Wauwatosa, WI

The Menomonee Valley made Wauwatosa an overland gateway between southeastern Wisconsin farmland and the Port of Milwaukee. Charles Hart became its first Euro-American settler in 1835, followed by 17 more families that year; a U.S. road built through the settlement in 1836 eventually reached Madison. Quarrying exposed Niagara Escarpment stone used for the region’s cream-colored brick and limestone foundations. Wauwatosa, immediately west of Milwaukee, had 48,387 residents in 2020. Its Milwaukee County Regional Medical Center includes the Medical College of Wisconsin, Children’s Wisconsin, and Froedtert Hospital. The Washington Highlands neighborhood, designed by city planner Werner Hegemann in 1916, joined the National Register of Historic Places in 1989.