Summerfest, The World’s Largest Music Festival, is once again upon us, ushering in the thick of summertime in Milwaukee. Eleven days, hundreds of musical acts, thousands of gallons of Miller Lite, hundreds of thousands of guests, and innumerable sour-cream and chive fries will all congregate on the 75-acre Henry Maier Festival Park, slivered between I-794 and Lake Michigan.
All photos by Joe Powell for The Squeaky Curd unless otherwise noted.
While many festival-goers enjoy glancing up at the arching Hoan Bridge (even more-so if Light the Hoan goes through), few if any spend time looking down. Why would they? The Summerfest grounds have been (thank God) paved for decades, a sea of blacktop broken only by rare patches of grass and not-so-rare patches of spilled beer.
But this year, as you’re trying to balance atop a rickety bleacher, realize that you’re standing above Milwaukee graveyards, figuratively and possibly literally.
Photo of floatplanes at Maitland Field in Milwaukee in 1940, sourced from Abandoned & Little-Known Airfields by Paul Freeman.
Like much of Milwaukee’s lakefront land, the Henry Mair grounds were actually once lake water, filled over the years by an intrepid young city looking to expand its eastern footprint. When an expected need for more downtown shipping docks didn’t materialize, the flat, bare stretch of new lakefront land was left to seed. This became an enticing spot for Milwaukee’s first major airstrip: Maitland Field.
Named in 1927 for local-boy and first man to fly non-stop from North America to Hawaii, Lester J. Maitland, the 1-landing strip spot along the lakefront proved popular with regional biplanes, but was reportedly difficult to navigate safely. Lake winds and waves, smokestacks, and tall city buildings are not great airport neighbors.
Supposedly a local legend states that during the airstrip-years, a circus came to the area. When an elephant died, rather than transport it out of the city it was simply buried beneath the landing path.
The airstrip would prove less-popular than expected, and after 1937 it was converted to the Milwaukee Seadrome, a luxury seaplane airport and training facility. This enterprise only lasted a decade before shuttering.
Photo of Nike Ajax anti-aircraft missiles in the Milwaukee area, sourced from MKE Memoirs by Danny Benson.
After WWII, the Cold War sentiments spreading across the country led to the US Army overtaking Maitland Field. They converted the vacant land to a small base, and dug 60-foot deep silos to house a dozen Nike Ajax and Hercules anti-aircraft missiles, technically capable of housing nuclear warheads. Luckily these missiles saw even less usage than Maitland Field had (that is, none), and were decommissioned in the 60s.
The city bought back the land in 1969 and the fledgling Summerfest essentially begged for access to a centralized spot for their festival, which had struggled in its first two years bouncing around multiple venues in the area. They got their wish, at a cool $1/year rent. The rest is 50 years of music history.
So this summer when you’re roaming the Summerfest grounds, know that the Sky Glider flies the same route as a forgotten downtown airstrip, the filled-in missile silos still sit beneath the Water Street Brewery stand, and the elephant ear dessert you bought from that fair vendor is in poor taste for more reasons than one.