Henry Roth Rooming House

Moving further along the avenue, we return to Henry Roth and his story after his Civil War service. For Roth, as well as many other veterans, tried to put their lives back together after the war. He went back to his job as a carpenter, but he would do other ventures as well.

Going back to Henry Roth, Roth did not just own a residence but also ran a Rooming House. Established in 1888, rooming houses were built for individual persons to rent out rooms. Tenants as a whole would share bathrooms and kitchens, and other commodities. Sometimes these rooming houses would be known as boarding houses on the East Coast and in other major cities like Milwaukee, Minneapolis, and Chicago. Usually, these structures would invite individuals of different occupations in nineteenth-century America. But they would vary, depending on the individual's income level as well as job status. Sometimes rooms would be rented upwards of from $2.50-$40, and these are just some of the prices if an individual had to rent a room in New York on the East Coast. But each rooming or border house had different set prices for individuals to rent, so the prices could sometimes be mixed.

After establishing and operating the saloon across from the Wittenburg Mill, Roth would then turn his attention to owning and operating a rooming house. But where would he operate it? Let's say that he would replace a small beer saloon, which is precisely what he did. The saloon sign also showed "H. Roth" on the former structure where it has the year 1888; the year the house was established. He then converted the former saloon into a rooming house where tenants rented out rooms at the prices he negotiated would help keep the structure intact and offer an affordable price for those renting out rooms. But before the building was erected, however, there was a two-story frame structure on the part of the building where the former saloon sign once stood. Roth would then build this structure inspired by an eclectic Victorian block out of Milwaukee's CCB (Cream City Brick). The brickwork in this structure is very ornamental that spreads out in spandrels, false arches, and stringcourses that give this building here in Cedarburg a vibrant character.

But over the years, the rooming house would be used for other activities as well. Going into the twentieth-century, the rooming house would still be used for tenants seeking out rooms to rent or even to own. But over the years, this practice would be obsolete as different properties, apartments, condos, and other establishments by property managers would fill Cedarburg. Around the 1970s, the rooming house was practically be gone from what it was in the nineteenth and early twentieth-century. A new bar and grill in the 1980s would establish itself in the same building that Roth had established as a rooming house. In 1983, Maxwell's would be established and is now today considered one of the preeminent bar and grill in Ozaukee County and Cedarburg.  

Graham, Ruth. Boardinghouses: Where The City Was Born, Boston Globe. January 13th 2013. Accessed April 22nd 2022. https://www.bostonglobe.com/ideas/2013/01/13/boardinghouses-where-city-was-born/Hpstvjt0kj52ZMpjUOM5RJ/story.html.

Zimmermann, H. Russell. The Heritage Guidebook: Landmarks And Historical Sites In Southeastern Wisconsin. Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Heritage Banks, 1976. 198.

A Walk Through Yesterday: In Cedarburg, Wisconsin. 2005.

Hansen, Harold E.. Sketches Of Cedarburg: Celebrating 100 Years . Cedarburg, Wisconsin. Cedarburg Commemorative Corporation, 1985. 68-69.

https://www.maxwellscedarburg.com/about

Wisconsin Historical Society, Wisconsin Architecture and History Inventory, Henry Roth Hotel, Cedarburg, Ozaukee County, Wisconsin, 13427.

https://www.wisconsinhistory.org/Records/Property/HI13427