South East Wisconsin Part 12
Watertown
Population: 23861
Watertown is a city in Dodge and Jefferson counties.
Trivia:
There was an influx of German immigrants in the late 19th century. The city is the home of the first kindergarten in the United States, started in 1856 by Margarethe Schurz, wife of statesman Carl Schurz; the building that housed this kindergarten is now located on the grounds of the Octagon House Museum in Watertown.
Waukesha
Population: 72412
Waukesha is the county seat of Waukesha County.
Trivia:
Matthew Laflin, an early pioneer of Chicago, Illinois, provided the capital and enterprise that laid the foundation for Waukesha as a famous Wisconsin watering resort and was the proprietor of the grand resort, the Fountain Spring House. Waukesha was once known for its extremely clean and good-tasting spring water and was called a "spa town." This earned the city the nicknames "Spring City" and "Saratoga of the West."
During the Cold War, Waukesha County was the site of three Nike Missile batteries, located in the city of Waukesha and nearby Muskego and Lannon. In the city of Waukesha, the U.S. Army and later the Wisconsin National Guard operated the command and control center from 1956 to 1970 at what is now Hillcrest Park, on Davidson Road. The missile pits existed near the corner of Cleveland Avenue and Hwy 164—first holding Ajax missiles with conventional warheads and later the nuclear equipped Hercules warhead. The Hercules provided a similar nuclear capability as that of the atomic bomb dropped on Nagasaki in World War II. The Midwest Chapter of the Cold War Museum has promoted the preservation of the Hillcrest Park site as a local Cold War museum, honoring Cold War veterans and commemorating America's longest and costliest conflict.
Les Paul, musician and inventor
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Waupon
Population: 7864
Waupon is a city in Dodge and Fond du Lac counties.
Trivia:
In 1945 Waupon, was selected for the site of a German POW camp. Despite public opposition, the camp was constructed next to the canning factory, south of Doty Street. The prisoners were brought to Wisconsin to relieve deficits of manpower in the area factories and farms. There were about 200 POWs at the Waupon camp who were assigned to work either for Canned Foods Inc. in Waupon or Stokely Foods in Brandon, Wisconsin.
About a quarter of the town's population is incarcerated at the Dodge Correctional Institution, John C. Burke Correctional Center, and Waupon Correctional Institution. These more than 3,000 people from around the state may not vote but make up a majority in two districts. This prison gerrymandering gives outsized electoral power to other residents in the districts relative to others.
Wauwatosa
Population: 46396
Wauwatosa is a city in Milwaukee County.
Trivia:
The Town of Wau-wau-too-sa was created by act of the Wisconsin Territorial Legislature on April 30, 1840. As of the 1840 census, the population of the Town of Wau-wau-too-sa or Wauwatosa was 342. The town government was organized in 1842. The town's borders originally extended from the present-day Greenfield Avenue in the south to Hampton Avenue in the north, and from 27th Street in the east to the Waukesha County line in the west, encompassing sections of present-day Milwaukee, West Milwaukee and West Allis, plus the southern part of former North Milwaukee, which was wholly annexed into the city of Milwaukee in 1927. Most of the town was farmland through the remainder of the 19th century.
Spencer Tracy
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