Est. 1894 · Schlitz Brewing Heritage · Prohibition-Era Speakeasy · Walker's Point Historic District
Shaker's Cigar Bar occupies a three-story brick building at 422 South 2nd Street in Milwaukee's Walker's Point neighborhood. The structure was built in 1894 as a cooperage for the Joseph Schlitz Brewing Company, supplying the wooden barrels that moved Schlitz beer through the late nineteenth-century distribution network. The interior preserves substantial original woodwork: a brass-topped front bar, a carved oak back bar with an Italian marble base and a mahogany top.
The building's Prohibition-era history is the source of most of its modern reputation. Local accounts hold that during the 1920s the cellar was used as a speakeasy reportedly controlled by members of the Capone crime family — Al Capone's older brother Ralph Capone and other Capone associates spent significant time in Wisconsin during this period — while the upper floors operated as a brothel. The building's original use, its Prohibition reuse, and its uninterrupted commercial occupancy combined to preserve fixtures and architectural details from each era.
In 1986 entrepreneur Bob Weiss purchased the property and reopened it as Shaker's, configuring the main floor as a combined restaurant, lounge, and cigar bar. The venue also began operating in-house ghost tours, marketed as the Original Historical Ghost Tour, and seasonal walking tours of the surrounding Walker's Point neighborhood. The bar itself has been profiled by Atlas Obscura, Travel Wisconsin, and Urban Milwaukee, and was identified by national haunted-bar rankings as among the five most-haunted bars in the United States.
Sources
- https://www.shakerscigarbar.com/tours
- https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/shaker-s-cigar-bar
- https://www.travelwisconsin.com/food-drink/bars-taverns/shaker-s-cigar-bar-ghost-tours
- https://urbanmilwaukee.com/business/shakers/
ApparitionsPhantom footstepsEVPObject movementCold spotsPhantom smellsPhantom voicesDoors opening/closing
The Shaker's tour narrative tracks the building's reported phenomena floor by floor. On the main bar level, staff and patrons describe glasses and bottles moving short distances on their own, occasional cold spots near the back bar, and intermittent reports of disembodied voices during quiet weekday hours.
The cellar — the documented speakeasy floor — is the most consistently reported active space. Tour participants describe phantom footsteps along the original brick walls, EVP captures during the tour's audio segments, and the smell of cigar smoke in areas where smoking does not occur. The cellar narrative incorporates the building's documented links to the Capone family's Wisconsin operations.
The two upper floors, which operated as a brothel during the early twentieth century, are associated with reports of a female figure glimpsed in mirrors and at the end of hallways, occasional door movement in unoccupied rooms, and persistent cold spots in specific corner positions. The building's modern operators have also incorporated the documented presence of Jeffrey Dahmer in the Walker's Point neighborhood during the late 1980s and early 1990s into the tour narrative — reported sightings of Dahmer at Shaker's appear in some accounts, though the operator presents this as part of the bar's historical context rather than as a paranormal claim.
The Original Historical Ghost Tour runs through every floor in a single 60-minute walk-through. Independent paranormal investigation groups have used the property for documentation work, contributing to its national ranking among the most-reported haunted bars in the United States.
