Milwaukee is the most populous city in the U.S. state of Wisconsin. Located on the western shore of Lake Michigan, it had a population of 577,222 at the 2020 census, making it the 31st-most populous city in the United States and the fifth-most populous city in the Midwest. The Milwaukee metropolitan area has over 1.57 million residents and ranks as the 40th-largest metropolitan area in the nation. The city is the county seat of Milwaukee County.
Lying at the confluence of the Milwaukee, Menomonee, and Kinnickinnic rivers, present-day Milwaukee was inhabited by various Algonquian peoples. Following the 1833 Treaty of Chicago, European and American settlers established the city as a hub for trade and industry by capitalizing on its location as a port. Milwaukee was incorporated in 1846. The city attracted immigrants from Germany and elsewhere in Europe, and Milwaukee remains a center of German American culture. In the late-19th and 20th centuries, Milwaukee became known as a national leader in beer production led by the Miller, Pabst, and Schlitz breweries. The city also became known for its strong labor movement and sewer socialism.
Milwaukee is an ethnically and culturally diverse city, though it continues to be one of the most racially segregated cities in the U.S. as a result of early-20th century redlining. Its regional GDP was over $130 billion in 2023. The city is home to Fortune 500 companies Northwestern Mutual, Fiserv, ManpowerGroup, Rockwell Automation, and WEC Energy Group. Its cultural institutions include the Harley-Davidson Museum, Milwaukee Art Museum, Milwaukee Public Museum, and Summerfest, one of the world's largest music festivals. It is home to several institutions of higher education, including Marquette University, Milwaukee School of Engineering, and the University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee. The city's major professional sports teams are the Milwaukee Brewers (MLB) and Milwaukee Bucks (NBA).
The etymological origin of the name Milwaukee is disputed. Wisconsin academic Virgil J. Vogel has said, "the name [...] Milwaukee is not difficult to explain, yet there are a number of conflicting claims made concerning it."
One theory says it comes from the Anishinaabemowin/Ojibwe word mino-akking, meaning "good land", or words in closely related languages that mean the same. These included Menominee and Potawatomi. This theory was popularized by a line by Alice Cooper in the 1992 comedy film Wayne's World. Another theory is that it stems from the Meskwaki language, whose term for "gathering place" is mahn-a-waukee. The city of Milwaukee itself claims that the name is derived from mahn-ah-wauk, a Potawatomi word for "council grounds".
The name of the future city was spelled in many ways prior to 1844. People living west of the Milwaukee River preferred the modern-day spelling, while those east of the river often called it Milwaukie. Other spellings included Melleokii (1679), Millioki (1679), Meleki (1684), Milwarik (1699), Milwacky (1761), Milwakie (1779), Millewackie (1817), Milwahkie (1820), and Milwalky (1821). The Milwaukee Sentinel used Milwaukie in its headline until it switched to Milwaukee on November 30, 1844. The city of Milwaukie, Oregon, retains the alternate spelling.
Indigenous cultures lived along the waterways for thousands of years. The first recorded inhabitants of the Milwaukee area were various Native American tribes: the Menominee, Meskwaki, Mascouten, Sauk, Potawatomi, and Ojibwe (all Algic/Algonquian peoples), and the Ho-Chunk (Winnebago, a Siouan people). Many of these people had lived around Green Bay before migrating to the Milwaukee area at about the time of European contact.
In the second half of the 18th century, the Native Americans living near Milwaukee played a role in all the major European wars on the American continent. During the French and Indian War, a group of "Ojibwas and Pottawattamies from the far [Lake] Michigan" (i.e., the area from Milwaukee to Green Bay) joined the French-Canadian Daniel Liénard de Beaujeu at the Battle of the Monongahela. In the American Revolutionary War, the Native Americans around Milwaukee were some of the few groups to ally with the rebel Continentals.
After the American Revolutionary War, the Native Americans fought the United States in the Northwest Indian War as part of the Council of Three Fires. During the War of 1812, they held a council in Milwaukee in June 1812, which resulted in their decision to attack Chicago in retaliation against American expansion. This resulted in the Battle of Fort Dearborn on August 15, 1812, the only known armed conflict in Chicago. This battle convinced the American government to remove these groups of Native Americans from their indigenous land. After being attacked in the Black Hawk War in 1832, the Native Americans in Milwaukee signed the 1833 Treaty of Chicago with the United States. In exchange for ceding their lands in the area, they were to receive monetary payments and lands west of the Mississippi in Indian Territory.
Europeans arrived in the Milwaukee area before the 1833 Treaty of Chicago. French missionaries and traders first passed through the area in the late 17th and 18th centuries. Alexis Laframboise, coming from Michilimackinac (now in Michigan), settled a trading post in 1785 and is considered the first resident of European descent in the Milwaukee region.
One story on the origin of Milwaukee's name says,
[O]ne day during the thirties of the last century [1800s] a newspaper calmly changed the name to Milwaukee, and Milwaukee it has remained until this day.
The spelling "Milwaukie" lives on in Milwaukie, Oregon, named after the Wisconsin city in 1847, before the current spelling was universally accepted.
Milwaukee has three "founding fathers": Solomon Juneau, Byron Kilbourn, and George H. Walker. Solomon Juneau was the first of the three to come to the area, in 1818. He founded a town called Juneau's Side, or Juneautown, that began attracting more settlers. In competition with Juneau, Byron Kilbourn established Kilbourntown west of the Milwaukee River. He ensured the roads running toward the river did not join with those on the east side. This accounts for the large number of angled bridges that still exist in Milwaukee today. Further, Kilbourn distributed maps of the area which only showed Kilbourntown, implying Juneautown did not exist or the river's east side was uninhabited and thus undesirable. The third prominent developer was George H. Walker. He claimed land to the south of the Milwaukee River, along with Juneautown, where he built a log house in 1834. This area grew and became known as Walker's Point.
The first large wave of settlement to the areas that would later become Milwaukee County and the City of Milwaukee began in 1835, following removal of the tribes in the Council of Three Fires. Early that year it became known that Juneau and Kilbourn intended to lay out competing town-sites. By the year's end both had purchased their lands from the government and made their first sales. There were perhaps 100 new settlers in this year, mostly from New England and other Eastern states. On September 17, 1835, the first election was held in Milwaukee; the number of votes cast was 39.
By 1840, the three towns had grown, along with their rivalries. There were intense battles between the towns, mainly Juneautown and Kilbourntown, which culminated with the Milwaukee Bridge War of 1845. Following the Bridge War, on January 31, 1846, the towns were combined to incorporate as the City of Milwaukee, and elected Solomon Juneau as Milwaukee's first mayor.
Milwaukee began to grow as a city as high numbers of immigrants, mainly German, made their way to Wisconsin during the 1840s and 1850s. Scholars classify German immigration to the United States in three major waves, and Wisconsin received a significant number of immigrants from all three. The first wave from 1845 to 1855 consisted mainly of people from Southwestern Germany, the second wave from 1865 to 1873 concerned primarily Northwestern Germany, while the third wave from 1880 to 1893 came from Northeastern Germany. By 1900, 34 percent of Milwaukee's population was of German background. The largest number of German immigrants to Milwaukee came from Prussia, followed by Bavaria, Saxony, Hanover, and Hesse-Darmstadt. Milwaukee gained its reputation as the most German of American cities not just from the large number of German immigrants it received, but also for the sense of community that the immigrants established.