Treasured Plank Is a Link to Tosa's Past

In the collection of the Wauwatosa Historical Society there is a curious relic most people would not consider saving just from the looks of it – a very weathered, worn and partially decayed slab of wood.

The reason it’s carefully preserved in a cedar box with a glass lid is that this particular piece of wood helped make Wauwatosa the bustling city it has become.

Pamela Balfanz lived on Watertown Plank Road between 85th Street and Glenview Avenue during the early 1980s, while reconstruction of the road was taking place.

Progress was halted as the construction crew's trenching work uncovered wooden planking below the surface.

The work crew notified City Hall and asked what they should do. During the wait, Balfanz asked a workman if he could give her a plank. He used a crowbar to break off a section.

It is assumed that the crew continued their work and covered or dug up and discarded the rest of the exposed planks. Balfanz donated the plank to the Society in 1993.

What’s so special about it?

Location, location, location.

The reason for the success of Wauwatosa is where it happened to be put.

Not only did it have water power for founder Charles Hart’s mill, that mill sat beside the Waukesha Trail, a well-worn Native American thoroughfare from the rich Menomonee Valley and Lake Michigan into Wisconsin’s interior.

The Indians knew what they were doing – the site of Wauwatosa Village was the first “hard crossing” above the marshy Menomonee Valley and the most natural grade that could have been chosen.

In 1837, two years after Hart built his mill, the Waukesha Trail was carved wider and graded for wagons.

But a dirt road was more problematic for heavily loaded wagons than for moccasined feet. In wet weather, of which Wisconsin has an abundance, it became impassable.

By 1848, it was clear that commerce could not grow if something wasn’t done, and a state charter was granted for a “plank road” – a roadway “paved” with white oak planks set on stringers.

The Watertown Plank Road was finished for 58 miles from downtown Milwaukee to its namesake town in 1853, much to the benefit of villages along the way, including Wauwatosa and Elm Grove, the next stop west on the route.

The road was considered a commercial success for the brief time it operated as the only all-weather hauling route from Milwaukee west. But just two years after it was completed, a railroad – the Milwaukee and Watertown – opened with cheaper freight rates and much faster delivery.

The plank road remained in service but was no longer profitable and couldn’t be maintained. Eventually, though, it became for much of its length U.S. Hwy. 16.

It remains Watertown Plank Road, though, for some stretches including the well-known portion from Wauwatosa Village west through Elm Grove.

Anyone who drives down State Street or Watertown Plank Road today, or takes the Amtrak Empire Builder along the double-track mainline railroad through Wauwatosa, is following in the footsteps of the Ho-Chunk people and then the first European settlers, who for a short time relied on a road paved with oak for their livelihoods.

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The Wauwatosa Historical Society is headquartered at the Kneeland-Walker House, 7406 Hillcrest Ave.