Kaszube's Park

The story

You are standing on 0.15 acres of green grass pinched between a towering mountain of road salt and the Jones Island Wastewater Treatment Plant. Heavy machinery clanks in the distance, diesel fumes mix with the sulfurous funk of Milwaukee’s sewage processing, and a massive steel anchor sits quietly under six lone trees. It feels less like a city park and more like an accident of zoning, but this tiny patch of land at 1439 South Carferry Drive is the last surviving scrap of a squatters' empire.

In the late 19th century, Jones Island was a bustling, self-governing fishing village settled predominantly by Kashubians—Slavic immigrants from the Baltic coast of Poland. They built wooden shanties on the marshy peninsula without owning the land, mended nets, smoked whitefish, and lived largely outside the city's legal reach. At its peak in the early 1900s, the island hosted thousands of residents, several taverns, a school, and a distinct maritime culture. The city eventually evicted the villagers in the 1920s and 1930s to build industrial port infrastructure and the sewage plant, leveling every home and tavern.

Only one patch was preserved to mark where Captain Felix Struck once operated his legendary island tavern, a central gathering spot for the fishermen. Designated as Milwaukee’s smallest public park in 1974, it remains a solitary monument to a erased community, tucked deep inside a heavy industrial zone where most locals never think to drive.