Here is the link for some my photos of the area
If you have a small PC display like I have, hit F11 on you keyboard
http://klasjm.smugmug.com/gallery/1543147/1/75085940
http://klasjm.smugmug.com/gallery/1543147/1/75085940
If you have a small PC display like I have, hit F11 on you keyboard
http://klasjm.smugmug.com/gallery/1543147/1/75085940
http://klasjm.smugmug.com/gallery/1543147/1/75085940
A brief Wisconsin history
Before 1830 just Indians and a relative few settlers & southwest Wisconsin miners
1832 Black hawk War ends and the signing over of the Indians land
Mid 1830's opening of Land Settlement offices in Wisconsin
Mid 1830, the opening of the Erie Canal. Travel for immigrants made easier, Ellis Island, Hudson River, Erie Canal, Great Lakes and on to Wisconsin. Some immigrates port of entry was Quebec City, then Great Lakes to Wisconsin Harbors
1840-50 mass advertising & letters home in Northern Europe of settlement land in Wisconsin
1848 Wisconsin becomes a State
In 1857, the first east-west railroad from Lake Michigan to the Mississippi was complete. Soon after, a line from Milwaukee to La Crosse opened, and other lines were extended north from Chicago. 1869 America's first transcontinental railroad is completed with a ceremony at Promontory, Utah
"largest concentration of 19th century old-world settlements in America is found along the Wisconsin shore of Lake Michigan" -- Wisconsin's Ethnic Settlement Trail (W.E.S.T.)
Milwaukee evolved as a port city. Started out exporting leather & grain back east, then importing shoes & flour at a much higher expense. Having a large amount of Iron just west of West Bend, Milwaukee decided to make their own finished products, so they created industrial foundries and machine shops to make the gears and tooling to grind the grains and make the shoes and so started the industries, besides beer, that made Milwaukee famous.
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Between 1840 & 1880, 400 families (including my relatives) of Luxembourg decent settled 20 miles east of West Bend in the Port Washington/Belgium area. Making it the largest settlement of Luxembourgers in the Americas
Buddy posing at the corner stone of my kin's homestead barn
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