Mary Spicuzza

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

Milwaukee County's Columbus Park may soon become Indigenous Peoples' Park.

A proposal to change the name of the park — which is located on West Courtland Avenue between North 72nd and North 74th streets in Milwaukee— will go before the Milwaukee County Board of Supervisors on Thursday.

"We thought that naming it Indigenous Peoples' Park will give a nod to all tribes from this area, rather than specifically naming it after a particular tribe," Supervisor Felesia Martin, the resolution's sponsor, said during a committee meeting last week. "As part of Wisconsin tradition, we like to recognize and tilt our hats to all of those who contributed to our economy and to our state as a whole, and we know that indigenous people are a critical group."

The proposal comes about two years after Milwaukee County joined a number of communities around the country in a growing trend of recognizing Indigenous Peoples' Day on the same date each year as Columbus Day.

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The resolution was approved unanimously by the county's Parks, Energy and Environment Committee late last month.

"The history of the settling of the United States, and the role that Christopher Columbus played, is contentious and frequently ignores the displacement and suffering of indigenous peoples," the resolution says. "Indigenous peoples were forced to relinquish their land in the early 1800s by settlers to expand West and were either forced on to reservations in isolation or made to assimilate with colonizing groups."

The park was named for Christopher Columbus in 1956.

The new name would instead honor indigenous groups in Milwaukee County, including the Menominee, Fox, Mascouten, Sauk, Potawatomi, Ojibwe and Ho-Chunk tribes.

The resolution notes that the Menominee tribe was pressured to sell 11,600 square miles of land along the lower Fox River, and other tribes — including the Sauk and Fox tribes — were forced to cede their land claims in southern Wisconsin.

The cost for new signs for the park are estimated to be about $9,700. The park features three Little League baseball fields, a wading pool, a tot play area, sledding hills and other amenities, according to Milwaukee County Parks.