Historical Essay
Watertown Plank Road
Brewing Co., N. 40th and W. State Streets, Milwaukee, Milwaukee County
Started in 1848 and completed in 1853, extended 58 miles west from Milwaukee on a course roughly paralleling State Street past the Frederick Miller Plank Road Brewery through Wauwatosa, Pewaukee, and Oconomowoc to Watertown. The $100,000 road of white-oak planks provided a route for farm products, wood, lime, and passenger vehicles. It cut round-trip travel time to three days, all at a toll of about one cent a mile.
Learn More
Dictionary of Wisconsin History
Explore more than 1,600 people, places and events in Wisconsin history.
[Source: McBride, Sarah Davis. History Just Ahead (Madison:WHS, 1999).]