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Paddle through the watery history of the Midwest’s Cream City.

The success and survival of Milwaukee lies in the rivers that meander through its streets and the great lake at its eastern boundary. The Indigenous peoples of the region recognized the value of an abundant, clean water supply for food and transportation. Generations of immigrants, entrepreneurs, innovators, and recreationists used the same waters to travel greater distances, power million-dollar industries, and even have a bit of fun.

In Milwaukee: A City Built on Water, celebrated historian John Gurda relates the history of the waters that gave Milwaukee life—and occasionally threatened the city through erosion, invasive species, and water-borne diseases. Telling tales of brewers, brickmakers, ecologists, and engineers, Gurda explores the city’s complicated connections with its most precious resource and greatest challenge. You’ll meet the generations of people, from a Potawatomi chief to fur traders and fishermen, who settled on the small spit of land known as Jones Island; learn how Milwaukee’s unique water composition creates its distinct cream-colored bricks; visit Wisconsin’s first waterparks; and see how city leaders transformed the Milwaukee River—once described as a “vast sewer” with an “odorous tide”—into today’s lively and lovely Riverwalk.

Now available in paperback, Milwaukee: A City Built on Water is the sweeping chronicle of a critical natural resource that has weathered heavy use and flagrant abuse to emerge as a focal point of both celebration and concern in the twenty-first century.

Find Milwaukee: A City Built on Water at your favorite book retailer or in our online store.

PRAISE

“While every city owes its existence to an ample supply of freshwater, John Gurda’s masterful story shows how Milwaukee’s relationship with water goes way beyond that of sustenance. Water defines the city’s geography, spawned its industries, and today sustains a quality of life that will become increasingly envied as Sunbelt cities struggle with their own dwindling supplies. This extraordinary book should be required reading not just for Milwaukeeans, but anyone living in a Great Lakes city.”

—Dan Egan, author of The Death and Life of the Great Lakes

“Milwaukee: A City Built on Water is a beautiful book. John Gurda is a dynamic storyteller and Christopher Winters’s photos bring this rich history to life. The historical perspective offered through the medium of water is brilliant, and one can see the incredible genius, drive, and creativity of Milwaukee’s founders as well as the challenges they sometimes created through shortsighted decision making. As one who knows a lot of the pieces of this history, I was struck by how we could not be doing the impactful work we are doing today were it not for the good work of those who came before us.”

—Ken Leinbach, Executive Director of the Urban Ecology Center

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

John Gurda is a Milwaukee-born writer and historian who has been studying his hometown since 1972. He is the author of more than 20 books, including histories of Milwaukee-area neighborhoods, industries, and places of worship. Gurda’s most ambitious efforts are The Making of Milwaukee, the first full-length history of the community published since 1948; and Milwaukee: City of Neighborhoods, a geographic companion that was the standard work on grassroots Milwaukee. Together the books total more than 900 pages and feature 2,000 illustrations. The Making of Milwaukee was the basis for an Emmy Award–winning documentary series that premiered on Milwaukee Public Television.

In addition to his work as an author, Gurda is a lecturer, tour guide, and former local history columnist for the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. His undergraduate degree is a B.A. in English from Boston College, and he holds an M.A. in Cultural Geography and an honorary Ph.D. from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. The common thread in all of Gurda’s work is an understanding of history as “why things are the way they are.”