Editing Milwaukee (section)

===European settlement===
[[File:Solomon Juneau.jpg|thumb|left|Statue of [[Solomon Juneau]], who helped establish the city of Milwaukee]]
Europeans arrived in the Milwaukee area before the 1833 Treaty of Chicago. French missionaries and traders first passed through the area in the late 17th and 18th centuries. Alexis Laframboise, coming from Michilimackinac (now in Michigan), settled a trading post in 1785 and is considered the first resident of European descent in the Milwaukee region.<ref name="St-Pierre, T 1895">St-Pierre, T. ''Histoire des Canadiens du Michigan et du comté d'essex, Ontario''. ''Cahiers du septentrion'', vol. 17. Sillery, Québec: Septentrion. 2000; 1895.</ref>

One story on the origin of Milwaukee's name says,
{{blockquote|[O]ne day during the thirties of the last century [1800s] a newspaper calmly changed the name to Milwaukee, and Milwaukee it has remained until this day.<ref name="WGBruce">{{cite book|last=Bruce|first=William George|year=1936|title=A Short History of Milwaukee|location=Milwaukee, Wisconsin|publisher=The Bruce Publishing Company|pages=15–16|lccn=36010193}}</ref>}}
The spelling "Milwaukie" lives on in [[Milwaukie]], [[Oregon]], named after the Wisconsin city in 1847, before the current spelling was universally accepted.<ref>{{Cite web|date=August 3, 2016|title=From Milwaukee, Wis. to Milwaukie, Ore.|url=https://onmilwaukee.com/articles/milwaukieore|access-date=March 2, 2021|website=OnMilwaukee}}</ref>

Milwaukee has three "[[Father of the Nation|founding fathers]]": [[Solomon Juneau]], [[Byron Kilbourn]], and [[George H. Walker]]. Solomon Juneau was the first of the three to come to the area, in 1818. He founded a town called Juneau's Side, or Juneautown, that began attracting more settlers. In competition with Juneau, Byron Kilbourn established Kilbourntown west of the [[Milwaukee River]]. He ensured the roads running toward the river did not join with those on the east side. This accounts for the large number of angled bridges that still exist in Milwaukee today.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://emke.uwm.edu/entry/bridges/|title=Bridges {{!}} Encyclopedia of Milwaukee|website=emke.uwm.edu|access-date=October 3, 2018}}</ref> Further, Kilbourn distributed maps of the area which only showed Kilbourntown, implying Juneautown did not exist or the river's east side was uninhabited and thus undesirable. The third prominent developer was George H. Walker. He claimed land to the south of the Milwaukee River, along with Juneautown, where he built a log house in 1834. This area grew and became known as Walker's Point.<ref>{{Cite web|title=Walker's Point|url=https://emke.uwm.edu/entry/walkers-point/|access-date=March 2, 2021|website=Encyclopedia of Milwaukee}}</ref>

The first large wave of settlement to the areas that would later become Milwaukee County and the City of Milwaukee began in 1835, following removal of the tribes in the Council of Three Fires. Early that year it became known that Juneau and Kilbourn intended to lay out competing town-sites. By the year's end both had purchased their lands from the government and made their first sales. There were perhaps 100 new settlers in this year, mostly from New England and other Eastern states. On September 17, 1835, the first election was held in Milwaukee; the number of votes cast was 39.<ref>{{Source-attribution|sentence=yes|{{Cite book|title=Memoirs of Milwaukee County from the Earliest Historical Times ..., Vol. I|last=Watrous|first=Jerome A.|publisher=Western Historical Association|year=1909|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=XD4VAAAAYAAJ&q=editions:Jqsw4p18KfAC|location=Madison, Wisconsin|pages=265–267}}}}</ref>

By 1840, the three towns had grown, along with their rivalries. There were intense battles between the towns, mainly Juneautown and Kilbourntown, which culminated with the [[Milwaukee Bridge War]] of 1845. Following the Bridge War, on January 31, 1846, the towns were combined to incorporate as the City of Milwaukee, and elected Solomon Juneau as Milwaukee's first mayor.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://192.159.83.40/SOS/pdf/THEOSOS_025/images/00014104.pdf|title=City of Milwaukee Incorporated, page 164, 1846; page 314, 1851|access-date=April 8, 2007|author=City of Milwaukee|publisher=Office of the Secretary of State of Wisconsin|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070605144656/http://192.159.83.40/SOS/pdf/THEOSOS_025/images/00014104.pdf <!-- Bot retrieved archive -->|archive-date=June 5, 2007}}</ref>