What’s in a Name? How Milwaukee’s Streets Tell Its Story

By 1931, Milwaukee’s elected officials had renamed roughly 150 streets—but the battle over what to call them had begun years earlier.

Twenty years earlier a civic tug-of-war emerged. Old rivalries were ignited and egos clashed as politicians, planners and citizens all pushed their own ideas for what the city’s streets should be called. At a time when vice, prostitution, gambling, and other serious crimes plagued Milwaukee, the debate over street names took on an outsized importance.

Changing the names of streets, it seemed, mattered more than making the city safe.

When the dust finally settled, the 1931 city directory was published. At nearly 3,000 pages, it was the largest ever issued in Milwaukee and reflected the sweeping changes to the city’s thoroughfares.

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Image courtesy of Milwaukee Public Libraries

Detail from a Map of Central Area of the City of Milwaukee (1870)

This detail of a map of the central area of the City of Milwaukee in 1870 highlights some street name changes including that of Elizabeth Street to National Avenue.

More than 1,700 street names survived intact, while new ones—honoring states, presidents, and prominent figures—were added to the landscape. Local bankers and land developers left behind a piece of themselves that recalled their part in advancing our city.

Twenty-four U.S. presidents were immortalized, including John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln and George Washington. Others, more controversial in hindsight, also found their way onto street signs—among them Ulysses S. Grant, Warren G. Harding, and Woodrow Wilson.

Despite the upheaval, much of Milwaukee’s earlier identity endured.

By the late 19th century, streets we now take for granted had very different names. National Avenue was once Elizabeth Street. Greenfield Avenue ran as Railroad Street from end to end. On the north side, Division Street eventually became Juneau Avenue.

Confused, Frustrated Citizens

For residents, the changes were anything but seamless. Complaints poured in from confused and frustrated citizens. But their concerns were often brushed aside. In the end, the most influential voices belonged to the postmasters, whose priority was simple: deliver the mail.

The renaming and renumbering of streets had created widespread turmoil, making accurate mail delivery difficult. Standardization became less about civic pride and more about necessity. By the 1930s, the system had finally settled into place, and the dismay gradually faded.

Some of Milwaukee’s oldest linguistic roots, however, remained untouched. Several street names derived from Native American languages survived the overhaul. One avenue, now spelled in a simplified form, originally appeared as “Kiniginige.” Even the name “Milwaukee” itself has deeper origins. As Alice Cooper once joked, it was pronounced “mahn-a-wah-ke,” a word derived from the Algonquin language and often translated as “the good land.”

Though the pronunciation has evolved, the meaning—and the connection to the region’s earliest inhabitants—remains.

Naming Rights

Archibald Clybourn, a railroad speculator, and writer Nicholas Biddle, known for preserving the journals of the Lewis and Clark expedition, were among those honored. Biddle’s name originally marked a street on the east side before it was changed to Kilbourn Street in the 1930s.

A number of prominent Milwaukee figures also survived the wave of renaming. Sherman Booth, an abolitionist, gained national attention for defending Joshua Glover, a fugitive slave. John Jacob Astor helped establish an early trading post that fueled the region’s growth through the fur trade. Enoch Chase, who arrived in 1835, became the settlement’s first physician.

William Clark served as both school inspector and the state’s first chief justice. Eliphalet Cramer founded the city’s first gas company and led it for two decades. Elijah Estes, hired to work at Solomon Juneau’s trading post, later claimed land on the south side and named it Bay View.

Increase Lapham, a pioneering scientist, established the nation’s first official weather bureau. Louis Auer served the city in numerous roles—real estate agent, alderman, county supervisor, school commissioner—and even as a general in the state National Guard.

John Bartlett became a leading physician and vice president of the American Medical Association. John Bradford opened Milwaukee’s first wholesale dry goods store and sold tea, sugar, grain, hardware and assorted groceries. Customers were also able to purchase clothing, hardware, and hand tools. John Burnham, an assemblyman, used clay from the Menomonee Valley to produce the light-colored “Cream City” bricks that came to define the region’s architecture.

Judge Jason Downer funded and established Downer College and served on the state Supreme Court. Frederick Fratney worked to support German immigrants, helping them find jobs and housing while co-founding the German English Academy.

Names of businessmen Alexander Mitchell, Daniel Wells, Thomas Ogden, Garrett Vliet, and Henry Villard remain visible reminders of those who helped shape Milwaukee’s economic foundation.

Much of what we know about Milwaukee’s street names today comes from the work of librarian Carl Baehr, who spent six years researching city records, historical documents and old plat maps. His findings were compiled into Milwaukee Streets: The Stories Behind Their Names, a 1995 book that remains one of the most comprehensive accounts on the subject.

The story of Milwaukee’s streets is, in many ways, the story of the city itself—a blend of ambition, conflict and compromise.

Behind every signpost was s a decision, and behind every decision, a moment in time when someone believed a name mattered. Some names changed. Others endured. All of them, in their own way, tell the story of a city still finding its identity. And if you look closely, the past is still there—written on every corner.