North Avenue Dam
The first dam on the Milwaukee River was built in 1835, at a site just downstream from the present North Avenue bridge.
"Milwaukee River furnishes an abundant and reliable water power," wrote Rufus King in 1845. "It is dammed a mile or more above the town, and the water for milling and factory purposes is drawn off through a fine canal. A fall of fourteen feet can be obtained, but ten is all that is needed at present. There is a large grist mill with four run of stone, a saw mill, two furnaces, a planing machine, a wooden-ware factory turning out three hundred pails, churns and tubs per day, and one or two other establishments. The factories are all built between the river and the canal. From the latter they derive their water power, and the former enables vessels of all sizes to come up and moor immediately alongside. " The mill race was filled in 1884, but the dam continued to impound the river for more a century. Then, in 1990, officials agreed to remove the dam. The effects on wildlife were dramatic. Before the dam was removed, just eight species of fish were found above the dam. Most were carp. After the removal 20 species were found, including stonerollers, darters, smallmouth bass, walleyes and northern pike. Osprey, herons and otter now populate the banks of the river, and in the spring and fall, lake trout and salmon swim upstream as far as Grafton and Cedarburg to spawn. Perhaps most eagerly anticipated, though, is the return of lake sturgeon to their ancestral spawning grounds in the river. To that end, 1,000 six-inch fingerlings have been tagged and released into the river every year since 2006. The ancient fish spend most of their lives in Lake Michigan, and one has been netted some 250 miles away, near Escanaba. Will the sturgeon ever return to spawn in the Milwaukee River? We won't know for another 10 years, because it takes a female sturgeon 20 years before she can reproduce. "It's always exciting to find the sturgeon," says DNR biologist William Wawrzyn. "The goal is to have a naturally reproducing population. If we find evidence of that, there will be a celebration for sure." |