History of Milwaukee - 1800 To 1849

1800 To 1849

Milwaukee has three "founding fathers:" Solomon Juneau, Byron Kilbourn, and George H. Walker. Solomon Juneau, the first of the three to come to the area, arrived in 1818. The French Canadian Juneau married Jacques Vieau's daughter in 1820, and Vieau eventually sold the trading post to his son-in-law and daughter, the "founding mother of Milwaukee." The Juneaus moved the post in 1825 to the eastern bank of the Milwaukee River (between the river and Lake Michigan), where they founded the town called Juneau's Side, or Juneautown. This town soon attracted settlers from the Eastern United States and Europe.

Soon after, Byron Kilbourn settled on the west side of the Milwaukee River. In competition with Juneau, Kilbourn established Kilbourntown there, making sure that the streets running toward the river did not match up with those on the east side. This accounts for the large number of angled bridges that still exist in Milwaukee today. Further, Kilbourn distributed maps of the area that showed only Kilbourntown, implying that Juneautown did not exist or that the east side of the river was uninhabited and thus undesirable.

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

The proximity of the towns sparked tensions in 1845 after the completion of a bridge built between Kilbourntown and Juneautown. Kilbourn and his supporters viewed the bridge as a threat to their community and ultimately led to Kilbourn destroying part of the bridge. Over the next few weeks, skirmishes broke out between the inhabitants of the two towns; while no one was killed, several people were seriously injured. After this event, known as the Milwaukee Bridge War, the two towns made greater attempts at cooperation.

By the 1840s, the three towns had grown to such an extent that on January 31, 1846 they combined to incorporate as the City of Milwaukee and elected Solomon Juneau as the city'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 became known as the "Deutsches Athen" (German Athens), and into the 20th century, there were more German speakers and German-language newspapers than there were English speakers and English-language newspapers in the city. To this day, the Milwaukee phone book includes more than 40 pages of Schmitts or Schmidts, far more than the pages of Smiths.

In the mid-19th century Milwaukee earned the nickname "Cream City," which refers to the large number of cream colored bricks that came out of the Menomonee River Valley and were used in construction. At its peak, Milwaukee produced 15 million bricks a year, with a third going out of the state.