The name Milwaukee is believed to derive from the Potawatomi American native tribe, pronounced Mahn-ah-wauk, meaning council grounds. The first immigrants to Milwaukee were French and French Canadian traders and trappers during the early 1700’s. They founded three rival settlements—Juneautown, Kilbourntown, and Walker’s Point.
All three towns came together as the City of Milwaukee. A City Charter was formed in 1846, Solomon Juneau was elected the first mayor of Milwaukee. Juneau was a French Canadian trader who had settled his family in Milwaukee.
Milwaukee had the best natural harbor on the western shore of Lake Michigan. That single fact explains both the city’s location and its early growth. The city was the largest shipper of wheat in the early 1860.
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Wisconsin became a U.S. state on May 29, 1848 as the 30th state. The first European explorer to reach Wisconsin was Jean Nicolet while searching for the Northwest Passage to China, he traversed Lake Michigan and landed near Green Bay in 1634.

In 1763, Wisconsin was part of the territory ceded by France to Great Britain in the Treaty of Paris. Twenty years later, again at Paris, the British returned Wisconsin and it became part of the United States.
After it became part of the United States the economy of the territory shifted from fur trading to mining.
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