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Long before they traveled to Six Flags Great America or Noah’s Ark for a shot of adrenaline, Milwaukeeans had their choice of amusement parks that were only a streetcar ride away. One of the most popular was Pabst Park, an eight-acre playground on North Third Street (now Martin Luther King Drive) and Burleigh. Although it was decidedly low-tech by modern standards, the park was a reliable source of screams and laughter for years.
It began with live ammunition. In 1866, a group of German shooting enthusiasts bought the parcel as a site for their tournaments and target practices. In 1889, as the area became more urbanized, Frederick Pabst, Milwaukee’s leading brewer, bought their Schuetzen (Shooting) Park and developed it as an in-town complement to his lake bluff resort in Whitefish Bay. Renamed Pabst Park, it became one of the city’s most popular beer gardens.
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In 1904, without sacrificing its Sunday picnic business, the brewery decided to vault ahead of its competitors by adding amusement rides. This photograph, taken soon after the park’s transformation, shows two of the most popular, a carousel and a roller coaster, behind the beer tents in the foreground. Other attractions included a miniature railroad, a shooting gallery and a water ride called the Mystic Rill.
The rise of public parks and the onset of Prohibition in 1919 spelled the end of Milwaukee’s private beer gardens. In 1921, the city bought Pabst Park and renamed it for President James Garfield. The rides were replaced by new amenities, including an open-air dance pavilion “in the Spanish style.”
The park’s name was changed again in 1982 to honor Clinton Rose, a pillar of the city’s Black community and veteran County Board member. Today the well-used Rose Senior Center stands where thousands of Milwaukeeans once converged to enjoy “high class amusement for young and old.”
Take a Closer Look:
- Pabst Park’s carousel could accommodate 100 riders.
- The Katzenjammer Castle fun house promised “no end of merriment.”
- The park’s Figure 8 roller coaster was “the only one of its kind in the West” – a region that included Milwaukee in the early 1900s.
- Homeowners on the Chambers Street side of the grounds had to develop a tolerance for noise.
- A grandstand provided seating for Wild West show, Roman chariot races and other mass entertainments.
IN COLLABORATION WITH MILWAUKEE COUNTY HISTORICAL SOCIETY
