10 moments from city’s past
Important August events include labor strike, ethnic festival, march
Aug. 1, 1983: Big strike at Briggs
The 7,800-member Local 232 of the Allied Industrial Workers of America went on strike at Briggs & Stratton Corp. over wages, workrule changes and job security. The bitter strike lasted nearly 13 weeks, ending after the smallengine manufacturer threatened to hire permanent replacement workers.
Aug. 2, 1972: Hello, Northridge
Northridge Shopping Center, the 1.3 millionsquare-foot mall at N. 76th St. and W. Brown Deer Road, formally opened its doors. Anchored by Boston Store, Gimbels, J.C. Penney and Sears, it was the area’s second-biggest shopping mall, after sister center Southridge in Greendale. The northwest side mall closed in March 2003.
Aug. 4-6, 1978: Festa’s the first
In its debut, Festa Italiana also became the first ethnic festival to spend the weekend on the Summerfest grounds — land that had been part of Milwaukee’s old Italian neighborhood in the Third Ward.
Aug. 9, 1966: Fire in the night
A homemade bomb ripped through the offices of the Milwaukee NAACP in the 400 block of W. Center St. A Milwaukee man who was a member of the Wisconsin Ku Klux Klan was later convicted of the bombing.
Aug. 11, 1984: Good night, Princess
The Princess Theatre, the 75-year-old movie theater at 738 N. Old World 3rd St., finally closed, after months of resisting an order to do so. The city’s bestknown X-rated movie theater was replaced by a “temporary” parking lot that still stands.
Aug. 11, 2012: Miller Park lands movie
“Honor Flight,” a documentary about the Stars and Stripes Honor Flights, had its premiere at Miller Park. Organizers hoped to break the Guinness Book of World Records mark for a movie premiere; the Guinness folks tallied 28,442 attendees, which appeared to be the record (it was eclipsed in 2015 by an event in the Philippines).
Aug. 13, 2016: Sherman Park erupts
Hours after a Milwaukee police officer shot and killed an armed suspect, a standoff between police and an angry crowd in Sherman Park exploded. In the two nights of confrontations that followed, eight businesses in the neighborhood were set on fire, four police officers were injured and a curfew was put in place.
Aug. 19, 1922: Tarzan in the river
Swimming star Johnny Weissmuller easily won an Amateur Athletic Union championship competition held in the Milwaukee River near the North Ave. bridge. A decade later, Weissmuller, who had set several world’s records that year but failed to do so here, would achieve a different kind of fame — as the movies’ Tarzan.
Aug. 19-29, 1966: Marching on Tosa
To protest the Eagles Club’s segregationist membership policies, the NAACP Youth Council targeted prominent local members of the club with picketing — including, for 11 straight days, the Wauwatosa home of Judge Robert Cannon. Several times, the marchers were met by large crowds of white counter-protesters.
About this feature
History is made and passes through Milwaukee every month. On the first Monday of each month, the Green Sheet takes a look at 10 moments from our past — not an exhaustive or complete list, but a mix of incidents, happenings and events that have helped make Milwaukee Milwaukee.
For a look at more moments from Milwaukee's Augusts past, from the start of 200 days of open housing marches to the premiere of "The Wizard of Oz," check out ow.ly/NYk930dZrow and http://ow.ly/9gtB30dZrzr.
Aug. 22, 1970: Gimbels closes 3rd St. store
Gimbels, the longtime retail anchor on N. 3rd St., closed its department store on 3rd and Garfield Ave. The store, which began as Schuster’s in 1884, had been the last major retail operation on what had been one of Milwaukee’s prime shopping districts for generations. Gimbels maintained nonretail operations at the site until the 1980s.