Subdivision Signs to Display City's Deep History

Greenfield residents will soon see signs sprouting up around the city identifying the history of neighborhoods and subdivisions.

Over the next three years, 30 subdivisions will receive placards that contain the subdivision’s name, the city’s logo and the date the subdivision was created, courtesy of the Greenfield Historical Society. The GHS recently approved spending $1,650 over a three-year period for the project. 

Ten placards will be created and installed this year. Sample placards are in the society’s showcase on the second floor of the  and some will appear in the  showcase around mid-May.

In early June, all signs will end up in the hands of Division of Public Works employees, who will install them throughout the city.

According to Historical Society president Bob Roesler, the idea for the placard project began when freelance reporter and Greenfield resident Brendan O'Brien, who has since become a member of the society, contacted Roesler a few years ago and , which is located in Lynnwood Subdivision, the second-oldest in the Greenfield.

“We later had the idea of creating placards for subdivisions with names that had interesting historical associations,” Roesler said.

A listing of the city’s 200-plus subdivisions and condo developments is on the city's website, as are the documents that created them. After sifting though the information about them and surveying their sites to see if suitable utility poles were present, 30 were identified as candidates for the placards.

The society’s website and the displays include information on how residents can donate money to defray the costs of the project.

Although many people associate the Historical Society with the 1836 and 1856 buildings on 56th Street and Layton Avenue, over the past 15 years, the organization has shifted its primary efforts to community outreach projects help residents become more aware of the city’s history and that of its predecessor: the Town of Greenfield, which dates back to 1841.

Some of these projects have been:

• Placing a framed display in the Greenfield Post Office including a copy of the document showing that the name "Greenfield" began with creation of its first post office in 1839.
• Installation of 10 "Cold Spring Road 1849 " placards between 76th & 124th Streets. (The name of oldest-named street Cold Spring Road had become widely misspelled as "Coldspring" after misspelled street signs were installed in 1972. The Common Council has since reaffirmed the correct spelling).
• Sponsoring three State of Wisconsin Historical Markers that read "Greenfield, The Last Town in Milwaukee County," outside City Hall, at 93rd Street and Forest Home and at 107th Street and Cold Spring Road.
• Designation of five Greenfield buildings as Milwaukee County Landmarks.
• Restoration of the WWII Honor Roll and creation and installation of a Greenfield Historic Quilt and Civil War Roster of Volunteers in City Hall.