Archaeologists Discover Lost Graves From Milwaukee's Boom Time

Bones unearthed at the gravesite discovered in Milwaukee. Credit: Elisa Neckar, Discover In 1874, Milwaukee was swelling with immigrants. The city’s population had more than septupled in less than thirty years, and German immigrants to the area had established the largest concentration of a single ethnic group anywhere in America. In response to this exponential growth, the Common Council decided that 13^th Street would have to be expanded – and the new street would have to run through the German Protestant Cemetery in the city’s Second Ward. The Common Council ordered the cemetery owners to relocate the bodies within 30 days. Since I’m standing in a partially excavated lot in the middle of downtown Milwaukee in August of 2015, with 13^th Street to my back and gravesites all around me, it’s pretty obvious that relocation never happened. The graves were uncovered during construction for an addition to the Guest House ...