[Congressional Record Volume 148, Number 69 (Friday, May 24, 2002)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E911]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




    CONGRATULATIONS TO THE CITY OF WEST ALLIS ON ITS 100TH BIRTHDAY

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                         HON. GERALD D. KLECZKA

                              of wisconsin

                    in the house of representatives

                         Thursday, May 23, 2002

  Mr. KLECZKA. Mr. Speaker, on June 2, 2002, the city of West Allis, 
Wisconsin will host the centennial celebration of its incorporation as 
a village. Happy 100th birthday, West Allis.
  Native American mounds, likely left by ancestors of the Ho-Chunk or 
Potawatomi tribes in the ground near what today is Wisconsin's State 
Fair Park, provide evidence of some of the earliest residents in the 
area. But it was not until the 1830s that native tribes began to see 
New Englanders arrive in the region to farm its fertile lands and 
establish the area's first settlement, called Honey Creek. It may have 
remained a farming community for many years to come, had it not been 
for a rapid growth of heavy industry in the city of Milwaukee in the 
late 1800s and the extension of a street railway line to the area.
  Milwaukee was running out of room for large manufacturing plants, and 
the Honey Creek area had become a highly desirable location for 
industry. Companies like Kearney and Trecker and the Rosenthal 
Comhusker Company began to make their home in the area that was now 
called North Greenfield, and soon Edward P. Allis decided that his 
company also needed room to grow.
  In 1900, Allis moved his company, which had become an industry leader 
in machinery, to the area that would soon bear his name. Workers soon 
followed, and the population grew so quickly that the area was 
chartered as the Village of West Allis in 1902, and as a city only 4 
years later.
  The city of West Allis expanded to become the second largest city in 
Milwaukee County and seventh largest in the state. Although the 
region's decline in heavy manufacturing in the past several decades has 
brought challenges to the community, the city of West Allis and its 
mayor, Jeannette Bell, have worked tirelessly to bring in new 
businesses and revitalize West Allis neighborhoods.
  West Allis remains a city that is proud of its industrial past and 
enthusiastic about its future. To the city of West Allis and its 
citizens, my heartiest congratulations, and my best wishes for a 
prosperous second century.

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