North Milwaukee, Wisconsin

North Milwaukee (originally Schwartzburg and later briefly Northern Junction) was a village in northern Milwaukee County, Wisconsin.

History

The original Schwartzburg was a hamlet centered on a large farm settled by one Christian Schwartzburg on land bought from Byron Kilbourn, and was named after the settlement's most prominent citizen. In the 1850s Schwartzburg began to sell some of his land holding to others, and a railroad depot was established in the area.

Expansion was fuelled by real estate developer and streetcar magnate Henry Clay Payne, and the village (now renamed North Milwaukee) was incorporated in 1897 and merged with the City of Milwaukee on January 1, 1929.

The village (later to become a city) covered an area from Congress Street to Silver Spring Drive between 27th Street and Sherman Boulevard. The main street was Villard Avenue, but the village had the economic advantages of a Milwaukee Road railroad crossing near 35th and Hampton, supplemented by a streetcar line which Payne (local manager of The Milwaukee Electric Railway and Light Company) had run across two miles of vacant fields to the new community. The population was heavily German Americans,^[1] including a large population of Volga Deutsche in the neighborhood called "Red Town".^[2]

The records of the village are in the Archives of the City of Milwaukee.^[3] The name "Old North Milwaukee" survives to some extent as a neighborhood name roughly coterminous with the village boundaries.^[4]

References

1. Gurda, John. "North Milwaukee No More: Former Industrial Suburb Blends into North Side" in, Cream City Chronicles, Stories of Milwaukee's Past Volume 4 Madison: Wisconsin Historical Society, 2007; pp. 167-169.
2. Doos, Wilhelm. summary of "Family Aid Society of Milwaukee of the Volga Deutsche Bund", a Center for Volga German Studies at Concordia University Presented Paper presented at the 2012 American Historical Society of Germans from Russia Annual Convention, 14-17 June 2012, Portland, Oregon
3. City of Milwaukee Archives List of Collections - Milwaukee Public Library
4. "Villard Avenue Library" Northwest Side Community Development Corporation website