The Milwaukee firm, Meyer and Finck Realty Company, was a partnership between two prominent businessmen of that city, Willis A. Meyer and O. A. Finck, during the latter years of the 19th century. In almost all instances, correspondence and other papers of the company are signed by O. A. Finck, who was secretary-treasurer. Advertising copy submitted February 9, 1893, for publication by the Standard Guide Company of Chicago reads, in part, as follows:
MEYER & FINCK:-- The town-builders of Milwaukee. The firm is to Milwaukee what S. E. Gross & Co. is to Chicago. In the development of residence and manufacturing suburbs it has achieved well earned celebrity. The firm of Meyer & Finck has been identified with the inception and growth of those flourishing suburbs, North Milwaukee, South Milwaukee, and Cudahy, suburbs in which the most careful of capitalists and wage earners here made profitable investments. There are bound to grow up around Milwaukee as there has grown around Chicago, suburbs which will offer not only equal but better inducements to investors than city property, for the chances and certainties of rapid growth are strongly in favor of the outlying residence and manufacturing towns. North Milwaukee is only one and one half miles distant from the city, Cudahy three miles, and South Milwaukee six miles....
There are indications that the two partners were interested in varied enterprises, but the papers in the collection relate almost entirely to the real estate business, including the records of 15 related land companies. The activities of these related companies were directed toward acquisition of acreage for subdivision into lots for sale to the public. Records of these companies include minute books, journals, ledgers, stock certificate books, and lot books. In ordinary real estate transactions the partnership acted as agent for the sale, purchase, and lease of property in the Milwaukee area. In cooperation with real estate agents in other cities Meyer and Finck was instrumental in effecting transactions with out of town buyers and sellers.
Sales of city lots in Trinidad, Colorado, to purchasers in Milwaukee periodically occupied the attention of Meyer and Finck. A letter from Sol H. Jaffa to O. A. Finck, September 30, 1890, discusses their negotiations for the sale of a steel rolling mill at Trinidad. Five letters in December 1890, and January, 1891, relate to the proposed purchase of a street car line, and a letter dated April 10, 1891, from the Victor Coal Company gives an estimated cost for the installation of water mains in the city of Trinidad.
A Meyer and Finck letter to the Plankington Bank, April 14, 1893, stated that its subsidiary, the Burleigh Land Company, had declared a six per cent dividend. But that same year, September 19, 1893, the company answered the inquiry of John D. Decker as to the possibility of selling shares of the company's stock by saying, “We can only answer by saying that gold dollars can not be sold for 100 cents at this writing. Five banks and a number of concerns have failed, and things look very blue....” However, in a letter to Rudolph Nunnemacher, March 16, 1894, requesting a 15,000 dollar loan on 200 lots in South Milwaukee, the company told of having sold 200 lots in the same subdivision at prices from 250 to 900 dollars, for an average of 425 dollars.
According to a letter by O. A. Finck, April 5, 1897, the directors of the company were calling for settlement of outstanding accounts so they could wind up the affairs of the company. The letter did not give any reason why the business was being terminated. Records show, however, that the affairs of some related companies were not settled finally until 1907 or later.
Four volumes in this collection are records of the Phoenix Suspender Company, of which O. A. Finck was appointed Assignee in 1896. Volume 26 contains, in addition to records of Meyer and Finck Realty Company for 1892 and 1896, a series of entries for the Milwaukee County Chair Factory for the year 1918. The chair factory was part of the Milwaukee County of correctional institutions.
