Take a Tour

Welcome...

to Milwaukee's Historic Third Ward. Our neighborhood walking tour will take you on a journey through a turn-of-the-century wholesale and manufacturing district.

Today the area, enhanced by its historic ambiance and significant architecture, is experiencing a renaissance as a revitalized mixed-use neighborhood. Here you will find the highest concentration of art galleries in the city, numerous antique shops, restaurants, unique specialty stores, factory outlets, showrooms, the Broadway Theater Center, the Milwaukee Institute of Art & Design, as well as apartments, condominiums, office buildings, and industrial space.

The Milwaukee River, the Lake Michigan harbor, and Downtown border the Third Ward. This accessibility to North Water, North Broadway and North Milwaukee Streets provided an ideal location for thriving wholesalers and manufacturers. In 1856 the first railroad linked Milwaukee to the Mississippi River, enabling the wholesalers to supply necessary goods to settlers in the West.

Suddenly in the late afternoon on October 28, 1892, tragedy struck the Third Ward. A fire broke out in the Water Street Union Oil & Paint Co. Strong 50 mph winds helped to spread the fire to adjacent buildings which also burst into flames. In a short time, the blaze had gone out of control. Cities as far away as Chicago and Oshkosh sent horse-drawn units by rail to help Milwaukee's fire department fight the flames. By midnight when the fire was finally contained, 440 buildings were destroyed and 1,900 people, mostly Irish immigrant laborers and their families, were left homeless.

Soon after the 1892 fire, prominent local architects stepped in to design many of the new commercial structures. Construction continued over the next 36 years and because of this relatively short span of development, the buildings exhibit an interesting continuity that unifies the neighborhood.