The Milisen House

The Milisen name has special meaning for us at Stuhr Museum. You see, this old home is now a showpiece in Railroad Town. It's that gracious, two-story frame structure, three shades of gray paint, that stands in a spacious yard, guarded by a white picket fence. Old-timers may recall that the house once stood at 508 North Pine Street, northwest corner of Pine and Fifth Street. Milisen, and his wife, Anna, had the home constructed in the 1879.
The hipped-roof structure, ornamental roof cresting of cast iron, features wide, overhanging eaves with decorative brackets beneath, characteristic of the Italianate style of architecture popular in the 1840-1885 period. The house must have been a welcome addition to Grand Island's sparsley settled northside in 1880. The city, north of the Union Pacific Railroad tracks, did not start to blossom as a residential area until the 1880s.
While the Milisen House is a most significant historic structure, often the personalities behind a residence or commercial building can be just as intriguing, if not more so. Charles and Anna Milisen were among the earliest settlers of Grand Island, arriving from Pennsylvania in September, 1867. That was just a little more than a year after the Union Pacific tracks had reached this locale, and the land-grant railroad had platted the city. The Milisens, both born in Germany, had been married back in Pennsylvania, in June of 1866. Charles found work in Grand Island with the Union Pacific, and became an engineer. Five Milisen children were raised in the house--Charles W., Ida, Clara, Frank and Emma. Charles W. also became a Union Pacific engineer.
At the start of the Civil War, 1861, Milisen had enlisted as a private in a Pennsylvania regiment--the First Pennsylvania Rifles, the so-called "Pennsylvania Bucktails." In the early fighting, he had taken a bullet in the right shoulder, which had left his right arm partially lame. Abbott, who had seen extensive campaigning during the war with the 9th Illinois Cavalry and was a faithful G.A.R. member, extoled on Milisen's military service. "He loved his country, and his country's flag was to him the stainless emblem of that country's glory; to its defense he devoted the best part of a young man's life; he carried to his grave honorable scars that evidenced his loyalty to that country and its flag." Milisen, who had just turned 50 on December 15, was at the G.A.R. Hall working on plans for an annual G.A.R. Fair, when he was stricken with stomach pains. "What the old soldiers of the G.A.R. will do without him it is hard to say," opined the Daily Independent. "He has held many positions of honor in that body and his opinion was ever held in respect." Death resulted from "obstruction in the bowels causing perforation," according to the Independent.
Milisen's health had forced his early retirement from the railroad. His heart was defective and he was rheumatic, the Independent noted. Milisen was a veteran of the Grand Island City Council. He had represented the Fourth Ward from 1881 through 1886, serving as council president in '86. He had returned to the council in 1892. Not only did the flag over City Hall fly at half-mast, but the council chamber and Milisen's chair and desk were draped in mourning.
Milisen was also a member of the Grand Island Board of Education at the time of his death. "The board will look at the one vacant chair and think of the days of unrewarded toil and fatigue spent by him in the interest of the children and the teachers," said the Independent. Milisen's death did not end his family's association with the house. That continued for 71 more years. His widow, Anna, died in 1935. The last Milisen to own and live in the house was Emma, the youngest daughter who never married. She died in 1963.
The house was obtained from the Milisen Estate in 1965 by Grand Island's Jean W. Rockwell, who donated it to the museum . So the house stands today in Railroad Town, not only as an outstanding example of 19th Century architecture but also as a monument to an early civic leader and his family--the home of a man whose funeral on Christmas Day brought out the flower of a community's citizenry. The Milisen House was moved from its location at Fifth and Pine Streets to the Stuhr Museum grounds in December, 1965, by E. R. Hornbacher and Son of Sutton. It was a major house moving project. The six-mile trip took five days after seven months of planning.

* During the house's ownership by the Milisens, it underwent little transformation, with the only changes being the addition of a bathroom off of the kitchen that used up a portion of the back porch. This addition occurred sometime after 1930. Until the addition of the bathroom, they used a large outdoor privy.
* The house's placement at the museum (lot size) is very similar to its placement in town, with the carriage house and summer kitchen mimicking the placement of two of the outbuildings at the original site.
* The original color of the house was in three shades of gray. This was verified by scraping through the layers of paint. The house has been repainted in this color scheme.
* One set of original shutters were found and used as a pattern to reproduce shutters for the entire house.
* The stained and etched glass windows and roof cresting (iron work) are original to the house.
* The chimneys are small at the bottom and wide at the top. The chimneys were disassembled for the house's move to the museum, and reconstructed once it was in place at its new home.
* The light fixtures are combination Acetylene (carbide) gas and electric.
* Stoves were used for heating, a kitchen range for cooking, and coal, wood stoves, or base burners in the parlor and dining room. There were vents in the ceilings of the lower rooms so that heat could pass to the second story. These vents are still visible in the dining room. The only concession to modern heating that the Milisens made was the addition of a gas space heater in the dining room during the final years of ownership.
* No photos of the interior of the house have been located at this time. The house has been decorated to the 1890s time period. The rooms are papered with authentic reproduction paper and patterns of the 1890s time period. The hallway and parlor were re-papered in the spring of 1996. The dining room was re-papered in the fall of 1996. The bedroom to the right of the stairs was re-papered in 1997.
* The room to the north of the stove in the kitchen has a trap door which led to the circular cellar at the original location. The cellar was 15' 3" in diameter and 8' deep.

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