Maritime Milwaukee (Arcadia Publishing), by the Wisconsin Marine Historical Society

A port was bound to be built at the place where three rivers meet a great lake. Maritime Milwaukee reminds us that our city's port was less the handiwork of nature than the result of dredging, digging and filling in. The latest title in the Images of America series gives a brief narrative of the growth of Milwaukee's commercial harbor but lets the pictures tell most of the story. The maps from 1835 and 1848 show a much different landscape than seen today and lithographs and photographs from later in the 19th century depict a busy port full of schooners and steamers. Most of the photos are from the 1920s through the 1960s and capture an industrial city whose outlines have increasingly been lost with time.