Milwaukee Mayhem: Murder and Mystery in the Cream City's First Century

by Matthew J. Prigge

From murder and matchstick men to all-consuming fires, painted women, and Great Lakes disasters--and the wide-eyed public who could not help but gawk at it all--"Milwaukee Mayhem" uncovers the little-remembered and rarely told history of the underbelly of a Midwestern metropolis. "Milwaukee Mayhem" offers a new perspective on Milwaukee's early years, forgoing the major historical signposts found in traditional histories and focusing instead on the strange and brutal tales of mystery, vice, murder, and disaster that were born of the city's transformation from lakeside settlement to American metropolis. Author Matthew J. Prigge presents these stories as they were recounted to the public in the newspapers of the era, using the vivid and often grim language of the times to create an engaging and occasionally chilling narrative of a forgotten Milwaukee.

Through his thoughtful introduction, Prigge gives the work context, eschewing assumptions about "simpler times" and highlighting the mayhem that the growth and rise of a city can bring about. These stories are the orphans of Milwaukee's history, too unusual to register in broad historic narratives, too strange to qualify as nostalgia, but nevertheless essential to our understanding of this American city.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, True Crime, Crime, American

208 pages, Paperback

First published October 7, 2015

About the author

Matthew J. Prigge is an author and historian from Milwaukee. He is the author of five books, including the forthcoming Opening Day in Milwaukee: The Brewers’ Season-Starters, 1970-2022. He led tours of Milwaukee’s rivers and harbors for nearly ten years as the resident narrator aboard the Vista King tour boat and was the host of WMSE’s ‘What Made Milwaukee Famous’ radio program. He is currently a public librarian and is an avid collector of baseball cards.

His topics of focus include baseball, true crime, and Milwaukee history. Matthew lives in St. Francis, Wisconsin with his spouse, Erika, and their four occasionally-troublesome pet rats.

Reviews

[Amy · Rating 2 out of 5]

Eh, this book was okay. I was expecting more substance, but it was just a bunch of quick stories about fires, accidents, and other weird crappy stuff that happened in Milwaukee's first 100 years. At least the stories had been edited/written to be consistent, but I was always wanting more info. I wished they would have done less stories and gone into more detail. I was expecting more Devil in the White City but it was more Wisconsin Death Trip.

[Lady ♥ Belleza · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is the history of a city's one-hundred-year struggle to leave its past behind, to understand, itself, and to make sense of the everyday mayhem of life in a metropolis being born.

Jeffrey Dahmer was called "The Milwaukee Cannibal", but he wasn't the only bad boy in the city. Although most of the criminals written about in this book are most likely unknown or forgotten. Sorted into categories such as "Murder", "Accidents", "Vice", and "Secrets" this is a compilation of true accounts from Milwaukee during it 'growing pains'.

These are very brief accounts. Not extremely detailed but factual. Mr. Prigge records what is know and leaves the speculating to our imaginations. Well written and concise, I would recommend this book.

[Annie Garvey · Rating 4 out of 5]

The book is sectioned by crime, for example, murder, vice, etc. It would have been better if it was chronological within the sections.

[Dustin Lynch · Rating 4 out of 5]

The book was interesting. The beginning chapter felt like it took a while to get into. The rest of the book flew by and kept me very engaged.

[Julie Capell · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book is divided into four sections: Murder, Accidents, Vice and Secrets. Each is populated with short recaps of true incidents that occurred in Milwaukee in the late 1800s and early 1900s. It's an interesting concept and the author has clearly spent a lot of time reading old newspapers to glean the information in this book.

I read the first story in the "Murder" section and immediately realized I was going to have nightmares if I continued. Just not the type of thing I enjoy reading (same reason I don't like most crime shows on TV--can't stand all the blood and gore). I decided to skip right to the chapter on "Vice" which I found much less creepy. Some parts were actually funny, and I learned a lot about Milwaukee that I didn't know.

Anyone who is interested in the early days of Milwaukee, and particularly anyone who is knowledgeable about the different streets and avenues of the city, would enjoy this book. It was interesting to learn, for instance, that Wells Street near the river was once the home of dozens of brothels and gambling houses. But be warned that large swaths of the book are filled with graphic descriptions of murders and other horrific crimes.

[Bill Tyroler · Rating 4 out of 5]

Matthew Prigge sets out to discover, from bits and pieces of long-forgotten vignettes, just what makes Milwaukee tick. He digs into newspaper archives to recount events that for the most part probably haven't seen the light of day since original publication. Murders, suicides, gruesome accidents, downward spirals induced by drug, booze, sex, avarice -- one account right after another, accompanied by an unstated bemusement: Well, stuff happens, and this is what happened to one poor slob on an otherwise ordinary day. "These stories, and their actors," Prigge says by way of introducing them, "are the orphans of history. They are too obscure to fit into the standard historical narrative yet too damn weird to completely ignore. There are few heroes here and even fewer lessons learned." I'm not sure that last part is right: astounding heroism is on display, if not necessarily in abundance (Herman Strauss saved 5 women from the Newhall House inferno; Ingar Olsen, at immense peril, plucked a construction worker from storm-lashed Lake Michigan). More importantly, I'm not sure he's right that there's not much if anything to learn. His implied point is right, I think, that there isn't any real connection from one incident to the next, no grand unifying theory of why stuff happens. Isn't that very much a lesson? That calamity can strike without warning? Nature isn't bound by a Due Process Clause that guarantees notice before an adverse consequence is meted out. To be sure, Prigge's got some self-inflicted tragedies on display, but if anyone can figure out why it is that the temptations of the flesh cause some to self-destruct and others not, that's news to me. Besides, we may as a species have rubbernecking in our wiring, and there's just enough time to gape at one disaster before the next unfolds.

I initially thought that Prigge had used as a model "Wisconsin Death Trip," Michael Lesy's fine look at 19th Century Black River Falls: mayhem in a small town, mayhem in a big city. But that's not fair to Prigge, whose enthusiasm for his subjects is quite infectious, and whose project is as original in its way as Lesy's was in his. (Prigge says that, as a 10-year-old growing up in Manitowoc, he dreamed about living in Milwaukee. Weird, and endearing -- not unlike his book.) His epilogue, particularly, has a phantasmagoric quality -- he senses "the apparitions," the ones he's brought to life after so many years of obscurity, the ones that "are invisible to most" but very much alive and kicking in his mind's eye. Forget Lesy, I thought there was a hint of Dylan, not an allusion to be made lightly, but not one to be overstated either; a hint, that's all, of "Desolation Row," and that's plenty to make Prigge's trip worth taking.

[Nikki in Niagara · Rating 4 out of 5]

A collection of dark tales from Milwaukee's early history taken from the newspapers, written in the author's own words. Divided into four sections: Murder, Accidents, Vice, and Secrets. The stories have no segues between them and are in no chronological order; they are simply vignettes ranging from a paragraph to three pages long. Themes are arranged together such as all suicides are together, as are fires, poisonings, prohibition cases etc. I had expected more of a flowing narrative than a collection of stories so took off to a slow start, but once I decided to read about 25 pages in a sitting I enjoyed the book much more in the small doses and found many of the stories interesting. Personally, rather than satisfying my interest in true crime, I found the book more satiated my appetite for social history. Much can be gleaned from these stories on social attitudes at the time. I especially enjoyed the chapter on vice, not because it was salacious by any means, but because of the information I gleaned on such matters as flappers, police procedures, the youth of the day, and a funny story on a crusade to ban kissing not for moral reasons but because of the germs! LOL. The stories range from the 1850s to the 1920s, with some from the '30s and a handful from the war years of the '40s. Interesting for its stories of crime and the underbelly of society in the early 20th century but most fascinating, in my opinion, from a social history aspect of the era.

[Stephanie · Rating 2 out of 5]

This wasn't exactly what I was expecting. I was expecting a narrative (think 'Devil in the White City'), it was written, instead, as a collection of newspaper articles. It was still interesting & fairly well written, but because it was a series of vignettes rather than one story, it didn't "flow" well for me.
A couple of things that would've helped were if the events in each section were chronological (I can't find any logic to the order he put the stories in in each section), & if a map was included to get a better visual of where things were happening (most took place in what is now downtown Milwaukee, so it wouldn't've been too excessive).

Anyways, if you're interested in Milwaukee history, this is a good book for you.

[Amy · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book was ok. It was reminded me of reading a collection of "on this day" articles in a newspaper. Once I read the first few stories on a particular vice I didn't need to read the others as they almost became repetitive in nature. I would have enjoyed it more if there were fewer stories but with more details and flesh to those fewer stories. It was still fun and interesting to read about my city, imagining how life was on the streets of Milwaukee back then.

[Kendall Lynn Babcock · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wisconsin. History. Easy Read.

I really enjoy History and Wisconsin, and this book has both. Quick, easy to read stories if I just wanted to get a little in at lunch. But, it was also easy to get caught up in it.

[Jeramey · Rating 4 out of 5]

The book is really a collection of one-or-two page stories based on historical events. Mostly sad tales (for the victims), but interesting to see what people thought they could (and sometimes did) get away with in Milwaukee.

[Bexa · Rating 4 out of 5]

Some of the stories I have heard before from Haunted Wisconsin stories. It was really fascinating that all these stories came from the newspapers and that Prigge was able to put them cohesively together in an entertaining way.

[Irene · Rating 3 out of 5]

Easy read and short stories of the criminal activities in the popular areas of Milwaukee in the late 1800s, early 1900s.

[Patricia Atkinson · Rating 5 out of 5]

lots of great history I only knew about dahmer so it was nice to read all the older ones...a great read for true crime or history buffs...

[Kelly Whitt · Rating 3 out of 5]

Very short stories of about a page long on gambling, prostitution, murder, etc, that makes you realize the good old days were pretty bad.

[Jane · Rating 4 out of 5]

pretty interesting and fast reads.

[Dave Courtney · Rating 3 out of 5]

I visited Brewtown, or Cream City last summer. While I had been to and through Chicago a few times over the years, I had always been intrigued by its much smaller counterpart barely an hour north over the Wisconsin border..

When one speaks highly of a place, it's usually with the phrase "character'. And character is typically closely related to history. The less history, the less character.

Milwaukee has history, but as this books title suggests, that history is connected to its murder and mayhem. So much so it is literally imprinted into the place's cultural evolution. When we were there it seemed every bit as vital to know about its Harley's and its brews as it was to know the history of its fascination with the madness. A place made of ghosts and horror stories. And no matter how the city has been built up around these stories, boasting spacious streets, historical neighborhoods, a grassroots vibe, and a definite rivertown spirit, there remains a sense of fascination with the cities shadowy corners and darker edges. Something to embrace and to celebrate as part of its character.

I had picked this book up at one of the local shoots, but I decided to hold off until spooky season to give it a read. It's not exactly what I expected. I was hoping for something more narrative driven and substantive. Something with a bit more reflection and commentary. What this is instead is a series of short true stories that fit into one of the following four categories- Murder, Accidents, Vice, and Secrets.

Which is not to say it's bad. I really liked the opening intro which sets the stage for the history of mayhem, formulated as it is around the river and it's brides. The East-West divide, as it typically goes. When one doesn't like the other? Just tear down their bridge.

For what it is though, a very casual romp through stories with limited but verified data, it's a fun read. It was easy for me to imagine these stories through recalling the still existing streets and buildings today, especially from our Dahmer walking tour.

Gotta love when a small city sitting in shadow of the much bigger metropolis down the road finds their own way by just embracing the crazy. As they say, history breeds character, and Milwaukee has a good dose of it to share.

[Judie · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a disarming little book filled with vignettes of some of Milwaukee's interesting characters between 1845 and 1945, Milwaukee's first 100 years. It allows the reader to visualize the city in its early years by chronicling some "orphans of history." The book offers a new perspective, sharing stories of unsolved murders, irregular happenings, and shady dealings in the young city, rather than witnessing major developmental or historical events. One can picture the everyday occurrences of young Milwaukee while gleaning what it must have been like for the average citizen. It might be particularly entertaining for those who "know" Milwaukee's streets and neighborhoods.

[David · Rating 3 out of 5]

The book provides useful reference material for those wanting to learn about Milwaukee through articles that have appeared in newspapers down through the years. The author is basically an editor who provides some introductory material for each chapter with news clippings about murders, accidents, vice, and secrets. An interesting read for those wanting to know more about Milwaukee.

[Gail Sacharski · Rating 3 out of 5]

Living a short drive away from Milwaukee, my family having lived there for a good portion of the 1900s, & having spent much time there, I have always been interested in its history. This was an interesting book that highlighted the more obscure stories of the city, most of which presented a very different picture of Milwaukee than I'd read about before.

[Malinda Moore · Rating 4 out of 5]

Prigge is a beautiful writer who has this captivating manor that almost give the tales a movie like quality when you're reading. While mostly a sad book, it was interesting to hear the stories of those who walked the same streets I walked.

[Tom Bateman · Rating 3 out of 5]

An interesting collection of stories, though lacking a consistent narrative or, more importantly, historical context. Some of the stories are vague, at best, and left me wanting more details, more quotes, more information. Still, an interesting read.

[Lauder · Rating 4 out of 5]

Murders and mysteries throughout Milwaukee - this was a fascinating read!

[Christine Schultz · Rating 5 out of 5]

I enjoyed the length of each shocking account from true crimes in historic Milwaukee. The reporting style of the day was as interesting as the crimes themselves.

[Christina · Rating 2 out of 5]

*Didn't finish*

It was too dark for me.

[Emily Koester · Rating 4 out of 5]

These are the stories I like to learn about when delving into histories! Quirky and creepy, a cities secrets. Very interesting read.

[Collin · Rating 3 out of 5]

Entertaining.

[Dawn · Rating 1 out of 5]

This book was chosen for our book club March 2024.

The overall review did not go over well. I personally felt that it was too clipped from the microfilm and copied into this book.

There was a discussion on how some of the destructive fires were learning experiences to have longer ladders and find a way to get water to the higher floors. Also a note not to walk into a fire scene if you don’t have any idea the strength of the structure.

Someone brought up the unusual laws of the time, which gave us a laugh.

But overall, would they recommend this book. Hmm?

[Jeremy Steingraber · Rating 4 out of 5]

Lots of interesting stories here. Many shorter stories so really good bathroom read.