Around the County

A sculpture celebrating Grafton's history. 5/25/24 dm

Some times history is more believable when you see the exceptions to the rules. The small community of Grafton, Wisconsin was home to the blues. 

Owned by Wisconsin Chair Company, Paramount Studios recorded African-American artists in their Grafton studio hoping to drive sales of new cabinets they built to house record players.

Artists from Milwaukee rode to Grafton on the Interurban train from 1929 to 1932 making 1,600 recordings in a short time. The studio opened in 1917, but their attempts at recording classic, country, or dance music weren't successful.

A Juxtaposition - NYC and Grafton, WI. dwm

 The Great Depression put Grafton out of the music business and it might have been forgotten except for the efforts of a local woman who dug into its history and shared it with the world.

 Grafton now hosts an annual music festival and pays homage to the train-riding artists with a walk of fame that looks like a keyboard. 

 Next to the fountain is a huge replica of  a 78-record with two names you would never expect go together as music hotbeds, New York City and Grafton. The story isn't all good; artists took the train back to Milwaukee because it was safer for them to stay there than in a lily-white community. 

The Grafton Mill. 5/25/24 dwm

At this point there is no museum in addition to Paramount Plaza but its good to see Grafton acknowledge their unlikely place in music history.

Below the dam that used to generate the power it needed to grind wheat, oats, and barley into flour stands an old mill that is now home to more than a dozen artist studios and a gallery in the building's upper floors.

The gallery wasn't open when we visited but just looking at the first floor provided a good idea of how the agriculture processing center was transformed into working studios and a showroom.

I enjoyed watching the swollen Milwaukee river crash over the old dam like a fast-moving train of hydro-power. It looked to me like the surface of the water was a good 3 to 5 feet over the dam as it churned downstream.  Heavy rains the night before were heading to Lake Michigan like a fire engine rushing to a house on fire.

Sunday I'll re-visit the Port Washington lighthouses and Tuesday take you on my walk through the Lions Den Gorge.