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About Milwaukee

Milwaukee is the county seat of Milwaukee County in southeastern Wisconsin, United States. It is a Lake Michigan entrance point where the Milwaukee, Menomonee, and Kinnickinnic rivers meet and flow into Milwaukee Bay, about 90 miles (145 kilometers) north of Chicago. Milwaukee, the state’s largest city, lies in the heart of a five-county metropolitan region that includes Waukesha, Wauwatosa, and West Allis, as well as Racine, some 30 miles (50 kilometers) south. The area is also the northernmost point of a densely populated zone that spans southward along the lake from Chicago to northwestern Indiana. Inc. 1846. 97 square miles area city (251 square km). Milwaukee-Waukesha-West Allis Metro Area, 1,555,908 (2010); (2020) 577,222; Milwaukee-Waukesha Metro Area, 1,574,731.

History

Several Native American tribes historically lived in the Milwaukee area, including the Potawatomi, Menominee, Fox, Sauk, and Ho-Chunk Nation (Winnebago). In 1674, French missionary and adventurer Jacques Marquette slept there, and fur traders quickly followed. Following agreements with Native Americans in the 1830s, the land was allowed to colonization. In 1835, three settlers purchased land in the area and began an intense rivalry: Solomon Juneau, who had arrived in 1818, established Juneautown north of the Menomonee River and east of the Milwaukee River; Byron Kilbourn established Kilbourntown north of the Menomonee and west of the Milwaukee; and George Walker established Walker’s Point south of the Menomonee. Juneau and Kilbourn were continually at odds over the construction of roadways and bridges, with one municipality purposefully designing them so that they did not line up with those of the other. The crisis to a head in 1845, when three bridges were burnt down by enraged crowds; the following year, an agreement was formed to unite Milwaukee.

In the second part of the nineteenth century, Milwaukee emerged as a manufacturing and distribution center. Major industries included flour milling, leather tanning, and iron casting. Milwaukee, on the other hand, became best known for its beer industry, which began in 1840. Following that, German immigrants established many big breweries, establishing Milwaukee as a national center of the industry. For a while, the city served as the region’s principal lake port for eastward exports, especially wheat. Milwaukee’s role as a shipping center diminished in the late nineteenth century, as the train arrived and Chicago grew as a national rail hub.

Milwaukee’s rise was mostly due to European immigration. German settlers had an essential and long-lasting role in the city’s development; a wave of immigration that occurred following Germany’s failed revolution in 1848 provided affluent and educated refugees. The Germans, the city’s biggest ethnic group, established their own civilization, complete with schools, churches, and breweries. Beginning in the mid-nineteenth century, the Irish became the second largest group. Toward the close of the century, large influxes of Poles and Italians occurred. In 1910, immigrants and their children made up around three-fourths of the city’s population. Although Europeans continued to arrive after 1900, the migration of African Americans from the South grew in size.

Following the American Civil War, the city became embroiled in labor unions, conflicts, and strikes that continued until the beginning of the twentieth century. Milwaukee has a reputation for clean and efficient governance as a result of a Progressive-era reform campaign. Emil Seidel (1910-12), Daniel Webster Hoan (1916-40), and Frank P. Zeidler (1916-40) were the city’s three socialist mayors (1948–60).

The Great Depression of the 1930s halted growth, but military manufacture during World War II provided fresh wealth. The city’s population, which had been continuously increasing for decades, peaked at at 750,000 in the mid-1960s before progressively declining. African American people continued to increase in number, accounting for over two-fifths of the city’s population by 2000. Milwaukee remained a key manufacturing center until the 1980s, when numerous companies closed; even beer production fell, and by the beginning of the twenty-first century, the city had just one significant brewery.

Information About Milwaukee

On the western side of Lake Michigan, the American state of Wisconsin contains the city of Milwaukee. It’s known for its breweries, many of which offer tours chronicling its role in the beer industry. The Harley-Davidson Museum, which overlooks the Menomonee River, features vintage motorcycles on exhibit, including one owned by Elvis Presley. Nearby is the Milwaukee Public Museum, with its large-scale European Village and a recreation of old Milwaukee.

Area: 250.7 km²
Population: 592,649 (2020)
Mayor: Cavalier Johnson
Neighborhoods: Historic Third Ward, Bay View, Northridge, MORE