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Colorful mid-century photos unearthed of this Milwaukee High School

This week on Urban Spelunking -- our podcast partnership with OnMilwaukee -- we're getting a particularly interesting view of a Milwaukee high school when it first opened its doors.

An exterior view of the former Custer High School, now home to MPS’ Barack Obama School of Technical and Career Education. Photographer unknown, digitized by Adam Levin via OnMilwaukee.

That view is thanks to set of Kodachrome slides unearthed by Adam Levin, founder of the Old Milwaukee Facebook group, and frequent Urban Spelunking collaborator and guest.

The undated photos allow you to look back into the former Custer High School -- nearly 70 years ago -- and perfectly capture the mid-century history.

On this week's podcast we discuss more about the history of Custer High School, now MPS’ Barack Obama School of Technical and Career Education, plus we zoom out and learn about the overall trends in school design after WWII.

Then, OnMilwaukee's Bobby Tanzilo gets a bit philosophical, poignantly explaining his fascination with schoolhouse architecture and how that curiosity compelled him to write a book on the topic.

Listen to this week's episode below, and continue to OnMilwaukee for more history and even more photos.

Director of Digital Content | Radio Milwaukee