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What treasures lie within the hallowed halls and shadowy basements of the Milwaukee County Courthouse? Legislation is advancing that would require the county, possibly with the assistance of historic preservation experts, to catalogue all art, historic furniture and other items in its possession. Some say the aging wonders are being neglected or could even be stolen unless the county takes action.

The resolution, sponsored by County Supervisor Gerry Broderick, passed the county parks committee earlier this week. It would direct the county Department of Transportation and Public Works “to conduct an inventory (of) decorative art, furniture or other articles of historic or aesthetic significance owned by Milwaukee County” and report back to the county board at its June meeting.

Lord Thomas de Shalford and his Brother by Thorsten Lindberg

Broderick says the legislation is “an attempt to get a handle on what’s sitting or hanging or gathering dust.” Department heads may pitch in to inventory their valuables. And there would probably be many places to search. “The county has extensive real estate holdings,” says the supervisor. “Who knows what we’ll find?”

The county lost a potential point man for the effort in Domingo Leguizamon, former county director of veterans services, whom Gov. Scott Walker appointed the state’s commissioner of boxing and other competitive sports at the state Department of Regulation and Licensing. (The state sanctioned mixed martial arts contests last year, and Leguizamon, a veteran of the Army National Guard, will oversee their expansion in this state.)

Broderick, himself a former art teacher and art gallery operator, says it was Leguizamon who first questioned what treasures could lie un-catalogued inside county facilities. The supervisor says Leguizamon took him on a tour of the courthouse basement, where many of the unidentified valuables have been stored. On the way down, hanging above the stairs, was a massive painting of the Wright brothers flight at Kitty Hawk, N.C., by Wisconsin artist Thorsten Lindberg, who died in 1950.

Broderick says there are old photos, “scattered pieces of historic furniture” and other unidentified items. “There’s been a certain amount of neglect,” he says.

Many of the paintings are hidden in plain sight. Some, like Lindberg’s works, were paid for by the Works Progress Administration’s Federal Art Project during the Great Depression, part of the New Deal. Lindberg and other artists were paid to produce art for public buildings. Many of Lindberg’s paintings depicted workers in Milwaukee, and some documented the expansion of the Milwaukee County Park System.

milwaukee county courthouse (photo by adrian palomo)

Randy Bryant, president of the Milwaukee County Historical Society, says an inventory of the county’s historic assets is “long overdue.” He says much art hangs in courtrooms, judge’s chambers and other locales in the courthouse. With changing officeholders, the art’s provenance is lost to time. A valuable painting, he says, “could be in an administrative office and nobody knows what it is.”

Some of the paintings have already been documented. A portrait of Civil War general William Rosecrans, commissioned in 1890, hangs in Room 403 of the County Courthouse, according to Bryant. (That’s the court of Judge Dennis P. Moroney.) The painting, by William Ver-Bryck, who settled in Milwaukee in 1881, carries a “significant value.” Bryant declined to guess at a dollar amount.

The county doesn’t own the painting – it’s technically on indefinite loan from the Military Order of the Loyal Legion of the United States, a patriotic order whose members are descendants of Civil War officers. The Milwaukee County Historical Society is its official custodian.

Another notable painting, a portrait of Milwaukee County’s first county executive, John Doyne, hangs in the courthouse near the entrance to the county executive’s office (a post currently held on an interim basis by Marvin Pratt). Broderick says the parks department still has a desk originally manned by Charles B. Whitnall, the famed founding secretary of the park system.

The supervisor says he’s searched for an existing county inventory of art or historic furniture to no avail. The county board could vote on his resolution at its next full meeting on March 17.

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