cream city...

My legal name is not Mitzi. Since birth, I have responded to my nickname and only respond to my legal name when it is legally necessary. It is probably because of my nickname-ness that I'm interested in the various nicknames that are attached to Milwaukee. Most of them make sense to me about their origins - and one in particular, "Cream City", seemed pretty self-explanatory until I decided to do some research.

I foolishly assumed "Cream City" had something to do with being a big city in Wisconsin which is often referred to as "The Dairy State", "Americas Dairyland", or "The Cheese State". After all, the number of comments made about required custard and cheese curd consumption from my non-Wisconsin friends would lead one (or maybe just me) to believe this. Upon further research however, Milwaukee's "Cream City" title came from the cream-colored bricks that make up many of the buildings in the city. The bricks were made from the local red clay that had high amounts of lime and sulfur and when fired became a cream color (aha!). They are known for being durable - structures are still standing after 125 years. Back in the 1860s, the Milwaukee Cream Citys, a club in the National Baseball League, took on the city's nickname. The Cream Citys did not exactly have the durability of the namesake brick - the team lasted about 16 years before dissolving.

Unfortunately, the brilliance of "Cream City" has deteriorated throughout the years since the porous bricks have absorbed dirt and other city pollutants. If you want to see the natural cream color beauty - the bricks of Trimborn Farm (in Glendale) have been cleaned and preserved to still show the original color.

So there's a little Milwaukee nickname history for you - and for those of you wondering about my own nickname, I will tell you one thing - it has nothing to do with bricks or baseball.