History Mystery: Garbage collection on Kenosha streets began in early 1900s
BY DIANE GILES
dgiles@kenoshanews.com
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The last History Mystery question:
In what year did Kenosha begin garbage collection?
Answer:
The city has been hauling garbage since 1917.
The City Council started talking about such a measure in 1916. For one week in May 1916, the city provided wagons and manpower to collect unburnable refuse that people piled on their curb. People were taking pride in their city, and the special event was extremely popular.
One north-side resident produced enough trash from his property to fill six wagons.
The following May, community leaders once again became concerned with the foul stench in the air. The spring thaw had come weeks before; the stink was our garbage.
The city purchased 2,000 garbage cans, one for every property owner and back-charged them at $2.35 per can.
The city purchased a motorized truck with special racks to hold the cans. Three years later, a special committee recommended to the commissioner of public works that the city purchase four trailers, six horses, six harnesses and blankets.
So now that we had a garbage crew and the vehicles to haul the garbage, where did we take it?
Stand along our lakefront between 39th Street and 61st Street and you’ve got about a 50-50 chance of standing on a dump site of the past.
What sounds utterly despicable today actually gave us much of our present lakefront park acreage.
Kennedy Park, Cohorama Point and Wolfenbuttel Park are all comprised of acreage reclaimed from old lake erosion by landfills.
Even part of the Southport Marina was dug out from land that once had been landfill.
Garbage men would haul the cans to the site, dump their contents and cover the refuse with sand.
Viable sites were put into use and swapped often, sometimes only used for six months before nearby residents balked at the smell and threatened injunctions.
In 1923, there were 9,430 households from which garbage was collected weekly or semi-weekly.
Deposited at the foot of Wisconsin Street (58th Street), 240 acres of land were reclaimed.
For that year the cost of the service was almost identical to the value of the land reclaimed: $42,000.
At one point the Simmons Co. let the city put the garbage on its property near 57th Street.
But the Simmons employees and members of the Eagles Club in the 300 block of 58th Street complained vigorously.
This week’s mystery:
For what purpose did the city use the police department’s new motorized police car in 1913?
History Mystery appears weekly in the Kenosha News. The answer to today’s question will run next Tuesday.
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