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The Allen-Bradley Clock Tower is a four-sided clock that sits on top of the ALLEN-BRADLEY Building (now Rockwell Automation) on the South Side of Milwaukee. Local ARCHITECT Fitzhugh Scott designed the tower. The clockworks were built by Allen-Bradley, which specialized in electrical controls, while the clock faces were created by Super Sky Products in MEQUON.… Read More

The Milwaukee City Hall is located on the site of the previous “Market Hall” on the triangular parcel of land between Market Street, Water Street, Wells Street, and Kilbourn Avenue. In 1891 an architectural contest was held to replace the “Market Hall” with a new headquarters for city government. Chicago architect Henry Ives Cobb submitted… Read More

The Eschweiler & Eschweiler architectural firm was one of the most prolific in Milwaukee’s history, designing everything from community spaces, private homes, and places of worship, to industrial factories and commercial buildings. Some of their most notable buildings include the MILWAUKEE GAS LIGHT BUILDING, the MILWAUKEE ARENA, the Wisconsin Telephone Co. Building, the Milwaukee County… Read More

The iconic Gas Company Flame was added on top of the ESCHWEILER-designed WISCONSIN GAS BUILDING in 1956. Standing 21 feet and weighing 4 tons, the beacon provides navigational light for Lake Michigan vessels and indicates the local weather forecast by its color. The flame contained neon and argon tubing, but by spring 2014 was replaced… Read More

The greater Kettle Moraine stretches from Kewanee County south through Walworth County. It was created when the Green Bay and Lake Michigan “lobes” of the Wisconsin Glacier (it had six lobes all together) retreated some 10,000 years ago. The retreating glacier left behind geological indentations, known as kettles, and deposited debris—silt, rocks, and boulders—that produced… Read More

Preceded by the city’s oldest skating rink, the Milwaukee Exposition Building opened at what is now 500 W. Kilbourn Ave. in 1881. Walter Holbrook of E.T. Mix Co. Architects designed the building, which was constructed with Milwaukee brick in the modified Queen Anne style. It was constructed entirely with private funds—when a worker’s strike stalled… Read More

The Milwaukee Auditorium opened in 1909 at 500 W. Kilbourn Ave., replacing the Exposition Building. Operating under a public-private partnership, it became Milwaukee’s major public spectator facility. The main hall originally accommodated more than 8,000 people. It served as a venue for events including religious revivals, the arts, sport, and sociability. In 1912, after a… Read More

The deadliest fire in Milwaukee history occurred at the Newhall House hotel on January 10, 1883 on the corner of Michigan Street and Broadway. Firemen who battled previous fires at the hotel, one of Wisconsin’s largest, dubbed it a “tinder-box.” The inferno originated in the opulent structure’s wooden elevator shaft and took over twenty-six hours… Read More

The RiverWalk is a pedestrian walkway along the MILWAUKEE RIVER in DOWNTOWN Milwaukee. SOCIALIST city planners first envisioned the RiverWalk in the early 20th century, and a segment was built outside the Gimbels Department Store in the late 1920s. In the 1980s, Mayor HENRY MAIER revived the idea and pushed for a connected system of… Read More

Despite its urban location, Milwaukee is a beneficiary of Wisconsin’s investment in protecting natural areas. The Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources manages the state’s forests, parks, and trails. Three are housed in Milwaukee County: Hank Aaron State Trail, Havenwoods State Forest, and Lakeshore State Park. Winding through an area once home to Native Americans and,… Read More

The US Bank Center was constructed as the home of the First Wisconsin National Bank. In 1969 the company unveiled plans to move from its headquarters at 735 N. Water Street to a new downtown headquarters building at 777 E. Wisconsin Avenue. When finished in 1973, the surpassed Milwaukee’s CITY HALL as the tallest in… Read More

The history of Milwaukee is anything but dry. Water, in fact, runs through it like a river, constituting an element so critical that imagining the community without it is virtually impossible. Whether for transportation, industry, recreation, sanitation, or simply as the backdrop for daily life, water is the fluid medium in which Milwaukee evolved from… Read More

Milwaukeeans love to boast about their weather almost as much as they love to complain about it. I’m reminded of an old song by John Martyn, “Bless the Weather.” It’s a love song of lament—the refrain noting that what the weather giveth, the weather taketh away: “Bless the weather that brought you to me//Curse the… Read More

Hoping to revitalize downtown Milwaukee, the Metropolitan Milwaukee Association of Commerce spearheaded the drive in the 1990s to replace the outdated convention hall of the MILWAUKEE EXPOSITION CONVENTION CENTER AND ARENA with a larger meeting space. A team of six firms eventually developed the 189,000 square foot Flemish and German-inspired Midwest Express Center, which opened… Read More