Photo Courtesy of Larry Widen
Juneau St. Bridge (1840)
Anyone who’s ever wondered why the bridge on Wisconsin Avenue that connects the east side of the city to the west side may be surprised to learn that the two streets haven’t lined up for 180 years. The crooked bridge across the river emerged from a battle of wills between Solomon Juneau, who founded the city of Milwaukee, and Byron Kilbourn, an egotistical and sometimes shady real estate investor.
Solomon Juneau was a Canadian fur trapper who came to Wisconsin in 1818 to work for Jacques Vieau, a successful merchant with an outpost at Prairie du Chien. Juneau was first a clerk and then a bookkeeper for the operation. When Juneau married Vieau’s daughter, his father-in-law sent him to establish a second Vieau mercantile center at what would become the Milwaukee harbor. Over time, Juneau eveloped respectful and profitable relationships with leaders of the indigenous Potawatomi and Menomonee tribes.
Arriving in 1835, surveyor Byron Kilbourn immediately proposed the development of a large commercial and residential settlement directly across the river from Juneautown. He left no doubt that his plan involved redirecting money from east side trade to his side of the river. In this regard, Kilbourn’s vision included new transportation using boats, plank roads, and trains.
Building the Town
As Juneau enlarged his community to accommodate newcomers, he sold them land on which to build homes and places of business. He graded the streets using unskilled laborers and commissioned architects and carpenters to construct the new buildings. Juneau’s own hardware store sold them lumber, tools, work clothes and other building materials.
As his community grew, Juneau established a small post office and invested his own money to start a weekly newspaper, the Milwaukee Sentinel. He donated land to build the first courthouse on what is now Cathedral Square and encouraged wealthy men to invest in the new Bellevue House hotel to be built at Wisconsin Avenue and Water Street.
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To the west, Kilbourn managed to survive a scandal that exposed the diversion of $900,000 ($25 million in today’s currency) to bribe influential people who could help him build a railroad.
Crossing the River
Milwaukee’s Bridge War began in 1835 with the construction of a Juneau Avenue bridge that linked Kilbourntown with Juneautown. Both leaders saw that bridges over the Milwaukee River would lead to trafficking with the enemy and further disrupt commerce on both sides. When boats damaged the Juneau Avenue bridge, a mob of angry east side protestors prepared for combat and placed a cannon on the east bank. There were no deaths from the violent confrontation, but a significant number of activists were seriously wounded.
Kilbourn purposely laid out his streets so they would not align with Juneautown’s already established plats. The competition between Juneau and Kilbourn underscored the need for each man to defend their communities against an intruder who wanted everything. Kilbourn used his weekly newspaper, the Advertiser, to demean Juneautown and encouraged the purchasing of goods and services in Kilbourntown.
To settle the disputes, the state board demanded that the bridges be restored, and wood and other materials salvaged from the sabotage be used to repair the Wisconsin Avenue bridge.
The next few weeks were tense as east and west siders found on the wrong side of the river were attacked and injured. Tempers cooled as a charter was approved in January 1846 to move forward with a united City of Milwaukee.
