Juneau Park, located in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, is situated on a bluff overlooking Lake Michigan. It is popular for its short distance to downtown Milwaukee, lakefront walking path, and vantage point for fireworks displays. [1]
Located within the park is a tribute to the city's first mayor, Solomon Juneau. The Juneau Monument, designed by Richard Park, was built in 1887. [2] [3] Also within the park is the 1887 statue, Leif, the Discoverer of Leif Erikson made by sculptor Anne Whitney. It is a replica of a statue in Boston. [4]
Gertie the Duck, an icon of Milwaukee history, was moved with her ducklings to the lagoon at Juneau Park in the mid-1940s for their safety. [5] The story of a duck, Gertie, and her efforts to watch over nine eggs— and ultimately hatch six ducklings on a wood piling below the Wisconsin Avenue Bridge— Milwaukee Journal and became an inspiration for many war-weary Americans near the end of World War II. [5] [6] Passers-by, the Boy Scouts, and a Wisconsin Humane Society officer watched over Gertie and her growing family. [7] Besides local newspapers, the story was picked up in national and U.K. press. [8] After surviving bad weather and a nearby fire, the ducks were relocated to the Juneau Park lagoon. [5]
Juneau is a city in Dodge County, Wisconsin, United States. The population was 2,658 at the 2020 census. It is the county seat of Dodge County.
Solomon Laurent Juneau, or Laurent-Salomon Juneau was a French Canadian fur trader, land speculator, and politician who helped found the city of Milwaukee, Wisconsin. He was born in Repentigny, Quebec, Canada to François and (Marie-)Thérèse Galarneau Juneau. His cousin was Joseph Juneau, who founded the city of Juneau, Alaska.
The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel is a daily morning broadsheet printed in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, where it is the primary newspaper and also the largest newspaper in the state of Wisconsin, where it is widely read. It was purchased by the Gannett Company in 2016.
Calvary Cemetery is the oldest existing Catholic cemetery in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Owned by the Archdiocese of Milwaukee, it is the final resting place for many of the city's early influential figures. The cemetery was designated a Milwaukee Landmark in 1981.
Cathedral Square Park is a small urban Milwaukee County Park in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, US, located to the west of the Cathedral of St. John the Evangelist. The park only takes the name of the nearby cathedral, with the Archdiocese of Milwaukee holding no ownership of the site.
Anne Whitney was an American sculptor and poet. She made full-length and bust sculptures of prominent political and historical figures, and her works are in major museums in the United States. She received prestigious commissions for monuments. Two statues of Samuel Adams were made by Whitney and are located in Washington, D.C.'s National Statuary Hall Collection and in front of Faneuil Hall in Boston. She also created two monuments to Leif Erikson.
Milwaukee, Wisconsin's history, which includes over 160 years of immigration, politics, and industry, has given it a distinctive heritage.
Richard Henry Park was an American sculptor who worked in marble and bronze. He was commissioned to do work by the wealthy of the nineteenth century. He did a marble bust of John Plankinton, an astute businessman who founded the meat industry in Wisconsin and was "Milwaukee's foremost citizen."
Gertie the Duck is an icon of Milwaukee, Wisconsin history and the subject of a 4-foot-tall (1.2 m) bronze sculpture by American artist Gwendolyn Gillen. It was installed on the Wisconsin Avenue bridge in September 1997.
The Juneau Monument is a public artwork by American artist Richard Henry Park located on the grounds of Juneau Park, which is in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. The base of the statue is made of limestone. On top of the base is a bronze statue of Solomon Juneau. On each side of the base are bronze reliefs. The statue is 5 feet (1.5 m) wide by 15 feet (4.6 m) high.
Leif, the Discoverer is a bronze sculpture of Leif Ericson created by American sculptor Anne Whitney. The statue was erected on November 15, 1887 in Juneau Park in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, United States.
The Washington Monument is a public artwork by American artist Richard Henry Park located on the Court of Honor in front of the Milwaukee Public Library Central Library, which is near Marquette University in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. The bronze sculpture is a full-length portrait of a 43-year-old George Washington, and stands on a granite pedestal; a bronze woman points up at Washington while a child, also made out of bronze, gazes upward. It was sculpted by Richard Henry Park and was erected in 1885 with philanthropic financial support from Elizabeth Plankinton. The statue was restored between July 2016 and January 2018.
The statue of Robert Burns in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, is a work of public art by the Scottish artist William Grant Stevenson, RSA. The statue is a memorial to the world renowned poet, bard, and Scotsman Robert Burns. The bronze statue stands upon a plinth of Nova Scotia pink granite. The plinth is adorned with two bronze bas relief panels depicting scenes from Burns' poetry. The monument was donated to the City of Milwaukee by James A. Bryden.
An equestrian statue of Tadeusz Kościuszko by the Italian and American artist Gaetano Trentanove is located on the south side of Milwaukee, Wisconsin, in the United States. The bronze equestrian sculpture portrays Kościuszko in his military uniform and hat. It is located at South 9th Place and West Lincoln Avenue in Kosciuszko Park. The statue was placed in October 1904 but was not officially unveiled until June 18, 1905 with a speech by Archbishop F. Symon from Rome. The statue was moved to its present location in 1951 and a celebratory unveiling was held on September 15 of that year.
Elizabeth Ann or Anne Plankinton was an American philanthropist in the early 20th century, the daughter of Milwaukee businessman John Plankinton. She was also known as "Miss Lizzie" and the people of Milwaukee called Plankinton the "municipal patroness" because of her generosity. She made a large donation that built the first YWCA in Milwaukee. She also purchased an elaborate large-scale pipe organ for the newly constructed city auditorium.
The John Plankinton statue is a six foot (1.8 m) lifelike representation of the businessman and industrialist. It took the sculptor Richard Henry Park six months to make and was initially placed in the Plankinton House Hotel in downtown Milwaukee in 1892. The property in 1916 was redeveloped into the Plankinton Arcade shopping plaza. The property was again redeveloped in the 1970s into the John Plankinton Mall at the same location where the hotel once stood. The latest redevelopment of the property occurred in 1980 to 1982 and renamed the Shops of Grand Avenue. The statue was restored in 2012 and placed on a 15 foot (4.6 m) pedestal becoming a permanent part of the shopping plaza. It is now viewed by hundreds of shoppers daily.
Gwendolyn "Gwen" Gillen was an American sculptor and artist. Her best known works include a bronze sculpture of actress Mary Tyler Moore tossing her Tam o' shanter hat into the air as a homage to the final scene of opening credits of The Mary Tyler Moore Show. Gillen's life-size sculpture of Moore, dedicated in 2002 on the Nicollet Mall in downtown Minneapolis, is one of the city's most recognizable landmarks and a "symbol of Minneapolis". Her other well known pieces include a 4-foot bronze sculpture of Gertie the Duck, which was installed on the Wisconsin Avenue bridge in Milwaukee in 1997.
Leif Eriksson is an outdoor statue by Anne Whitney at the west end of the Commonwealth Avenue Mall in Boston, Massachusetts, United States. Installed in 1887, it was the first public sculpture to honor the Norse explorer in the New World.
Washington Park (1900) originally called West Park is a park in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, in the United States. From 1892–1958 the park was home to the Milwaukee County Zoo. It is one of the oldest parks in Milwaukee and it was added to the Wisconsin Architecture and History Inventory in 2019.