About Milwaukee

WalkScore 59

TransitScore 49

League of American Bicyclists' Rating: Silver

Maps

Bike Map (pdf)

Transit Map (pdf)

Bike Share Map, Bublr Bikes

Like many places in the American Midwest, Milwaukee began as a trading post. One Mr. Solomon Juneau set up a settlement right along Lake Michigan, and a fascinatingly crooked land surveyor from Connecticut named Byron Kilbourn set up Kilbourntown just west of him on the west side of the Milwaukee River, effectively cutting Juneautown off from the mainland. Kilbourn was determined to keep his town more ifnluential than his perceived rival, so he distributed maps of the area that showed Juneautown as uninhabited, and even went so far as to make sure his streets did not line up with those of Juneautown across the river, so it would be much more difficult to build bridges between them. That's dedication. Eventually it culminated in an armed skirmish called the Bridge War, and the state decided to formally unify the area into Milwaukee, with Mr Juneau as mayor. Kilbourn licked his wounds, founded a few more small towns, got fired from a sweet railroad company gig for fraud, and even got busted for using railroad bonds as bribes to state officials for land grants! Newly unified and peaceful, Milwaukee promptly got down to business, and that business was mostly the production of fizzy yellow beer, overseen by recent immigrants from Germany and Poland. By 1900, over 1/3 of the city was of German descent, and their influence persists today. Unlike many other "rust belt" cities, Milwaukee began preserving its historic neighborhoods in the 1980's, which prevented the drastic population decreases seen in other downtowns around the midwest. Downtown Milwaukee today is vibrant, clean, and teeming with small local businesses. The lakefront area is mostly developed as park land, with bike paths carrying you past scenic Bradford Beach, the gorgeous Milwaukee Art Museum, and the Marcus Amphitheater, the home of the Summerfest music festival. Milwaukee is friendly and gorgeous.