Birth of the Bloody 6th Ward

Here’s a building that represents far more than its appearance suggests. It’s the forgotten cornerstone of Oshkosh’s Bloody Sixth Ward.

The northeast corner of 6th and Ohio (556 W. 6th Avenue).

The old Sixth Ward was created in 1871. It was carved out of the Third Ward, which covered most of the city south of the Fox River. That vast sweep of land was cleaved at Minnesota Street. Everything to the west went into the new Sixth Ward.

The original Sixth Ward. Bounded on the north by Rush Ave, on the south by W. 18th Avenue, on the east by Minnesota Street, and running west to the former city limit at Eagle Street (click image to enlarge).

The Sixth Ward was a hinterland of marsh and scrub in 1871. But for the next two decades it became the landing point for the second great wave of German-speaking immigrants to Oshkosh.

An 1867 drawing depicting a portion of the sparsely developed Sixth Ward prior to its establishment. The red line runs down Minnesota Street, the eastern edge of the ward.

John M. Lueck was an early settler in the new ward. Just getting there was an adventure. Lueck was born in 1813 in Prussia. He was 44 when he left his homeland. Lueck boarded a sailing ship for America with his wife and their three kids. It was a bad trip. His wife died during the voyage. The boat lacked facilities for dealing with a corpse. Mother was tossed overboard.

After the ship reached New York, Lueck left his three kids in the big city. They were 16, 13, and 10, and they were on their own. Lueck returned to Prussia to find a new wife. He searched for more than a year before finding Wilhelmina. She was 21 years younger than John Lueck. The newlyweds sailed for New York. This was a better trip. Wilhelmina was pregnant by the time they docked. After she birthed a son, the reunited clan – six in all now – headed west to Oshkosh.

The eldest son, Frederick Lueck (shown above with his wife, Mathilde), was 16 when his father left him in New York to tend to his younger siblings. He was 21 when he enlisted in the Wisconsin Infantry to fight in the Civil War. Fred was wounded minutes into his first battle and had to have his lower-right leg amputated. His cork leg saved him 40-years later when his small boat capsized on Lake Butte des Mortes. The prosthetic kept him afloat until he was spotted by a rescuer.

The Cornerstone
It took John Lueck a few years to find his way in this new place. The Luecks lived on the south side, first on South Main and then on Tenth. He worked in construction before settling into his principal vocation as a school teacher. Lueck was fluent in both German and English. A coveted skill set in a city flooded with German-speaking immigrants producing children at a prodigious clip. Lueck gave private lessons from his home and also taught at the German and English Academy on Court Street.

The former home of the German and English Academy at 316 Court Street. The school was founded in 1858 and rebuilt in 1875 after the great fire of that year.

John Lueck was moving up in the new world. In November 1874, he bought an empty lot at the northeast corner of 6th and Ohio. He began building the following spring. The main section was purpose built, with an apartment upstairs and room for a store on the ground floor. On the east side of the structure, he attached a single-story space for a saloon. There were no saloons or grocery stores in the Sixth Ward when Lueck moved there. He installed one of each. His 1875 building still stands at Sixth and Ohio.

Lueck’s saloon and grocery laid the foundation for the 6th Ward’s development. His corner was soon surrounded with homes and small businesses. Ohio Street became the Sixth Ward’s main artery.

A great wave of immigrants flowed in from villages in the highlands of Bavaria and Bohemia. In Oshkosh, they were called Highholders. Like Lueck, the Highholders had fled from kingdoms grown increasingly repressive. Unlike the Lutheran Lueck, the Highholders were Catholic. But that appears to have been a minor concern. Lueck bonded with his new neighbors. They shared much in common, including a willful sense of pride that often led to conflict.

The old Sixth Ward earned its “Bloody” byname during those early years of furious growth. It started as a slur and turned into a badge of honor. The nickname originated with New York’s Bloody Sixth Ward, home to the most notorious and violent slums in America. The first print reference to Oshkosh’s Bloody Sixth Ward appeared in 1897 in an Oshkosh Daily Northwestern blurb that referenced the fights at Sixth and Ohio. The ward’s bloody reputation was established at Lueck’s place.

Sixth and Ohio in 1885. Lueck’s grocery and saloon is at 274 Sixth, a relic of the old house-numbering system.

Bloody Sixth and Ohio
Lueck’s saloon was a hotbed of Sixth-Ward networking, politicking, and fistfighting. All of it fueled by a rushing river of alcohol. John Lueck was hip deep in the whirl. Aside from tending the bar, he was still teaching, and also serving as a Sixth-Ward election official and the Sixth-Ward School Commissioner.

The Daily Northwestern was irritated by Lueck's expanding influence in the secluded ward. The paper of record began throwing jabs at the saloon-keeping school commissioner. The insults were steeped in the nativist bias of the paper’s co-publisher, John Hicks, and his fear of an immigrant underclass exerting its power. Lueck was a symbol of that power and an easy target.

John HIcks of the Oshkosh Daily Northwestern.

Lueck’s outside interests often took him away from the saloon. In his absence, the bar was tended by Wilhelmina, who also ran the grocery store, and their two teenage sons. The boys were big on serving beer to their young friends from the neighborhood. Word got around. The Daily Northwestern snarked about the “guardian of our educational institutions” selling liquor to minors. And then there was the stabbing.

August 7, 1882; Oshkosh Daily Northwestern.

Saloons were supposed to be closed on Sundays. Another northside nicety that the Sixth Warders happily ignored. Lueck’s saloon was roaring one early Sunday evening in August of 1882. The place had been packed all day. Lueck, Wilhelmina, and their son Henry were working the bar, trying to keep pace with the guzzling crowd. About 6 p.m., the delirium peaked.

A woodworker named Charles Hayes was hustled out the door for being too drunk. Hayes objected. He ran to the back door and tried to force his way back in. Lueck met him there and drove Hayes into the yard, where they began fighting. A melee ensued with Wilhelmina, Henry, and a bartender named Ernst Ziegenhagen joining in. They grabbed clubs from the woodpile and tried beating Hayes into submission. Hayes pulled a knife to ward them off. He stabbed Wilhelmina and then jumped the fence.

Ziegenhagen chased after him. They were followed by a mob from the bar. Ziegenhagen caught up with Hayes at 5th and Minnesota and got slashed. The mob descended. Hayes was beaten unconscious.

The Reliance Flour Mill at 5th and Minnesota where Hayes was beaten by the mob.

Eventually, the cops arrived to save Hayes for what was surely an epic Monday-morning hangover. The Daily Northwestern kicked into high gear. Under the Monday headline was a breathless, paragraph-long sentence; one of the great tantrums of Oshkosh journalism.

Shortly before 6 o'clock last evening a disgraceful row and stabbing affair occurred on the premises of John Lueck, who keeps a saloon at No. 120 Sixth St., and who is also school commissioner for the Sixth ward, and who presides over the welfare of one of our public institutions of learning, and who has a vote in expending $36,000 of the city's money annually, and who has before been arrested and convicted of selling liquor to minors, pupils of the school over which he is commissioner, and whose wife was stabbed yesterday during a saloon fight occasioned by a large crowd drinking and carousing about his saloon on Sunday.

– Oshkosh Daily Northwestern; Monday, August 7, 1882. The address given here is from the numbering system used in the early 1880s.

Lueck saw it as nothing more than rough play. He said Hayes was his friend and a good customer. He said Wilhelmina and Ziegenhagen were fine. Lueck refused to lodge a complaint against Hayes, so the Chief of Police personally charged him with assault with a deadly weapon. Lueck stepped forward to represent Hayes as his attorney. “Old Man” Lueck served his client well. Hayes was let off with a fine.

The Bridge
John Lueck turned 72 in 1885. He’d been a Sixth Ward leader for a decade. The Oshkosh Daily Northwestern still couldn’t tolerate it. The paper ran pieces that mocked him for being old. After Lueck’s reelection as school commissioner, the Northwestern published a story claiming the vote was rigged. And when Lueck’s 25-year-old son, Henry, came down with the DTs, the paper bayed about his alcoholism and the imaginary snakes visiting him.

The constant harping had its effect. Lueck’s saloon license was cancelled for no specific reason in 1886. He protested and the council immediately recanted. Lueck remained an imposing figure. But the explosive growth of the Sixth Ward was bringing change.

Lueck’s saloon didn’t stand alone anymore. By the end of 1885, the Sixth Ward was home to a half dozen saloons. The most prominent was the Nigl saloon and grocery at the northwest corner of 9th and Ohio. Joseph J. Nigl was a Bavarian immigrant who moved into the Sixth Ward in 1881 with his parents and siblings. The Nigl place opened in 1885, and in 1890 Nigl was elected Supervisor of the Sixth Ward. At this same time, Lueck bowed out as school commissioner. The mantle was being passed.

Nigl’s Saloon and Grocery with members of the Sixth Ward Band. Joseph J. Nigl is the tallest of the three men standing near the center of the top of the platform with a mug of beer raised in his right hand.

Despite its progress, the Sixth Ward was the most isolated ward in the city. Nigl and his Sixth Ward cohorts lobbied for a bridge over the Fox River to connect Ohio and Wisconsin streets. They got their bridge in 1892.

The original bridge linking Ohio Street and the Sixth Ward to Wisconsin Street and the north side of Oshkosh. The view from the south side of the river looking north.

The increased traffic created a boom-town atmosphere, especially along the Ohio Street corridor. Within three years, twelve more saloons opened in the ward. Lueck’s place was no longer among them.

Lueck retired from his saloon and grocery in 1892. He was 79 and still in good health, but his disengagement from public life was total. His vital role in the birth of the Bloody Sixth Ward was quickly forgotten. His passing attracted little notice.

He was playing cards with friends on a Friday night when he suffered a massive stroke. Lueck was unconscious for eight days. John M. Lueck died on December 28, 1895. He was buried in Riverside Cemetery.

John M. Lueck, Born Jan 1, 1813, Died Dec 28, 1895.

Over the coming weeks I plan to post two additional stories that will cover the full history of the saloons, speakeasies, and taverns that were in the building at the northeast corner of 6th and Ohio.

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Looking towards the northeast corner of Sixth and Ohio in the 1940s.