They lift your spirits, prompt you to think, make you feel grateful and inspire you to do more. They connect you to our community, shining a spotlight on what's good about our city. They're stories that are Uniquely Milwaukee.
In December 2025, the Milwaukee Common Council designated both the Miller High Life Theatre and UW-Milwaukee Panther Arena as historic. Weeks later, news broke of a study commissioned by the Wisconsin Center District to explore the “highest and best use” of the area. One of the findings was that a new hotel would maximize investment in the Baird Center and pointed to the Miller High Life Theatre as a target for replacement.
Since the study’s release, there’s been an outpouring of support to preserve the venue, which got me thinking about its importance as a Cream City landmark. And there was only one person I wanted to explore it with: OnMilwaukee senior editor and Urban Spelunker Bobby Tanzilo.
Bobby is a familiar face and voice at Radio Milwaukee, having co-hosted the Urban Spelunking podcast with Nate Imig for many years. He also spelunked the Miller High Life Theatre and Panther Arena back in 2024. So who better to take me around the space?
“This is one of the murals painted by the Swedish artist, Thorsten Lindbergh, in the 1940s in this building,” Tanzilo explained as we walked past the murals on the main floor. “The one we're looking at right now is Solomon Juneau marrying Josette Vieau, who was living in Milwaukee when he arrived. And they got married. He was of course the founder of Milwaukee.”
Tanzilo went on to explain the property’s history, which extends far before the venue we know today.
“So in the 1860s, this was the West Side Market Hall, which was here until around 1880,” he began. “Then that was replaced with the Exposition Center, which was sort of like an early kind of convention center that was designed by Edward Townsend Mix, who was a famous architect here. That burned in 1905.
“And so they cleared away that rubble, [and] they hired Farian Kloss, who did the Milwaukee Public library and buildings like that, to design this. They started building it in 1907, and it opened in 1909.
Paul Smaxmill is general manager of the Pabst Theater Group, the local organization that manages the Miller High Life Theatre. He joined us on our tour to give us an idea of the scope of shows that have visited this venue across its nearly 120-year history.
“We had Dancing With the Stars here last night featuring Andy Richter,” he said. “We like to think we continue the long tradition of serving the community. That includes shows with Queen here in 1980. When it was the full auditorium, Prince, Led Zeppelin, Fleetwood Mac, Parliament, Elvis Presley, Rolling Stones, Martin Luther King Jr. — they all got to play bigger venues, but at one point they played here.”
The Miller High Life Theatre remains one of the largest venues in the city, with a capacity of 4,187. It’s unique for its accessibility, accommodating both standing and reserved seating shows with a truncated pit and a stage size that allows for bigger productions like Cirque de Soleil. Smaxwill credits these factors for enabling their eclectic programming.
“What is a downtown if everyone can’t participate and live and work and play down here, and have entertainment options reflective of their personality,” Smaxwill asked.
Then, it was time to go up — way up.
We were invited to ascend to the theater’s catwalk, a lighting rig suspended from the ceiling more than 40 feet from the lower seating area. Setting aside my fear of heights, I worked my way up the ladder and took in the view while Tanzilo addressed his own fear: what we would lose if the Miller High Life Theatre was gone.
“I think this building, because it's been around for so long, but it's also on the site of previous buildings that were community focused, we lose this sort of public treasure,” he said. “It's our link to the past, right? It helps connect us to who not only we've been, but our parents and our grandparents and our great grandparents, and I think it'd be a shame to lose that.
“We have memories ourselves of things we've seen here. We know that we've seen photos of when our ancestors were at events here, and we know that they were in this building. We've all been in this building for these many generations, and that's not something you can re-create easily. You can put up another venue, or you can put up another hotel, but that doesn't have that story to it.
“When I look at a building like this, if I just look out the windows, I can see all sorts of vacant land around it. And I wonder why this building would have to come down.”
The City of Milwaukee’s Historic Preservation Commission confirmed that as of Feb. 23, 2026, no demolition permits for Miller High Life Theater have ever been filed. However, Pabst Theater Group marketing and PR director Sarah Peronto noted that the district board does plan to weigh its options.
“It's still a very entry-level conversation, but it's important to keep the conversation going and to talk about it outright,” she said, “because is it worth it to tear down a historical place, and can these two things exist in the same city, and what are the other options?
While a historic designation doesn't offer complete protection, it speaks to the legacy of the Miller High Life Theatre as an important piece of Milwaukee’s arts and culture scene, and the people who take pride in fostering memories in the Cream City.
