The 1967 Milwaukee riot over housing rights and police brutality was one of more than 150 race riots across the country. “If there's one word you'd use for '68, it would be volatile,” Gurda said. Milwaukee would be forced to confront its problems. A lot of things were sort of overlooked or not being paid attention to, especially problems with the inner city.” “Politically, Milwaukee was very stable probably more stable than it should have been. “If there's a term you'd use for Henry Maier, it would be, 'status quo,' ” Gurda said. Henry Maier was elected in 1960 and remained mayor until 1988. We have a history of sticking with mayors. The south side of Milwaukee was heavily Polish the north side was heavily German. The greater movement was away, and that was largely white and moving out to the suburbs, to the urban edge.” “You have a back-to-the-city movement, people rediscovering counties, old neighborhoods. “You have these counter currents going on,” Gurda said. Milwaukee would become one of the nation’s most diverse cities in ethnicity but we separated from one another. “As Milwaukee’s suburbs grew up, their residents grew away from the city,” Gurda wrote in "The Making of Milwaukee." “Many came into town only for special events, and their ties to the region’s metropolis became more and more attenuated.” ‘Old World charm, New World vigor.’ ”īy the time Southridge Mall opened in 1970 with 125 stores in Greendale, change already had been underway. “We played on that: ‘Genuine American’ was Milwaukee's slogan. That was just trumpeted to the entire world. 1 for much of the 20th century but we had Pabst, Schlitz and Miller. “At one time, Milwaukee had three of the four largest brewers in the country. It wasn't unpleasant but it was not something that you immediately said, ‘Boy, that smells good.’ ”Ībove all, breweries Pabst, Miller, Schlitz (and even Blatz) put Milwaukee on the map. “Red Star Yeast plant was on the north rim of the valley just west of 27th Street,” Gurda said. What was it like when the Bucks came to townĪnd there was always this Milwaukee uniqueness: What was that smell? Breweries, tanneries or rendering plants around the city contributed, but none more than yeast from Menomonee Valley.Pawling and Harnischfeger (P&H) made electronic motors, cranes and mining equipment. Mueller Furnace, Phoenix Hosiery and Caterpillar Tractor kept Milwaukee’s working class going and growing. Pfister & Vogel kept a tannery in Menomonee Valley. Smith made something like 80% of the bomb casings that were used in World War II not the explosives, but the bomb casings,” said Gurda, who wrote the book "The Making of Milwaukee." “So Milwaukee played just an enormous role during World War II.”įactory products changed but production kept going two decades later. Smith was making seamless pipeline pipe that could be turned into bomb casings if the ends were crimped. They made the largest amount of components by weight for the Manhattan Project, and it wasn't just metal-bending stuff – this is really very sophisticated kinds of equipment.”Ī.O. “It was the old-line Milwaukee manufacturers who retooled their lines and began to make things for the war effort,” Milwaukee historian John Gurda said. The largest firm in Milwaukee was Allis-Chalmers and, when it wasn’t making farm equipment, it had been the center of production for the Manhattan Project in World War II. The recession and de-industrialization of the 1970s and 1980s hadn’t hit just yet. Wisconsin was an agricultural state Milwaukee was an industrial town. There's a reason Milwaukee's population was peaking in 1968, and the next two years, with 1.2 million people: jobs and opportunity. To best explain how Milwaukee got the Bucks, it's a good idea to envision the city back then. Stable Milwaukee: Population, politics and industry
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