The Kaiser's building is a historic building in downtown

Racine, Wisconsin Racine ( ) is a city in Racine County, Wisconsin, United States, and its county seat. It is located on the shore of Lake Michigan at the mouth of the Root River (Wisconsin), Root River, south of Milwaukee and north of Chicago. It is the List ...

. The longtime home of Maurice and Helen Kaiser's men's clothes store, the two-story building is listed on the

National Register of Historic Places The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the Federal government of the United States, United States federal government's official United States National Register of Historic Places listings, list of sites, buildings, structures, Hist ...

primarily for its

Art Deco Art Deco, short for the French (), is a style of visual arts, architecture, and product design that first Art Deco in Paris, appeared in Paris in the 1910s just before World War I and flourished in the United States and Europe during the 1920 ...

facade, which was redesigned by Frank J. Hoffman in 1928. With

History

The building, located on a 20-foot-wide and 90-foot-deep lot facing Sixth Street, was in use as a hardware store as early as 1887. Previously home to the United Woolen Mills Co., Kaiser's clothing store opened in the building in 1914 and went out of business in 1957."Kaiser's Toggery"
Racine History, vindustries.com In 1928, Frank J. Hoffman designed a new

-style glazed

terra cotta Terracotta, also known as terra cotta or terra-cotta (; ; ), is a clay-based Vitrification#Ceramics, non-vitreous ceramicOED, "Terracotta""Terracotta" MFA Boston, "Cameo" database fired at relatively low temperatures. It is therefore a term used ...

facade for the building, which was built in early 1929. By 1980, when the building was listed on the National Register of Historic Places, the facade was almost unchanged from Hoffman's design, except for the installation of a neon sign advertising the building's new occupant, Trauger's Jewelry. As of 2020, the building is occupied by Brandt Jewelers, and the large Trauger's sign has been removed in favor of a smaller sign for Brandt.

References

{{Racine, Wisconsin Buildings and structures in Racine, Wisconsin National Register of Historic Places in Racine County, Wisconsin