?
Ugghhhh, go defend a slumlord, this is why we have fire codes now. When safety is optional, building owners take the cheapest route.
72 people died but this is just something that happens? No.
Milwaukee history really interests me.
Thank you for the article and the reply.