Oak Creek: Fifty Years of Progress

In the early 1830s, U.S. officials forced the Menomonee and Potawatomi Indians to give up their lands in present-day Milwaukee County. Men from England and the eastern United States purchased large tracts of land along Lake Michigan from the government. Settlers like John Fowle, George Cobb, and Luther Rawson brought families to southeastern Wisconsin and helped establish the town of Oak Creek. For more than 100 years, Oak Creek retained its township status and rural character. But in 1955,...