Twelve years ago Stuart Klinger and I walked through the doors
of 167 West Grand Avenue with cameras and flashlights and advanced
deeper into Blackhawk Technical College’s hallway. We stopped
twenty to thirty feet inside, climbed a ladder, and poked our
heads up through a trapdoor and into the blackness of the nineteenth
century Brittan House. I cannot remember discovering more than
darkness and having taken some photographs and measurements.
What is known as the Brittan House stands today 
behind the
block of buildings from the Voluntary Action Center, 159 West
Grand, to the Grand Slam Tavern, 173 West Grand. The building,
today encapsulated behind more modern day architecture, has sat
on lot 60 of Hackett’s Addition for at least one hundred
and forty four years, and for many years sat alone.
Why is it called the Brittan House? Who built it? Why wasn’t
it ever torn down? Was it used for anything other than a house?
We are able to answer a couple of these questions and make mention
of the family of Brittans who lived in Beloit a long time ago,
but unable to answer for certain other questions.
If you stand back far enough to the south side of West Grand
you can see the upper part of the old Brittan House exposed,
a brick wall facing onto the roof in front of it and six windows
now boarded up. You can best see this view of the house when
you are heading north over Broad Street bridge. A walk into Cross
Street from West Grand will give you a better idea of the age
and grandeur of this dwelling. It is seventy five feet in width
and the limestone bricks date it to a time when the city of Beloit
was relatively new. It had a large front yard with the building
many feet back from the street. Maybe this arrangement made it
more suitable to enclose than tear down.
In
the 1850s Fourth & West Grand was a pastoral setting of trees
and dirt roads with a few homes planted here and there: William
Blodgett had a beautiful home at the southwest corner of Fourth
& St. Lawrence; Charles H. and Walter M. Brittan lived in
a grand home south of the Blodgett place on Fourth Street a few
years later; and at least by 1858 the Brittan House was built.
But it wasn’t built by Arthur Brittan for whom the house
is named. Arthur Brittan is as much a mystery as is the home,
and he doesn’t enter into Beloit History until 1891. Then
he is listed as living at 117 Bridge Street (present day West
Grand and the 167 West Grand address mentioned above.) It mentions
in the 1891 city directory that this was his summer residence.
Arthur is a mystery because there is no evidence available connecting
him to the Brittans of Hyde and Brittan fame. Hyde and Brittan
was the name of Beloit’s first Bank, founded by Louis C.
Hyde in the 1850s; he was later joined in the business by his
son-in law Walter Brittan. There is also no evidence connecting
Arthur to the many other Brittans who had various business enterprises
in Beloit from the mid-1800s well into the mid-1900s, and Arthur
did not stay long in Beloit. In 1891 he is listed as being part
of the company Brittan, Graham & Mathes out of Chicago. In
1897 he is part of Nimmick & Brittan MFG Company out of Pittsburgh,
Pennsylvania. In that year his occupation is listed as Commercial
Traveler. In 1902 he disappears from the Beloit scene. But the
house doesn’t disappear. It magically acquires the name
of “Brittan House” for many Beloiters of the period
and this appellation comes down to us to the present day. There
may be those, however, who recall or have heard that the Brittan
House was used as a hotel.
The Brittan House was converted into a hotel by the early 1900s,
becoming the Perkins Hotel in 1902. The address was 121 East
Grand Ave. (Until the early 1920s when Beloit revamped its street
address system, the determining factor for east and west was
the Chicago Northwestern railroad tracks. After the change the
Rock River determined east and west.) The Perkins operated at
the Brittan House from 1902 to 1914 or 1915. Then James Kelley,
long time manager of Perkins, bought the hotel and changed the
name to the Kelley Hotel; it remained so from 1915 to 1917. Then
that, too, dissolved. Some time in the early nineteen twenties
the old Brittan Home/Perkins Hotel/Kelley Hotel was enclosed
behind other businesses.
In the 1920s the former house/hotel was occupied by the undertakers
Atkinson & McDowell, as well as Jones Hardware. In the ‘30s
and ‘40s Brown’s Paint Store used the building. After
that it has either been used for storage or was empty.
The Brittan Home is not the only interesting home with a mystery
to it in Beloit. It’s just that enough of it emerges into
the day and night to entice us. The 19th-century structure pops
its head up from behind a modern facade to say - - - what? That’s
what Stuart Klinger was after. This enclosed mystery compelled
him to investigate, and he drew me into the enigma. We both wanted
to know what this house was all about. And I think there is more
to discover, but more about that in another Confluence.
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