Milwaukee

The manufactures of the city are many and varied. The large brewing industry for which it was famous was dissipated by the national legislation following the adoption of the 18th amendment to the Constitution ; but even at its height the manufacture of beer was less important than many of its other industries. In the year ending June 3o, 1918, just before the prohibitory legislation, the output of the breweries was 2,900,000 bbl., valued at $22, 500,000, but this was probably less than 4% of the aggregate output of all the factories. The total factory product in 1935 was valued at $381,167,956. Chief among the manufactures are heavy machinery (cranes and hoists, steam shovels, excavators and dredges, steam and water turbines, hydraulic electric units, rock and ore crushers, mining, milling, refrigerating and agricul tural machinery of all kinds), tinware and enamelled ware, leather, motorcycles and automobile frames, meat-packing and knit goods. Since repeal, the distilling industry is regaining its former importance. The city's position as a grain and live stock centre is shown by figures covering 1936 receipts: wheat, 3,687,124 bu. ; corn, 7,077,985 bu.; oats, 923,77o bu.; barley, 29,323,117 bu. ; rye, 574,115 bu.; hogs, 1,061,459; cattle, 304,357; sheep, 1'5,1'8; and calves, 412,036. Coal receipts reached tons.

History.

In 1673 Father Marquette and Louis Joliet, return ing to the mission of St. Francis Xavier at De Pere from their trip down the Mississippi, skirted the west shore of Lake Michigan in their canoes. Milwaukee bay is distinctly marked on the map attributed to Marquette which was discovered in a convent in Montreal and is now in the Jesuit college in that city. La Salle and his party probably stopped here on their way south in 1679, and the name first appears ("Millioke") in the Jesuit Relations of that year. This and the numerous other variants were attempts to transliterate the Indian name (meaning "good lands") of the village which the white men found here. The first Englishman known to have visited the spot was the adventurous trader, Alex ander Henry, in 176o. There is record of a French fur-trading post in 1763. In 1795 Jacques Vieau established a permanent post for the North-Western Fur Company, which he seems to have kept up until it was superseded in 182o by one belonging to Astor's American Fur Company. Vieau built a dwelling and a warehouse and engaged in extensive trading operations. In 1818 there arrived a young Frenchman, Laurent Solomon Juneau (1793-1856), who married one of Vieau's daughters and eventu ally bought out his business. The settlement was on the direct line of travel from Ft. Dearborn (Chicago) and Green Bay, and as

soon as the Indian titles were extinguished by the treaties of 1831 and 1833 with the Menominee, colonists began to come to the neighbourhood. In 1833 Morgan L. Martin (1805-87) of Green Bay explored the harbour, made a map of the place, and entered into an agreement with Juneau and Michael Dousman for its development. A saw-mill was built in 1834. The east side was platted in the summer of 1835, and the west side a little later (by Byron Kilbourn). The rival settlements, officially Milwaukee East Side and Milwaukee West Side, were popularly known as Juneautown and Kilbourntown. A third, called Walker's Point, was established on the south side by George H. Walker. The east side and the west side towns had bitter quarrels, especially over the building of bridges, for their streets, having been surveyed independently, did not come out at the same point on the river. They were separately incorporated as townships of Milwaukee county in 1837, but in 1839 united as wards of the same village, each one keeping complete financial and administrative autonomy of its own affairs. Walker's Point was annexed as a third ward in 1845, and in 1846 the three were incorporated as the city of Mil waukee, of which Solomon Juneau was elected the first mayor. The first vessel anchored in Milwaukee bay in 1779. A Chicago packet entered the river in 1823. The first newspaper, the Mil waukee Advertiser, began publication on July 14, 1836, and a public school was opened in that year. In 1839 George Smith and Alexander Mitchell established the Fire and Marine Insurance Bank, which for 4o years was one of the strongest banking houses west of the Alleghenies. Its notes passed at par through panics under which even Government issues depreciated, and it financed the "Milwaukee" and other western railways. The first brewery was built in 1840, by Owens and Pawlett. Connection was estab lished with Chicago by telegraph in 1849; by railway in 1856. About 1840 began a stream of immigration from Germany, which was accelerated by the revolutionary movements of 1848 and continued for half a century. In 1900, out of a total population of 285,315-53,854 had been born in Germany, and 151,045 more had one or both parents of German birth, making a total of 72% who were either German by birth or of the "first generation." The population of the city has grown steadily from the beginning. By 186o it had reached the total of 45,246, and the increase in succeeding decades was 58%, 77%, 31%, 22%, and 26% for 1920-3o.