USA > Wisconsin > Milwaukee County > Memoirs of Milwaukee County : from the earliest historical times down to the present, including a genealogical and biographical record of representative families in Milwaukee County, Volume I > Part 32
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MILWAUKEE CITY
The works were in charge of a board of water commissioners until Jan. 1, 1875, since which time they have been in charge of the city engineer and board of public works. Edward O'Neill was presi- dent of the water commissioners : Moses Lane, chief engineer ; David Ferguson, treasurer; Mathew Keenan, secretary; and the membership included E. H. Brodhead, George Burnham, Alexander Mitchell, John Plankinton, Frederick Pabst, Guido Pfister and James C. Spencer. The commission erected temporary pumping works on the west side of the river above North avenue bridge, and put a 1,500,000 gallon pump into operation on Oct. 24, 1873, and let the water from the reservoir into the fifty-five miles of water pipes on Nov. 3, 1873. On Sept. 14, 1874, the pumping engines at North Point were started, a year and seven months from the time ground was broken. The cost of the temporary plant, which was abandoned, was $6,067.09. The 175-foot water tower was finished in 1874. The stand-pipe holds 12,000 gallons and the top of the pipe is 210 feet above the lake. The North Point station, prior to 1908, cost the city $881,295.53, and it was considerably enlarged during the past summer. In 1877 a high service station was established at Chestnut and Eighteenth streets, and was continued in use from July, 1877, to Sept. 29, 1887. Then a new high service station was erected at Tenth street and North avenue, and the 3,000,000-gallon pump was moved from the old plant. The average head maintained at this station is 220 feet above the datum- line. There are now four pumps in the plant of 25,000,000 gallons daily total capacity. The station has cost $183,102.59. At North Point there is a machine shop and both the North Point and high service stations are lighted with electricity from plants located in the buildings. The old intake at North Point was thirty-six inches in diameter and extended 2,100 feet out in the lake. The new intake cost $689,948.03 and over a score of lives of workingmen. It is brick, seven and one-half feet in diameter, 140 feet below the lake surface and 3,200 feet long to the crib, from which point two five-foot iron pipes extend 5,000 feet out into the lake, making the total length 8,200 feet. This intake was begun on July 23, 1890, and finished on Sept. 25, 1895. The construction was in charge of City Engineer George H. Benzenberg, for many years the head of the water department, and whose progressive policy has been continued with unabated vigor by his successor, Charles J. Poetsch. The reservoir, built upon a natural hill in Kilbourn park, holds 21,500 gallons and cost $172,339.56. The water department keeps the grounds about its stations in fine shape, making them parks in fact. It provides excellent bathroom facilities in the stations for its employes. It furnishes water to the citizens at
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a very low rate, and fire protection is had at 2,891 hydrants. It is in many respects a model municipal utility. It has had the great advan- tage of municipal ownership, and its mains reach nearly every corner of the city and far beyond the corporation limits in some instances. It has tunnels under the rivers to carry its pipes far below the keels of ships, and its pumps work ceaselessly day and night, but it has such reserve power that never are all the pumps running at once. Prob- ably no department of the city government, say its admirers, has been developed to such a high state of efficiency during the past twenty-five years as the water department. It pays the interest on its small debt, it is claimed, pays for extending its system, and in addition has handed over to the general city government nearly $1,000,000 in the past ten years. The average daily consumption of water in Milwaukee last year was 33.729,944 gallons. The total amount of water pumped in 1907 was 12.311,429.760 gallons, and sixty-one per cent. of this was metered. Every resident is regarded as a consumer of water from the municipal water works, and the number of wells is so small that they are not taken into account. Water consumers paid the city $531,- 191.06 last year and the whole income of the water department was $650,788.10. The department paid out $511,823.32, the actual cost of operation being $198.942.21. One of the big expenses of the department was $207.387.25 for construction work in extending the system, and the balance on hand was $138,823.32. The city has five pumping engines at the North Point station, and they have a daily capacity of 66,000,000 gallons. Engine No. 6 is about completed, and this will increase the pumping capacity to 86,000,000 gallons a day. This immense capacity is not for Milwaukee alone, but the city supplies many of its neighboring municipalities with water.
Closely allied to Milwaukee's water-works system, and quite as essential, is the sewerage system, than which no city can boast a more perfect one, and few equally complete and satisfactory. Prior to 1869, however, the city had no definite plan for sewerage ; and although the population then numbered 68,000, but little more than three miles of sewers had been built. In that year, a general sewerage system covering four and a half square miles in the heart of the city, and designed by E. S. Chesbrough, city engineer of Chicago, was adopted. This system has been extended from time to time and now covers the whole area of the city. The sewage was originally emptied into the Milwaukee, Menomonee, and Kinnickinnic rivers to be thence carried by them into the lake; but these streams being sluggish and also receiving the refuse from factories situated along their banks, the water became so polluted as to be made a subject of earnest public
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complaint. Finally. in 1880, a plan was adopted which provided for the construction of an intercepting sewer from the lake at a point south of the harbor, westward into the packing house district, and the next year the work of construction began. But it was a number of years before the problem of taking care of the city's sewage and at the same time keeping the streams free from pollution was solved. At length, however, and in the face of bitter opposition from those who failed to see the practicability of the plan, a flushing system was devised to clear the rivers of putrid matter. Each year witnesses an extension of the sewerage system to meet the growing demands, and it is a matter of civic pride that this, like Milwaukee's water-supply system, is equaled in completeness and utility by few and surpassed by none.
For many years the municipal offices of the city of Milwaukee were for the most part located in the court-house ; but the rapid devel- opment of the city and the vast increase of municipal business long ago outgrew the limited facilities and space there afforded, and an urgent need of a permanent building, in which the business of the city's various departments could be transacted and her records be preserved, began to be felt. This demand for a substantial and per- manent home assumed definite shape in 1893, when it was decided to erect a building that should be in all respects worthy of the city. The site selected was the triangular block bounded on the west by East Water street, on the north by Biddle and on the east by Market street. The building was constructed by Paul Riesen, after plans and specifications prepared by Messrs. H. C. Koch and H. J. Esser, and it presents an appearance at once substantial, imposing, handsome, and unique. The style of architecture is the modern renaissance. The heavy foundation rests on over 25,000 piles, which are driven to depths sufficient to prevent any material settling of the superstructure. The building has a frontage of 330 feet on East Water, 105 feet on Biddle, and 316 feet on Market, and is eight stories in height. The basement and first two stories are of granite and limestone, and the other six stories are of pressed brick and terra cotta. The building terminates at the south end in a massive tower, fifty-six feet square and rising to the height of 350 feet, and which is built of steel, stone and brick. Besides the council chamber, which is 50x100 feet with ceiling of thirty feet, on the the seventh floor there is a public hall suitable for large assemblages. The building is supplied with nu- merous massive vaults, and the interior arrangements throughout have been constructed after the most carefully studied plans, with a view to convenience, comfort, and artistic effect, with the result that every- thing has been secured that seemingly could be desired. The cost of
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the building was about $900,000, and at the time of its completion it was considered the finest public building of its class in the west.
Prior to their occupancy of the court-house, the city officials had various habitations. On what seems to be good authority, it is related that the first meetings of the common council of Milwaukee were held in the basement of the old Methodist church on Spring street (now Grand avenue). These meetings were held immediately after the organization of the city government, and a little later the "City Fathers" occupied quarters over George F. Oakley's livery stable, which occupied a portion of the ground on which the Plankinton House has since been built. In 1850 they were driven from these quarters by a fire, and were later domiciled in the Martin block, at the corner of Wisconsin and East Water streets, and still later in the Cross block, at the corner of East Water and Huron streets. The Cross block was destroyed by fire in 1860, and many valuable city records were lost. Immediately thereafter some of the city offices were established in what had been known as Market Hall, built in Market Square in 1852, to be used as a city market. In 1861, the Common Council began holding its meetings in the same building, which became known as the old city hall. This building was occupied by all the city offices until 1872, when some of them were removed to the court-house, the others continuing to occupy the quarters until the old city hall was torn down to make room for the present city hall, which was completed in 1895.
The first government office established in Milwaukee was the postoffice, and the first building for that use was at the corner of East Water and Wisconsin streets, which building was owned by Solomon Juneau, who was appointed postmaster by President Jackson in Decem- ber, 1834. Mr. Juneau's term of service continued from the summer of 1835, when his commission reached him, until Aug. 7, 1843. His suc- cessors have been : 1843 to 1849, Josiah A. Noonan ; 1849 to 1851, Elisha Staar; a short time in 1851, John H. Tweedy; 1851 to 1853, James D. Merrill ; 1853 to 1857, Josiah A. Noonan ; 1857 to 1858, John R. Sharpstein ; 1858 to 1861, Mitchell Steever; in charge for several months as special agent in 1861, William A. Bryan; 1861 to 1864, John Lockwood; 1864 to 1868, C. R. Wells; 1868 to 1870, Henry A. Starr ; 1870 to 1876, Samuel C. West; 1876 to 1885, Henry C. Payne ; 1885 to 1889. George H. Paul: 1889 to 1894, W. A. Nowell; 1894 to 1898, George W. Porth; 1898 to 1906. Ellicott R. Stillman; and the present incumbent, David C. Owen, who received his commission in 1906.
Shortly after the office was established in Milwaukee it was re-
THE BEW PUBLI ZIERE.
ASCR, L == TILDEN HOL
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JUNEAU AVENUE AND LEIF ERICSON MONUMENT
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moved from its first location to Mr. Juneau's store, which stood on the site of the present Pabst building. It was removed from that place to a building erected specially for it by Mr. Juneau, on Wisconsin street, where the First National Bank now stands. When Mr. Noonan assumed the duties of the office, in 1843, he moved it to the City Hotel on the corner of Mason and East Water streets, and afterward changed it to John H. Tweedy's block on Wisconsin street, whence it was moved by Mr. Merrill to the northwest corner of Mason and East Water streets, where it remained until the government building, at the north- west corner of Wisconsin and Milwaukee streets, was finished and taken possession of on Jan. 1, 1859. This building gave ample accom- modations for transacting the business necessary at that time, but with the phenomenal growth of the city and the enlargement of the de- mands upon the postoffice, to meet the urgent need the United States government decided upon a new building. In 1888, a bill was intro- duced in Congress by Hon. Isaac W. Van Schaick, and the same was passed, making an appropriation of $1,200,000 for the purpose, which amount, with the $235,000 for which the old building and site were sold, gave an available building fund of $1,435,000. The site of the building is the block bounded by Wisconsin, Jackson, Michigan, and Jefferson streets, and was secured at a total cost of about $400,000. Work was commenced in March, 1893. The building is four stories in height above the basement and covers an area of 210 feet square. Wisconsin granite is used in the walls of the basement story and Maine granite in the stories above. The style of architecture is the modern renaissance, being a combination of various styles, at once ornamental, substantial, and impressive. A chief architectural feature is the mas- sive tower, rising on the Wisconsin street side to a height of 244 feet. On this side also is the main entrance, reached through a spacious portico, whose broad arches and ornate balustrade are supported by massive polished marble and carved granite columns, and to which leads broad, gradually-rising granite steps. In the center of the build- ing is an area about 100 feet square, from the top of the first story up- ward, covered with glass. The building throughout is finished and furnished after the most approved style, and gives the government's postal service and other offices in Milwaukee a home commensurate with their importance and dignity, and it is also worthy of the city.
PUBLIC PARKS.
Milwaukee has a park system almost unrivalled. It consists of 974 acres, scattered through fifteen of the twenty-three wards of the
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city, and there is not a man, woman or child living in any part of Mil- waukee who cannot reach an open space of grass, water and fresh air in a five minutes' walk from home. And most of the park lands have been purchased by the city within the last quarter century. Previous to 1889 Milwaukee had a park system consisting of little triangles, odd corners and patches-so small that they looked like specks on the map of the city-aggregating about fifty-nine acres, which shows that. within the last twenty years over one and one-quarter square miles has been added. It was in 1889 that Milwaukeeans awoke to a realization that the city needed parks. Long before that time the court-house square, the First ward park, the Fourth ward park, Kilbourn, Juneau, Walker, Waterworks, Flushing Tunnel, Clarke and Grand avenue parks, as well as the triangles at Lincoln street and First and Chicago avenues, and at Mitchell street, Kinnickinnic avenue, and Clinton street had been donated to the city ; and these, eleven in number, still remain under the direction of the proper officials. Four of them are sufficiently large and pretentious to be properly called parks, and these are: Kil- bourn Park (twenty-nine and sixteen one-hundredths acres), some five acres of which were donated by the late Byron Kilbourn. This fine park surrounds the water reservoir in the Thirteenth ward, the park itself being partly in that ward and partly in the Sixth. The park has fine trees and shrubbery, with flower beds, an excellent driveway and gravel walks. The reservoir, with its placid sheet of water elevated high in the air, is in itself a feature of great beauty. The walks on top of this reservoir afford a splendid view of the city. Juneau Park contains thirteen and seventy-five one-hundredths acres. This is situated on the lake front, extending with varying breadth from Wisconsin street to Juneau avenue, exactly half a mile. It has no trees, but it is ornamented with flower beds, a grotto, a bridge, a high liberty pole, gravel walks, and toward the north two statues, one of Solomon Juneau and the other of Lief Erickson, this latter being a replica of Miss Whitney's Boston statue. The Flushing Tunnel Park (between six and eight acres, and constantly growing larger by the accretion of land made by the lake) is situated around and above the flushing tunnel works. The buildings of the works, situated below the bluff, and a driveway proceeding down to the beach from LaFayette Place, are bordered with grass and flower beds. The Waterworks Park contains four and seventy-five one-hundredths acres. This lovely park in the Eighteenth ward is situated around and above the chief pumping works, which are situated so low down that they are nearly out of sight from the upper portion of this park, which is eighty feet above the lake and contains the water tower surrounded by shrub- bery and lawns.
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As above stated, these four are the only ones sufficiently large in extent to deserve the name of parks, and the seven which we will now mention are in reality only ornamental city squares. They are : Grand Avenue Park (about one acre), which is in reality only a broad grass plot ornamented with handsome flower beds and a statue of Washington, donated by Miss Plankinton. It extends on Grand avenue from Ninth to Eleventh streets, the driveway being on each side. Court-House Square (one and ten one-hundredths acres) is in front of the court-house in the Seventh ward, and contains some of the finest old trees in the city. A handsome fountain ornaments it. Walker and Clark parks (each two and ten one-hundredths acres) are both situated in the Eighth ward and are partially improved with grass, fountains and some flowers. Fourth Ward Park (one and one-half acres) is in front of the St. Paul railroad station and is improved with grass plots, trees, walks, etc. The handsome Emergency Hospital, the site of which was donated by John Johnston, occupies the north side of this square, opposite the station. First Ward Park, containing three-fourths of an acre, is situated at the head of Prospect avenue in the triangle formed by the junction of the avenue with Franklin street. It contains fine trees, flower beds and a handsome fountain. This little but delightfully situated park was donated to the city by the late James H. Rogers. Lincoln Park, containing five and nine one- hundredths acres, is in the Eighteenth ward, and with Fifth Ward Park completes the list up to 1889.
Prior to the year named there was no park board, and the only way Milwaukee had of getting parks was by donations from generous citizens. In that year, however. Christian Wahl, Louis Auer, Moses H. Brand, and Theobald Otjen, headed the movement which was to result in the establishment of the present park system. Together with other prominent Milwaukee business men, these gentlemen urged the passing of the bill by which the city was enabled to purchase, main- tain, and govern park lands. But unfortunately the law was so drawn up that Milwaukee had no jurisdiction beyond the city limits. More- over, the city was confined to the territory north of North avenue and south of the Menomonee river, making it impossible to obtain land on the West side. But the act permitted Milwaukee to issue bonds to the amount of $100.000 for parks within the prescribed territory. It was provided that the park board should consist of five members, and Mayor Thomas H. Brown appointed on the first board Christian Wahl, Calvin E. Lewis, Charles Manegold, Jr., Louis Auer, and John Bentley. Mr. Wahl, the father of the park system, was chosen chair- man of the board. In 1890 the board bought 124 acres of what is
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now Lake Park. The same year, twenty-four acres, constituting Riverside Park and twenty-five acres of Mitchell Park were purchased. John L. Mitchell gave a tract of five acres adjoining, the following year, and the park was named in his honor. It was not rounded out until 1900, when the city purchased from the Wisconsin Fire Insur- ance bank twenty-eight acres adjoining the old park. In the spring of 1906 five more acres was added on the south side. This piece was transferred to the city by the Milwaukee Southern Railway Company in accordance with a franchise given to the company by the city. In , lieu of this tract the company was to get a strip sixty-six feet wide off the northern end of the park for right-of-way, provided that the railroad was built within the city limits and over the strip conditionally trans- ferred to the Milwaukee Southern within three years of the granting of the franchise. The company has some time yet in which to com- plete the work, otherwise the strip reverts to the city. Mitchell Park now contains fifty-eight acres.
Kosciusko Park in the Fourteenth ward, between Lincoln avenue and Beecher street, and Fifth and Second avenues, another late acquisition, contains thirty-seven acres, twenty-six of which were pur- chased in 1890. The remainder was bought in 1902. The Seventeenth ward, or what was formerly Bay View, has Humboldt Park, contain- ing forty-six acres, purchased in 1890. It answers truly a great need on the South side and is located between Oklahoma avenue and Idaho street extension, and Howell and Logan avenues.
Two years after the passing of the first park commission law, an amendment was passed giving the city the right to purchase park lands anywhere in Milwaukee county. A supplementary act provided for the issuing of bonds, in the sum of $150,000, of which amount one- third was to be used for buying park lands on the West side. The amended law of 1891 authorized the park commission to levy an annual tax of not to exceed a half-mill to be used for the maintenance and improvement of the park system. The method which has pre- vailed in the purchasing of park lands makes the council the only body authorized to buy the land, while the park commission is the controlling body which sanctions and recommends the purchases.
One of the latest and perhaps the most important acquisition of the commission is Washington Park, also known as the West Park, the last section of which was acquired in 1902. The park now con- tains 148 acres, and includes an artificial lake and the zoological garden. Like most of the other parks it is well covered with trees and may quite appropriately be called the children's park. It is located in the Nineteenth ward and is bounded on the south by Vliet street,
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on the north by Pabst avenue, on the west by Forty-seventh street, and on the east by a line 100 feet west of Fortieth street. Sherman Park in the Twenty-second ward was bought in the early nineties. It con- tains twenty-four acres and lies between Sherman boulevard and Forty-first street. In 1898 the city turned over to the park board a tri- angular piece of four acres in the Eighteenth ward, known as Lincoln Park, which has been heretofore mentioned, and which lies near Mary- land and Bradford avenues.
All the park lands of the city acquired prior to 1889 and amount- ing to fifty-nine acres, are not under the control of the park commis- sion, but all of the land bought since then, aggregating in 1907 the amount of 530 acres, is ruled over by the commission of five. For some years prior to 1907 the commission had been slack in acquiring additional lands, but the annexing of the tract of 180 acres, known as the Lindwurm farm, in that year, made up for the delinquency. Besides the Lindwurm farm, in 1907, the city also bought the Reynolds tract of eighty acres ; the Gordon place, opposite Riverside Park and east of the Milwaukee river ; the Baker tract of a little more than two acres in the Twentieth ward, near the North Division high school building : seven acres adjoining the Twentieth district school on Bur- leigh and Twenty-fourth streets, and a one and a half-acre piece in the Twenty-first ward adjoining the ward school. The entire amount of park lands purchased during the year 1907 aggregates 285 acres, making the total park lands of Milwaukee 816 acres, and the city obligated itself for $434,422.75, which added to $1,338,982.45, the amount of the purchases up to 1907, makes $1,773,405.20, the entire amount of money spent by the city for the purchase of park lands, nearly all of which has been expended in the last twenty years. It can be a matter of great pride to Milwaukee that the total indebted- ness of the city for park lands at the beginning of the present year was only $859,737.90.
Milwaukee parks compare favorably with those of other cities, and it is doubtful whether the sunken garden of Mitchell Park is excelled by any other park landscape features in the Northwest. Its sloping sides, covered with roses of varied colors in fancy designs, extend to the graveled walk around the lily pond, where all the water lilies which thrive in this climate grow. Humboldt Park has both an open and a closed pavilion, a children's pavilion, a boat house and a refresh- ment stand. Lake Park has one of the prettiest golf courses in the state. The pavilion there shelters hundreds of people and at the ter- minus of the street railway is a station. There is also a pavilion for children. During the summer band concerts are given in Lake,
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