The New Student's Reference Work/Milwaukee

Milwaukee (mĭl-wa′kḗ), the largest city in Wisconsin, is on Lake Michigan, 85 miles north of Chicago. It is at the mouth of three navigable rivers, which with a canal, make 24 miles of docks. Milwaukee Bay is seven miles wide, and furnishes a good harbor. The bluffs are terraced and parked, and stand 80 feet above the water. The city is built largely of what is known as Milwaukee brick, which is cream-colored, and gives the city its name of the Cream City. It is six and a half miles long, its extreme width five and a quarter miles, and its area 23.1 square miles. There are 600 acres of public parks connected by boulevards, wide, shaded streets, good water-works and many fine public buildings. Among these are the Federal building, a public library, city hall, art-gallery, and the great Milwaukee Auditorium. Near the city is the national home for disabled soldiers, with 2,400 inmates. Milwaukee has many charitable and philanthropic institutions, orphan homes, public bath-houses, swimming-schools, medical schools and 10 or 12 hospitals. Milwaukee has a well-organized system of public schools: four high schools, 55 schools of lower grade, 1,113 teachers and 41,500 pupils. There are 75 incorporated colleges, academies and lower schools with an attendance of 47,600 It is the seat of Milwaukee-Downer College for women, Marquette College (R. C.), Layton Art-Gallery and other institutions of higher learning. It has a very complete system of water works, costing over $8,000,000, and over 150 miles of electric street-railway. Milwaukee is one of the foremost grain-ports of the world, and its immense flour-mills and grain-elevators can fit out an extensive commercial fleet. It has 3,600 manufacturing establishments, with 130,388 employes, making large quantities of leather and leather goods, iron, steel and brass products, engines and machinery. The capital invested in manufactures is $269,308,659, and the annual output $420,116,266. It has an enormous beer-trade, the Pabst brewery being one of the largest in the world and filling over 1,000,000 barrels a year. It also has a large trade in factory clothing, tobacco and cigars, in agricultural implements, furniture and carriages, besides its extensive slaughtering and meat-packing products. The city has a large German population, which is seen in the many foreign signs met with and also in the high development of art and music in city circles. The town was settled in 1818, organized as a village in 1837, and became a city in 1845. It enjoys a steady and substantial growth, and its financial credit is of the highest. The assessed value of the city's entire taxable property in 1912 was over $450,000,000. Milwaukee is served by the “Soo” line, the Chicago and Northwestern and the Chicago, Milwaukee and St. Paul road. It also has a large lake-trade. Population 373,857.