• Lake Michigan fisherman • Lake Michigan fisherman • Lake Michigan fisherman • Lake Michigan fisherman

Milwaukee’s Waters in 1835-36: • Diverse littoral & estuary

habitats • 40-foot water depth at the

river-Lake Michigan confluence • Milwaukee River’s mouth at

that date was near Bay View • Area boasted more than 6,000

acres of pristine emergent & submergent wetlands

• Cool-to-cold water environments, year-round

“...lake trout were speared as they preyed on lake herring and perch fry…” (Lake Michigan at the Milwaukee River) “…a marsh covered by water two feet deep, year-round, and was alive with fish having run from the lake.” From James J. Buck, Pioneer History of Milwaukee from the First Settlement in 1833 to 1841, 1890 All diorama shots from the Milwaukee Public Museum

“What a place it was below the dam of that old mill, in the early spring for fish, pike, pickerel, muscalonge and suckers used to come up there by the million, and were taken out by the cart load by the settlers living near there, a sight that will never be witnessed again in Milwaukee” (description from the site of 1844 mill dam on the Menomonee River at Hawley Road) From James J. Buck, Pioneer History of Milwaukee from the First Settlement in 1833 to 1841, 1890 All diorama shots from the Milwaukee Public Museum

“…of the quantities of fish that came on the marshes,… they would go up the Milwaukee, Menomonee and Kinnickinnic rivers in the spring by the million, remaining about a month, covering all the marsh as thick as they could lay…I have waded out often and shot them as they lay upon the grassy bottom…” From James J. Buck, Pioneer History of Milwaukee from the First Settlement in 1833 to 1841, 1890 All diorama shots from the Milwaukee Public Museum

“Lake sturgeon were shot from bridge at Walker’s Point and suckers and pickerel were observed running upstream in spring, and as the water receded, fish stranded in shallow marshes became easy prey for fisherman.” (description of the 1844 confluence of Menomonee & Milwaukee Rivers) From James J. Buck, Pioneer History of Milwaukee from the First Settlement in 1833 to 1841, 1890 All diorama shots from the Milwaukee Public Museum

The Milwaukee Public Museum’s version of then and now the Menomonee River valley beneath the high rise bridge

Lakeshore State Park’s map version of then and now – Milwaukee’s shorelines and rivers in about 1830, with the blue lines showing the current shorelines

Jim Kupferschmidt • Descendant of a former Jones Island

fishing village family in Milwaukee • Organizer of the Annual Kaszube Picnics

on Jones Island

Leslie Schwarz Winter • Co-owner of Schwarz’s Fish

Company • A 100-year old fish business in

Sheboygan

Chris Svoboda • Owner of Pier Milwaukee

• Descendant of four generations of

Lake Michigan fisherman

Lake Michigan –

from a boater’s

perspective

Thank you, Jim, Leslie

and Chris!

Questions?