Largest city in Wisconsin, is one of the most ethnically and culturally diverse cities in the United States, with its history heavily influenced by German immigrants in the 19th century, and it became well known for its brewing industry

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Overview

Milwaukee is the largest city in Wisconsin, and the fifth-largest city in the Midwestern United States. Milwaukee is one of the most ethnically and culturally diverse cities in the United States. Its history was heavily influenced by German immigrants in the 19th century, and it became well known for its brewing industry. In recent years, Milwaukee has been undergoing its largest construction boom since the 1960s. Major new additions to the city in the past two decades include the Milwaukee Riverwalk, the Wisconsin Center, American Family Field, The Hop (streetcar system), an expansion to the Milwaukee Art Museum, Milwaukee Repertory Theater, the Bradley Symphony Center, and Discovery World, as well as major renovations to the UW-Milwaukee Panther Arena. Fiserv Forum opened in late 2018, and hosts sporting events and concerts. Since 1968, Milwaukee has been home to Summerfest, one of the largest music festivals in the world. The city is home to two major professional sports teams - the Bucks and the Brewers.

Name

The name "Milwaukee" comes from the Algonquian word millioke, meaning "good", "beautiful", and "pleasant land".

Since the 1980s, the city has begun to make strides in improving its economy, neighborhoods, and image, resulting in the revitalization of neighborhoods such as the Historic Third Ward, Lincoln Village, the East Side, and more recently Walker's Point and Bay View, along with attracting new businesses to its downtown area.

Geography

Milwaukee lies along the shores and bluffs of Lake Michigan at the confluence of three rivers: the Menomonee, the Kinnickinnic, and the Milwaukee. Smaller rivers, such as the Root River and Lincoln Creek, also flow through the city.

Milwaukee's terrain is sculpted by the glacier path and includes steep bluffs along Lake Michigan that begin about a mile (1.6 km) north of downtown. In addition, 30 miles (48 km) southwest of Milwaukee is the Kettle Moraine and lake country that provides an industrial landscape combined with inland lakes.

Brewing

Milwaukee became synonymous with Germans and beer beginning in the 1840s. The Germans had long enjoyed beer and set up breweries when they arrived in Milwaukee. By 1856, there were more than two dozen breweries in Milwaukee, most of them owned and operated by Germans. Today, beer halls and taverns are abundant in the city, but only one of the major breweries—Miller—remains in Milwaukee.

Milwaukee was once the home to four of the world's largest beer breweries (Schlitz, Blatz, Pabst, and Miller), and was the number one beer producing city in the world for many years. As late as 1981, Milwaukee had the greatest brewing capacity in the world. Despite the decline in its position as the world's leading beer producer after the loss of two of those breweries, Miller Brewing Company remains a key employer by employing over 2,200 of the city's workers. Because of Miller's position as the second-largest beer-maker in the U.S., the city remains known as a beer town. The city and surrounding areas are seeing a resurgence in microbreweries, nanobreweries and brewpubs with the craft beer movement.

The historic Milwaukee Brewery in "Miller Valley", is the oldest functioning major brewery in the United States. In 2008, Coors beer also began to be brewed in Miller Valley. This created additional brewery jobs in Milwaukee, but the company's world headquarters moved from Milwaukee to Chicago.

This article uses material from the Wikipedia article "Milwaukee", which is released under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share-Alike License 3.0