Rudolph J. Weisbrod was a prominent citizen in the early
days of the city of Oshkosh. He was born
at Summers, Prussia in August of 1839 and moved to Oshkosh with his parents in
1853, at age fourteen. After his service
in the Civil War he returned to Oshkosh and opened shop as furniture builder
and undertaker. In 1873 he had a three-story
building erected in the first block of Main Street on the west side of the
street. Business must have been good
because in 1876 Mr. Weisbrod was able to build a stylish house on Washington
Street just beyond Bowen Street. Rudolph
also became interested in politics, serving first as alderman when as Chief Fire
Engineer and from 1885 until his death in 1901, Chief of Police.
His house was said to have been the work of William Waters,
a claim I didn’t fully embrace at first but soon I recognized the Waters’ “stamp”. The building was typical of many of his
houses from the mid to late 1870’s with low pitched roofs and small but ornate
front porches. One feature that was of
great interest was trim around the first-floor windows and the small roof over
the double window second floor.
