From the shore of the lake the land rises, rather abruptly in most places, to a height of from 75 to 100 ft. From a broad plateau overlooking the lake the land slopes gradually westward to the river, again rising on the north, west and south to a height of 125 ft. or more. The rivers separate the city into three distinctly marked divisions of varying character known as the east, west and south sides. The manufactories are largely on the “flats” along the rivers and on the south side. The extensive use as building material of cream-coloured brick made in the vicinity gives the city its nickname, “the Cream City.”
The city has many beautiful parks and squares, the most picturesque of which is Juneau Park, along the lake bluff. It contains statues of Leif Ericsson and Solomon Juneau. Other parks are Lake Park, also on the lake shore, at North Point, where stands the waterworks pumping station with its tall tower; Riverside and Kilbourn Parks, east and west respectively of the upper Milwaukee river, in the northern part of the city, Washington Park on the west side, containing a menagerie and a herd of deer; Sherman Park on the west side, and Kosciusko, Humboldt and Mitchell Parks on the south side. McKinley Park on the lake shore south of the city, and Whitefish Bay 6 m. north of the city, are popular bathing resorts. In addition to the statues in Juneau Park there is a statue of Kosciusko in the park of that name; one of Washington and a soldiers’ monument on Grand Avenue; a statue of Henry Bergh in front of the city hall; one of Robert Burns in the First Ward Park, and, in Washington Park, a replica of Ernst Rietschel’s Schiller-Goethe monument in Jena, given to the city in 1908 by the Germans of Milwaukee. Of the several cemeteries, that of Forest Home, south-west of the city, is the largest and most beautiful. The city is well sewered, and has an excellent water-supply system owned by the municipality and representing an investment of more than $5,000,000. The water is obtained from Lake Michigan through an intake far out in the lake. Through a tunnel 12 m. long, constructed in 1888, water is pumped by means of one of the largest single pumps in the world from the lake into the upper Milwaukee river, which is thus completely flushed by fresh water every twenty-four hours.
Milwaukee is one of the most healthful of the larger cities of the United States. Its average annual death-rate for 1900–1904 was 13·6. The proximity of Lake Michigan cools the atmosphere in summer and tempers the cold in winter. As a result, the extremes of heat and cold are not as great as those in most inland cities. The mean monthly temperatures vary between 20° in January and 70° in July, with extremes of 100° and −25°. The mean annual precipitation is 31·4 in.
Suburbs.—Milwaukee proper occupies 2212 sq. m., a small area as compared with other cities near it in population—Detroit (36 sq. m.) and Washington, D.C. (6914 sq. m.). As a result, the population has overflowed into several populous suburbs industrially a part of a “greater” Milwaukee. Of these by far the most important are the township of Wauwatosa (pop., 1905, 11,132; 1910, 11,536), and the city of the same name, separated from the township in 1897 and having in 1910 a population of 3346; the city and township are on the Menominee river, immediately adjoining the city on the west. The first settlement was made here in 1835. Wauwatosa has important manufactures, including machinery, brick, lime, beer, chemicals and wooden-ware, and extensive market gardens and nurseries and valuable stone quarries. It has a Carnegie library, and is the seat of an Evangelical Lutheran theological seminary (1865), of Lutheran homes for the aged and orphan, of the Milwaukee county hospital for the insane, of the Milwaukee sanatorium for nervous diseases, and of the north-western branch of the national soldiers’ home, which has grounds covering 385 acres and with main building and barracks affording quarters for over 2000 disabled veterans, and has a hospital, a theatre, and a library of 15,000 volumes. Within the limits of Wauwatosa also are the State Fair grounds. Other suburbs are West Allis pop., 1905, 2306; U. S. census 1910, 6645), an incorporated rapidly growing manufacturing city on the west; Cudahy (pop., 1910, 3691), a manufacturing village south of Milwaukee, largely devoted to meat packing; South Milwaukee (pop. 1910, 6092), an incorporated city with several large manufactories, and North Milwaukee (pop., 1910, 1860), a village immediately adjoining the city on the north.
Public Buildings, Institutions, &c.—The principal public building in the city is the Federal building (1895–1898), the post office, custom-house and local headquarters for the United States courts. The public library and museum, on the north side of Grand Avenue, in addition to an excellent collection of natural history, palaeontology &c., contained in 1909 a library of about 190,000 volumes The city hall on the east side is surmounted by a tall clock-tower containing one of the largest bells in the world. The Layton Art Gallery contains one of the best collections of paintings west of the Alleghanies. The chamber of commerce, and the Pabst, Mitchell, North-Western Life Insurance, Germania Sentinel and Wells buildings, are among the principal business structures. In Milwaukee are St John’s Roman Catholic Cathedral and All Saints Protestant Episcopal Cathedral—the city is the see of a Roman Catholic archbishopric (established in 1892) and of a Protestant Episcopal bishopric. Among other church structures are Plymouth Congregational, Westminster Presbyterian, Church of Gesu (Roman Catholic) and Trinity Lutheran. The hotels include the Pfister on the east side and the Plankinton, the Republican and the Schlitz on the west side. Among the theatres are the Davidson, Majestic, Schubert Bijou, Alhambra and the Pabst German. During the summer there are open-air theatres in several private parks or “gardens.” The social clubs include the Milwaukee, Deutscher-Concordia, University and Marquette clubs. The predominance of Germanic influence in the city is evidenced by at least 75 musical clubs and numerous Turnverein societies. There are 12 hospitals (3 of them city institutions), 6 orphan asylums, 4 homes for the aged, a foundlings’ home and a state industrial school for girls.
The educational institutions are numerous. Marquette University was established in 1906 by a union of Marquette College (1881) a Roman Catholic school of high rank, and existing schools of medicine pharmacy, dentistry and law; in 1908 it added a department of engineering, and in that year it had 81 instructors and 630 students. Milwaukee-Downer College (for girls), in the north-east part of the city was established in 1895 by a consolidation of Milwaukee College for girls, and Downer College, formerly at Fox Lake. Other institutions are Concordia College (1881, Lutheran), a state normal school (1880), the Wisconsin College of physicians and surgeons (1893), the national German-American teachers’ seminary (normal), Milwaukee academy (1864), Milwaukee University school, Milwaukee school of engineering (1904), Milwaukee Turnverein school of physical culture, one of the largest schools of the sort in the United States, St John’s Catholic institute, Our Lady of Mercy academy (Roman Catholic), Wisconsin academy of music, the Wisconsin school of art (art students’ league), a Catholic normal school, St Rose’s manual training school, the industrial chemical institute (the only technical school for brewers in the United States) and several business and commercial schools. At St Francis, adjoining the city on the south, is the seminary of St Francis of Sales (Roman Catholic), and St Joseph’s institute for deaf mutes (Roman Catholic). The Milwaukee public school system comprises four high schools, a high school of trades, and in addition to the ordinary grades, a kindergarten department and day schools for the blind and deaf.
Transportation.—Milwaukee is favourably situated commercially, with excellent facilities for shipping both by lake and rail afforded by four trunk lines and a dozen lines of lake steamboats. It is served by the Chicago & North-Western, the Chicago, Milwaukee & St Paul, the Minneapolis, St Paul & Sault Ste Marie, the Grand Trunk, and the Père Marquette railways. The last-named connects with the main line at Ludington, Michigan, by means of a railway ferry across Lake. Michigan; the Grand Trunk has a railway ferry from Milwaukee to Grand Haven. The city’s extensive street railway system connects with interurban electric lines leading to Waukesha, Oconomowoc and Watertown on the west, Sheboygan and Fond du Lac on the north, and Chicago and intermediate points along the lake shore on the south.
Trade and Commerce.—Commercially Milwaukee is one of the most important of the inland cities of the United States, although its trade it largely domestic. It is a distributing point for a considerable part of Wisconsin, and several states farther west, its wholesale business aggregating about $350,000,000 annually. The country produce sold in Milwaukee averages about $75,000,000 a year in value. The chief commodities of trade are coal, grain, lumber, flour and various products of the city’s own manufactories. Milwaukee is an important grain shipping port—in 1908 it shipped 28,618,519 bushels of grain and 3,752,033 barrels of flour, and its 25 elevators have a capacity of over 12,500,000 bushels. It is one of the largest distributing centres in the country for coal, which is received by lake, and stored in enormous coal docks for trans-shipment by rail throughout the west and north-west. The city is a port of entry, and in 1908 its imports were valued at $3,080,437, and its exports at only $75,525.
Manufactures.—In 1905 the total value of Milwaukee’s factory products was $138,881,545, 25·3% more than in 1900. In the manufacture of malt liquors and malt Milwaukee stands first among the cities of the United States and of the world. The total value of these products for 1905 was $29,909,248, of which $22,134,580 was the value of malt liquors and $3,774,668 was the value of malt. In 1905 Milwaukee manufactured 77·1% of the malt liquors manufactured in the state and 7·4% of the entire product of the United States. Other products exceeding $1,000,000 in value were: leather ($14,074,397), Milwaukee being second in the manufacture of leather among the cities of the United States; foundry and machine
