John Milkovisch was an upholsterer for the Southern Pacific Railroad who spent his retirement years decorating his modest wooden bungalow in the West End neighborhood with a carapace and cascades of deconstructed empty beer cans before moving on to his fence, rear garage, and yard. Along with the Orange Show (
HN7), the Beer Can House became one of the folk art sites of Houston in the 1980s. In 2002, Mrs. Milkovisch and her children conveyed the property to the Orange Show Center for Visionary Art to ensure its preservation. West End was historically a working-class neighborhood north of Buffalo Bayou. Its nucleus, the A. Brunner Addition, was platted in 1888 and surrounded by subsequent small subdivisions into the early twentieth century.