WI Dept. of Transportation responds to call for historic preservation

Daily Reporter (Milwaukee), Sep 12, 2005 by Sean Ryan

The use of bridges to symbolize partnership becomes even more fitting when people want to destroy them.

Milwaukee County has a history of scrapping for its bridges, from the street fighting during the 1845 Bridge War to more recent opposition to demolishing deteriorating bridges in Milwaukee.

The county's 19th century founders fought for, or against, their bridges by bleeding for them; today's residents fight by lobbying.

That (Bridge War) was more over some function of the bridge and the implications of where the bridge was rather than what we run into today with the historic preservation people with an emotional aspect and a sense of place, said Bob Newbery, Wisconsin Department of Transportation staff historian.

So when residents complained about the demolition of bridges on Port Washington and Green Tree roads, WisDOT dedicated some of the project funding to the Milwaukee County Historical Society. Researchers Kevin Abing and Steve Daily put together an exhibit, Spanning the Centuries, encapsulating 169 years of bridge history in Milwaukee County.

A lifeline

They're a lifeline for a lot of communities, and for Milwaukee especially, Abing said.

Byron Kilbourn built the county's first bridge in 1836 to connect the land he bought on the west end of the Milwaukee River to the eastern bank owned by Solomon Juneau. Within 10 years, Kilbourn Town started a war with Juneau Town, calling to tear down the Chestnut Street Bridge.

The bridge, which crossed the Milwaukee River where the Juneau Avenue Bridge stands today, blocked the river, which Kilbourn needed as a trade route to access Lake Michigan. Juneau Town needed the bridge for access to food and commerce from the west bank, and its delegation shot down a May 7, 1845, Town Board resolution to destroy the wooden Chestnut Street Bridge.

Having failed in the statehouse, Kilbourn Town sent a posse that evening to sack the Chestnut Street Bridge and Oneida Bridge, which is where Wells Street is now. Juneau Town's residents showed up for the rowdy and pointed their cannons on the east bank at Byron Kilbourn's house. The fighting continued through the month and spread to the Spring Street Bridge on the 19th before finally settling down with all bridges intact.

Foretelling the future

At its heart, the Bridge War was an economic development conflict between regional neighbors competing for a piece of the national pie. Sound familiar? In those days it meant competing for residents.

East-siders versus the west-siders, and it's just a factor of Milwaukee being three separate settlements back in the day and each competing for settlers, Abing said. They (Kilbourn Town) thought it was an advantage to ensure their monopoly on all the land.

The Bridge War led to a local realization that the region was gaining a national reputation for conflict that would drive settlers away from both Kilbourn Town and Juneau Town, said Sandy Ackerman, executive director of Historic Milwaukee Inc. A year after the skirmish, Juneau Town, Kilbourn Town and Walker's Point decided to come together as one village.

Once it had gotten to that point, people realized that that was pretty ridiculous, and if the area was going to grow, they needed to be united, Ackerman said. Neither one of those was going to grow if people were fighting there.

Back to the future

In modern times, the bridge campaigns focus on the conflict between preserving history and providing a functional span within the modern constraints of public budgets. Most of the bridges in Milwaukee County were built around 50 or 70 years ago, which means they are up for either refurbishment or replacement, Newbery said.

One of the things we get into is the sort of hard-nosed, hold taxes down, spend money wisely and get more for the buck versus the emotional attachment, he said.

But it seems that WisDOT and the city of Milwaukee have forged an understanding with local preservationists about the downtown bridges. The first bridge up for restoration is the State Street Bridge, which is also the first bascule bridge ever built anywhere. The bridge opened in 1924 and was christened by a young girl with a bottle of water because it was during Prohibition. The county built 13 bascule bridges before World War II, and Newbery said there's about two dozen in Wisconsin now.

Ackerman, whose group lobbied the city for the preservation of the State Street Bridge, said she is impressed with the preservation effort on the project and isn't concerned for future bridges slated for renovation, such as the Kilbourn Avenue Bridge.

I think the city is pretty aware of the value of what they have, she said. Considering what they're doing with the State Street Bridge, I'm not concerned.