Wisconsin Marine Historical Society - Maritime Milwaukee

Milwaukees first settlers were Native Americans, chiefly the Potawatomi, Ottawa, Ojibway, and Menominee; the Potawatomi was the dominant group. The rivers followed pretty much the same course as today, but their original outlet was at about the present Lincoln Avenue Viaduct. The rivers together with Lake Michigan constituted the Native American highways, and these continued to serve as the routes for the first commerce in the area. A schooner found shelter in the river mouth as early as 1778, but European settlement did not begin until after 1818, when Solomon Juneau established the first trading post in the area.

Jones Island was always a peninsula, but it was connected to the mainland at its north end, rather than at the south as it is today. Early on, piers were built at the natural harbor mouth, but the whole thing proved unsatisfactory. Most of the land surrounding the rivers, including Jones Island, was swamp. The Native Americans together with the earliest European settlers lived on the bluffs to the north and on higher ground to the west. They only visited Jones Island to fish, hunt, and to harvest the wild rice.

The harbor at the south end of Jones Island was inconvenient, and the earliest commercial pier in the lake was North Pier. It was built in 1842 at Huron Street, about where Discovery World is located today. A better solution, moving the river mouth closer to the settlement, was accomplished with the straight cut channel, which was completed in 1858 after four years of digging. Unfortunately few photographs exist from this early period. The straight cut opened the city to large ships and was really the start of the Port of Milwaukee. It remains, after 150 years, as todays harbor entrance.

The straight cut transformed Jones Island into a real island, which it remained until the original channel silted in. One of the earliest industries on the island was a shipyard that was begun by Capt. James Monroe Jones, the source of the islands name. Until ruined by the 1857 financial panic and the big storm of 1858, he built at least two dozen vessels on the island.

In the 1870s, fishermen from Kaszuby, part of Polands Baltic coast, and Northern Germany settled on the island as squatters. They apparently never secured title to the land, continuing on with their pioneer style of life into the 1930s, when they were expelled, ostensibly for their own good but probably to allow industrial expansion of the port. Due in part to Dr. Ruth Kriehns book, The Fisher Folk of Jones Island , today they remain popular in Milwaukee folk history.

Here is a map of Milwaukee settlement in 1835. The mouth of the Milwaukee River is far to the south of its current location. There are no harbor piers and no straight cut and likewise no Jones Island. The small island in the river mouth was uninhabited. Pictured are the founders of the three communities that coalesced to form the city of Milwaukee, G. H. Walker (above left), Byron Kilbourn (below left), and Soloman Juneau (right). (Date of photograph: unidentified; photographer: Brown and Rehbaum.)

This map dates to around 1848. The port was served by two small piers and a dredged opening to the south at the original river mouth; it was improved, but not by much. Jones Island was still mostly given over to wild rice. (Date of photograph: unidentified; photographer: D. W. Chipman.)

A lithograph shows the Port of Milwaukee around 1870, with piers adjoining the straight cut that lead into the confluence of the Milwaukee, Menomonee, and Kinnickinnic Rivers. Today most of the area landward of the ends of the piers is landfill. (Date of calendar: unidentified; photographer: unidentified.)

This is north of the harbor entrance around 1892. The railroad was already servicing the lakefront. Note that the outer harbor is filled with schooners, but there are no steamers in sight. (Date of photograph: c. 1892; photographer: unidentified.)

This view looking toward the lake, just north of the harbor entrance, shows the pier with a lighthouse, foghorn, and the Coast Guard station around 1900. A tug is towing in a schooner. (Date of photograph: unidentified; photographer: unidentified.)