Milwaukee tourist information

Pre-1800
The Milwaukee area was originally inhabited by the Fox, Mascouten, Potawatomi, and Winnebago Indian tribes. French missionaries and traders first passed through the area in the late 1600s and 1700s.

The first white fur trader to settle in Milwaukee was French Canadian Jacques Vieau, who established a fur trading post near the Menomonee River in 1795. The post was on the Chicago-Green Bay trail, located where Mitchell Park is today. Vieau married the granddaughter of an Indian chief and had at least twelve children. Vieau's daughter, Josetta, would later marry Solomon Juneau.

1800 - 1849
Milwaukee has three "founding fathers", of which Frenchman Solomon Juneau came to the area first, in 1818. Juneau, who was Vieau's son-in-law, bought out Vieau's fur trading business, and in 1833 founded a town on the east side of the Milwaukee River. Juneau's Side, or Juneau Town, as it was variously known, began attracting more settlers.

However, Byron Kilbourn was Juneau's equivalent on the west side of the Milwaukee River. In competition with Juneau, he established Kilbourntown west of the Milwaukee River, and made sure that the streets running toward the river did not join with those on the east side. This accounts for the large number of crooked bridges that still exist in Milwaukee today. Further, Kilbourn distributed maps of the area which only showed Kilbourntown, implying that Juneautown did not exist. Anyone who saw the map would think the east side of the river was uninhabited and thus undesirable.

The third prominent builder was George H. Walker. He claimed land to the south of the Milwaukee River, along with Juneautown where he built a log house in 1834. This area grew and became known as Walker's Point.

By the 1840s the three towns had grown to such an extent that on 31 January 1846 they combined to incorporate as the City of Milwaukee. Solomon Juneau became Milwaukee's first mayor. A great number of German immigrants had helped increase the city's population during the 1840s and continued to migrate to the area during the following decades. Milwaukee has even been called "Deutsch Athen" (German Athens), and at one point there were more German speakers than English speakers in the city.

In the mid 1800s Milwaukee earned its nickname "Cream City". The nickname refers to the large amount of unique cream colored bricks that came out of the Menomonee Valley and were used in building construction. At its peak, Milwaukee was producing 15 million bricks a year, with 1/3 going out of the state.

1850 - 1949
During the middle and late nineteenth century, Wisconsin and the Milwaukee area became the final destination point of many German immigrants fleeing the Revolution of 1848. In Wisconsin they found the inexpensive land and the freedoms they sought. The German heritage and influence in the Milwaukee area is wide spread.

1950 - Present
Milwaukee, like many northern industrial cities, continued to grow tremendously until the late 1950s. Milwaukee was home to immigrants from Ireland, Germany, Hungary, Poland and other central European nations.

There was also great northward migration of African-Americans from the Southern United States. With the large influx of immigrants, Milwaukee became one of the 15 largest cities in the nation, and by the mid-1960s, its population reached nearly 750,000. Starting in the late 1960s, like many cities in the Great Lakes "rust belt," Milwaukee saw its population start to decline due to various factors, ranging from the loss of blue collar jobs to the phenomenon of "white flight." However, in recent years the city began to make strides in improving its economy, neighborhoods, and image, resulting in the revitalization of neighborhoods such as the Historic Third Ward, East Side, and more recently, Bay View, along with attracting new businesses to its downtown area.

The city continues to make plans for increasing its future revitalization through various projects. Largely due to its efforts to preserve its history, in 2006 Milwaukee was named one of the "Dozen Distinctive Destinations" by the National Trust for Historic Preservation. The city is also home to the Milwaukee Bar Association, the fourth oldest of such organizations in the United States. It was founded in 1858, and now has over 2,600 members.