OUR HISTORY
Grover Heights
Located on the fringes of Williamsburg and encompassing parts of Glendale, Grover Heights is bordered by Capitol Drive to the South, the Milwaukee River at the Hilton/Achorage Inn to the North, I 43 to the West and Port Washington Avenue to the East.
Built on lots carved from swampland that fed into the river, Grover Heights’ homes were built between 1926 and 1930. Its occupants were primarily German until the 1960s. Its first African-American family moved into the area in 1961. Most residents move into the area and stay. Currently Grover Heights has a diverse population consisting of African-Americans, Caucasians, Latinos and Hispanics.
Williamsburg Heights
Williamsburg is bounded to the south by the Harambee neighborhood (which some consider Williamsburg as a section of the newer Harambee neighborhood to the south), to the west by I43 to the north by Capitol Dr and to the east by the old Wisconsin & Southern Railroad (now being converted to the Artery and Beerline Bike Trail).
In the 1800s, when memories of the frontier were still fresh in Milwaukee, the area that became Williamsburg (named for William Bogk) was a farming district. Scores of farmers, most of them German immigrants, settled in the area. Comfortably beyond the city limits, (North Avenue), they patronized their own trading center that they referred to as Williamsburg. The Green Bay road, between Burleigh Street and Keefe Avenue, was the spine of the little settlement. At its peak, Williamsburg boasted a flour mill, greenhouses, feed stores, harness shops, blacksmiths, bakeries, and its own post office.
At Port Washington Ave there were a growing cluster of businesses on Green Bay Avenue – the heart of old Williamsburg. The residential sections were dotted with German saloons, German stores, and dozens of German churches. Today you can still see the old Owl Club House on Port Washington Ave now the Shiloh Tabernacle. Most of the area’s breadwinners worked with their hands. By the late 1960s African Americans began moving in. Relations were more peaceful with the newer group and their older European neighbors when compared to other parts for the city at that time leading to a more stable neighborhood.
In 1891, Williamsburg, by then a suburban community of blue collar workers, became part of Milwaukee. In the same decade, the Pabst Brewery purchased Schuetzen Park (now Clinton Rose Park)and turned it into an amusement park. The beer garden remained, but the rifle range was replaced by a roller coaster, a miniature railroad, a carousel, and a fun house called Katzenjammer Castle The area continued to grow after 1900. The tide of home-seekers washed down the ridge to Keefe Avenue before 1910 and finally reached Capitol Drive in the 1920s. Old Williamsburg became an island of older homes and shops in the heart of the neighborhood.
The homes here are dominantly bungalows the nearly universal favorite of the 1920s with towering 2 and 3 story Milwaukee duplexes scattered among them.
