Before becoming Milwaukee’s hippest neighborhood at the turn of the present century, Bay View had slumbered for decades. But as Lisa Ann Jacobsen reminds us in her just-out book, Kinnickinnic Avenue: The Heart of Bay View, WI, the lakeside district has a long history. A self-governing village before its annexation by Milwaukee, Bay View was home to industry and immigrant communities in the 19th century. Kinnickinnic Avenue was—and remains—its main street.
Kinnickinnic Avenue is more picture book than textbook with page after page of antique maps, lithographs and—especially—vintage photos that look as if plucked from family albums. The text, however, contains many points of interest, including KK Avenue’s origins as “a cow trail that winded through the surrounding fields and wilderness.” Some buildings along the avenue were already in place at the time of Bay View’s most-remembered historical incident, the 1886 strike in which the Wisconsin Militia opened fire and killed seven strikers and bystanders.
Jacobsen will sign copies at 6 p.m. on Friday, July 28 at Voyageur Book Shop, 2212 S. Kinnickinnic Ave.
