Milwaukee Avenue historically a path for upwardly-mobile immigrants

Part of Milwaukee Avenue’s transformation from a dirt path to a modern commercial highway is due to the contributions of various ethnic Chicagoans.

For Germans, Poles and Puerto Ricans, Milwaukee Avenue has served as a path of migration from the crowded city to the more spacious territory north of Chicago—and later, the northwest suburbs.

It was both a path that signified upward mobility and a desire for distance from other immigrant groups arriving in the city, explained Dominic Pacyga, a Chicago history professor at Columbia College Chicago and author of “Chicago: A Biography.”

In the road’s early years, it was the Germans who settled along Milwaukee Avenue, operating the farms from Wheeling to Gurnee. But the Germans long ago assimilated, and to this day, one of the most visible ethnic groups to settle along Milwaukee has been the Poles, said Pacyga, who also authored the entry on Polish immigrants in the “Encyclopedia of Chicago.”

Chicago, home to the largest Polish population outside Warsaw, boasted a few Polish neighborhoods. One of the biggest was on the Northwest Side, where Milwaukee Avenue was the main commercial corridor.

While many Polish institutions, including the Polish Roman Catholic Union and the Polish Museum of America, are still based in the old neighborhood in Chicago, others have moved out to the suburbs, along with many residents and businesses that once lined Milwaukee Avenue in the city.

“As they went into the suburbs, it was natural to follow Milwaukee Avenue, just as it was natural to follow Archer Avenue on the South Side,” Pacyga said.

Other Polish institutions, such as the Polish National Alliance and the like the Polish Women’s Alliance moved their operations northwest with the Polish populace.

The Poles have not completely assimilated into the suburbs like the Germans, Pacyga said, and many Polish-owned businesses still line Milwaukee Avenue in Niles.

And the migration of immigrants continues along Milwaukee Avenue. Puerto Ricans, who have inhabited inner city neighborhoods along the road like Logan Square are following the path of their forbearers and moving northwest, as a generation of young professionals has begun to move into the neighborhoods in search of affordable housing.

“First, it was the Germans in the 1880s, basically to get away from the Polish,” Pacyga said. “The poles moved up Milwaukee Avenue to get away from the Germans, and the Puerto Ricans have moved up Milwaukee Avenue to get away from the yuppies.”

It is these people, those who traverse Milwaukee Avenue and inhabit the communities along the road, who have kept the route a commercial and cultural corridor 175 years after it was surveyed.

Their experiences contribute to the character of the road—a road that is at once a Main Street and a path to someplace better.

By Jeff Danna
TribLocal.com reporter