Wicked Milwaukee

by Yance Marti

Overview

Local historian Yance Marti uncovers the rough and rowdy blackguards who once made Milwaukee infamous.

The Cream City of yesteryear was a dingy haven for scofflaws and villains. Red-light districts peppered downtown's landscape, but none had the enduring allure of River Street, where Kitty Williams and Mary Kingsley operated high-class brothels. Chinese opium dens flourished in the backrooms of laundries. The demise of the Whiskey Ring brought down local distillers in a nationwide scandal that nearly reached the Oval Office. As a result, Police Chief John Janssen and the Committee to Investigate White Slavery and Kindred Vice waged a protracted battle to contain the most brazen offenses.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781439665466
Publisher:	The History Press
Publication date:	10/08/2018
Series:	Wicked
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	128
File size:	2 MB

About the Author

Yance Marti works as a civil engineer for the City of Milwaukee. In his spare time, he researches and writes about the history of the city. In 2007, he developed OldMilwaukee.net to share the fascinating stories he found in newspaper archives. The site also presents the architectural history of downtown and provides a forum for discussing local history. In assistance with Historic Milwaukee Inc., he authored Missing Milwaukee in 2011. It showcased the work of two local photographers who documented downtown buildings lost to demolition over the last several decades.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements 5

Introduction 7

1 River Street, Red Light of the Bayou 11

2 The South Side Whiskey Conspiracy 22

3 Dangerous Alleys and Badlands 32

4 Cleaning Up Opium Laundries 43

5 Shady Back Rooms of the Weinstubc 53

6 Undercover in a Man's World 63

7 Red Flag over Milwaukee 72

8 The Hidden Door to the Kingdom of Booze 86

9 Gamblers of the Sixth Ward 94

10 Police Court Stories 105

Notes 119

About the Author 127