The “25 Facts” series features people, places, and stuff that make Milwaukee great. These articles are meant just for fun and we have nothing but love for everyone included. Brought to you by Great Lakes Distillery.
Did you ever see two of something? Of course not. Us, neither.
However, as the coming new year (2020) has a pair of identical 20s in it, we thought we’d conduct an exhaustive 7-minute search to identify what other twins or loosely defined pairs of things (and places, and people) are tied to our singular city. Here are those loosely defined pairs. Happy New Year!
1. Harley-Davidson introduced their first V-Twin engine in 1909.
Philip and Julius Epstein, a pair of identical twins born in 1909, won an Academy Award for co-writing Casablanca.
Philip Epstein’s grandson, Theo Epstein, became the youngest General Manager in the history of Major League Baseball in 2002 (age 28). Theo also has a twin brother, named Paul.
Theo’s Chicago Cubs didn’t play the Minnesota Twins in 2019, but the Milwaukee Brewers did, and their record against the Twins was 2-2.
2. Milwaukee Brewer Orlando Arcia left in the middle of an 8-5 win over the Chicago Cubs on September 8, 2019 to be with his fiancé as she gave birth to twin daughters.
3. The first baby born at Aurora Sinai Medical Center in Milwaukee in 2018 was actually TWO babies—a set of boy-girl twins.
4. Gemini is an astrological sign represented by a pair of twins: Castor and Pollux.
Milwaukee’s own James Lovell flew a pair of Gemini missions for NASA: Gemini 7 in 1965, and Gemini 12 in 1966.
5. The longest game in the history of Minnesota Twins vs. Milwaukee Brewers was a 22-inning 4-3 Brewers win on May 12 and 13, 1972.
6. Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me was screened at the Milwaukee Film Festival on October 29, 2019, followed by a Q&A with stars Sheryl Lee and Ray Wise (Laura and Leland Palmer). Three years earlier to the day, the Brooklyn Nets lost 110-108 to the Milwaukee Bucks at the BMO Harris Bradley Center. The Nets were without their starting center, Brook Lopez (twin brother of Robin Lopez).
7. George Webb introduced the two clocks (set one minute apart) as a response to a city ordinance that prohibited restaurants from being open 24 hours. According to George Webb’s history page:
When a city ordinance prohibited establishments from being open 24 hours a day, George came up with the perfect workaround. He announced “George Webb Restaurants are open 23 hours, 59 minutes and 59 seconds, seven days a week and on Sundays!” George hung two clocks—set one minute apart—in the restaurants to demonstrate that they were, indeed, closed and reopened every day in exact compliance with the law. To this day each George Webb restaurant has two clocks hanging side-by-side in honor of George’s declaration.
8. A 2-pack (or twin-pack) of Milwaukee Tool M18™ REDLITHIUM™ XC3.0 Batteries will get you about 6 total amp-hours of total run time before recharging.
9. Milwaukee Twin is a motorcycle shop in Campbell River, British Columbia.
10. Milwaukee Twins brand motorcycle parts are sold by J&P Cycles, which was founded in Anamosa, Iowa.
11. Twin Lakes, Wisconsin is located south of Milwaukee, just north of the Wisconsin-Illinois border. The twin lakes are Lake Mary and Lake Elizabeth. Mary, Queen of Scots and Queen Elizabeth I of England were not twins, but were lethally competitive first cousins once removed.
12. In 2018, Camara Hutchinson became a Milwaukee County police officer like her twin sister, Shamara Alexander, who joined the force two years earlier.
13. In 2016, Twin Brother covered the music of Klassik at Milwaukee Record‘s Local Coverage event.
14. Twin Brothers, a Milwaukee-based schooner, was built in 1848 and wrecked in 1960 in Lake Michigan. A note recorded about the boat’s final day reads as follows:
March 11, 1860: “Schooner Sunk. The schooner Twin Brothers cleared for Sheboygan yesterday afternoon, but was caught in the gale before reaching that port and had to return in a leaking condition. She stove a hole in her port side by pounding against the South Pier in the Straight Cut, and filling with water she soon capsized and sunk. She now lies on her broadside in the river just inside of the Straight Cut. The crew escaped by clinging to the pier. The Twin Brothers was an old vessel, and probably worth more than a thousand or fifteen hundred dollars.”
15. Beverlee Dean, a casting executive from Milwaukee, discovered twin actors Jeremy and Jason London, of Party Of Five and Dazed And Confused fame, respectively.
16. Marshall High School alums, MT Twins, are a rap duo comprised of twin brothers Dexxx and Donno. They have approximately 30 times as many YouTube subscribers as Milwaukee Record has. However, the average age of a Milwaukee Record member is about twice that of a MT Twins member, so.
17a. On November 16, 2018, Riverside Theater hosted a screening of the ridiculously quote-friendly Napoleon Dynamite, followed by a Q&A with actors Jon Heder (Napoleon), Efren Ramirez (Pedro), and Tina Majorino (Deb). Jon Heder has a twin brother.
17b. On November 16, 2018, Fiserv Forum hosted a Milwaukee Bucks 123-104 victory over the Chicago Bulls. This would be the first of many times that twin towers Brook Lopez (then a brand new Buck) and Robin Lopez (a Bull at the time) would share the Fiserv floor.
18. Olympic medal-winning twin gymnasts, Paul and Morgan Hamm, were born on September 24, 1982. That same day, Robin Yount hit a pair of home runs in a 15-6 Brewers win over the Baltimore Orioles at County Stadium.
19. On February 13, 1875, a Watertown woman named Edna Kanouse gave birth to what is believed to be the United States’ first ever set of quintuplets. Sadly, due to complications crossed with limitations of the time period, none of those five lived very long. However, more than 120 years later, South Milwaukee’s Connie Arnold gave birth to her own set of quints in 1997. The five of them are now 22 years old.
20. When you buy a Master Lock that comes with a pair of keys, be sure to write down the number engraved on the keys. Should you lose the keys, you can use that number to get duplicates made.
21. As of 2017, the population of Milwaukee was 595,351.
Briggs & Stratton‘s 595351 Head-Cylinder is currently sold out.
22. In one of two National Semifinal (or Final Four) games of the 2014 NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament, Aaron Harrison (twin brother of teammate Andrew Harrison) of the Kentucky Wildcats sunk a 3-point shot with 5.7 seconds remaining that put Kentucky ahead 74-73 of the Wisconsin Badgers and sent Milwaukee’s Josh Hoppert melodramatically crashing to the floor of Club Garibaldi‘s back room viewing area, where he’d remain and mope for the rest of the game. Zero players on that Badger team were from Milwaukee.
23. In one of two National Semifinal (or Final Four) games of the 2015 NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament, Andrew Harrison (twin brother of teammate Aaron Harrison) of the Kentucky Wildcats sunk a 3-point shot 19:40 seconds remaining in the first half that put Kentucky ahead 3-0 against the Wisconsin Badgers and it doesn’t matter because Wisconsin beat the undefeated and supposedly unbeatable 2014-15 Kentucky Wildcats and advanced to the National Championship. Zero players on that Badger team were from Milwaukee, but UW’s Sam Dekker would later be part of an exciting 2018 NBA trade that appeared to bring Dekker to the Bucks…until it sent him to Washington instead.
When you check the weather in Wisconsin and it’s forecasted for 44 and raining again… pic.twitter.com/Q11IWLrfRZ
— Sam Dekker (@dekker) May 15, 2019
24. Milwaukee native twin brothers Corporal Robert Hugo and Master Sergeant Ryan Hugo served in the US Army during World War II.
25a. Brook and Robin Lopez are fans of all things Disney. That’s a fact.
25b. The Simpsons is now a Disney property. That’s a fact.
25c. It was revealed in “Treehouse Of Horror VII” that Bart Simpson has a formerly conjoined twin brother named Hugo. Fact.
25d. Bart Simpson has the evil gene and a neat haircut. Medical facts.
25e. Hugo Simpson doesn’t have the evil gene but he’s been known to conduct barbaric experiments on live animals and he lives on a diet of fish heads. His hair is longer and messier. Winner winner, fish head fact.
25f. Brook Lopez has a neat haircut and his one-syllable name starts with the letter B. Fact. Fact.
25g. Robin Lopez has a messy haircut and is constantly engaged in barbaric encounters with NBA mascots. Messy facts.
We’re not ones to make wild speculations about who is or isn’t Hugo Simpson, but you can form your own conclusions based on what we’ve presented here. Thanks again for reading and Happy New Year! #robinhugo2020 [h/t Nick Hoppert]