Thursday 6/25/26: Wisconsin schools racial achievement gap, Chirp Chat, Oconto frog invasion

David Lee: Support for WUWM podcasts comes from Johnson Financial Group, helping customers build financial plans around their unique goals for over 55 years. More at johnsonfinancialgroup.com. Johnson Bank and Johnson Wealth Inc. are Johnson Financial group companies.

Audrey Nowakowski: From 89.7 WUWM, Milwaukee's NPR, this is Lake Effect. I'm Audrey Nowakowski. Today we'll examine the racial achievement gap in Wisconsin schools and some potential solutions. Then we'll learn about a local documentary that explores the world of bank swallows in a new Chirp Chat.

David Busse: It really did just start by me being amazed at just seeing them fly like fighter jets through the sky and living in these burrows that just all felt very alien to me.

Audrey Nowakowski: Plus we'll tell you about the 1952 Oconto frog invasion.

Tea Krulos: I can't imagine what that was like. I mean, just imagine you walk out your front door and the entire surface area of the ground is just completely covered in frogs hopping around and croaking.

Audrey Nowakowski: All that's coming up on Lake Effect. This is Lake Effect, from 89.7 WUWM Milwaukee's NPR. I'm Audrey Nowakowski. Thanks for joining us today. Last week, we brought you a conversation with Dr. Brenda Cassellius, the superintendent of Milwaukee Public Schools. The conversation was about whether there is political will to solve the achievement gap between Black and white students in the Milwaukee area.

Brenda Cassellius: I've been in Milwaukee now for about a year and a half, and there's been a tremendous outpouring of support for tackling the underachievement in Milwaukee Public Schools.

Audrey Nowakowski: Today, we'd like to bring you a different viewpoint, that of MPS Board of Directors Vice President Dr. James Ferguson. While he and the superintendent have the same employer, they don't agree on whether there's political will to address Milwaukee's achievement gap. Here's Board Director Ferguson's conversation with WUWM Education Reporter Katherine Kokal.

Katherine Kokal: So we'll just start by posing the question that the listener asked to WUWM to you. The listener said, "Milwaukee has the largest achievement gap between Black and white students in the United States. Is there political will to fix this large issue?"

James Ferguson: Honestly, I have to say no. And the reason I say no is because I think black males in particular are one of the most neglected groups in our city. I think, if the case were the same for, like, white male students, you would see coalitions forming around this particular issue in order to lift them up. And unfortunately, that just hasn't been the case when it comes to Back males. And it's the same when it come to violence. Of course, Black males are the number one group most likely to be killed by gun violence. As a matter of fact, you reached out to me because I've voiced this on the board floor multiple times, about how many more black male students do we have to lose in our district before we declare it a state of emergency? And I'll even go even further to say it's something that everyone in this city is aware of. It's like the elephant in the room, right? There's no one around who is not aware of this issue, yet we continue to pass the buck on it. Nobody takes the personal accountability for the condition of Black males in this city. In particular, as far as I'm concerned, when it comes to Milwaukee Public Schools, there's that same thing. And again, I will continue to elevate that voice, not just because I'm a Black male myself, but because I believe that, as a community leader, I have a moral imperative to continue raising and to continue pushing this important issue.

Katherine Kokal: And I just want to share for listeners who may not be aware, you represent District 4 on the School Board of Directors, and that is kind of the central part of our city. Central goes up to Keith Avenue. Can you talk a little bit about how this gap shows up in your district specifically?

James Ferguson: Absolutely. So it's no secret that District 4, it kind of leads the districts when it comes to things that we don't like to talk about. Like, it's the poorest district. It's the district with the lowest academic achievement for African-American males. It is the district with the least amount of opportunity for African American males, and any other student for that matter. So District 4, prior to me coming to this board, has been that district where, because it's the blackest and the poorest district in Milwaukee Public Schools, it's the district that is notoriously disinvested in. It's the district that's notoriously neglected. And I'm grateful that my colleagues on the board of directors, I didn't have to do a whole lot of arm twisting. They just understood the plight when I raised this, and I continue to raise it. But to your point and to your question, how does this disparity show up in District 4? It shows up with, we have this problem where a lot of teachers don't wanna teach in District 4. And because we allow teachers to determine where they wanna teach at, District 4 remains the district that leads Milwaukee Public Schools and the number of schools with teacher vacancies. No district has a higher teacher vacancy issue than District 4, I think, because the same issue is also home to some of the oldest schools in Milwaukee Public Schools as well. We lead the district with old buildings, without air conditioning, that also need investment. District 4 was hit very hard with the lead poisoning crisis. Many of my buildings in District 4 were hotbeds for lead poisoning. Again, we addressed the issue, but I think if circumstances were different, you'll see a different response to the district.

Katherine Kokal: If you're just joining us today, we're talking with MPS Board Director James Ferguson. We're talking about the achievement gap between white and Black students. I want to take a step back for a minute to talk about why this exists. I interviewed several people, from classroom teachers to the superintendent of Milwaukee Public Schools and education advocacy organizations. Although they represented different points on the political spectrum, several of them pointed to poverty in Milwaukee as the root cause of this achievement gap. I will mention that the superintendent kind of pushed back against that. She said she didn't want to use poverty as an excuse for results like this. What do you think causes this achievement gap?

James Ferguson: Yes, it's no doubt. And I agree with the superintendent. I don't want to use poverty as an excuse. However, it is not an excuse, it just... You're just understanding the issue. I was privileged to be in some high-level briefings about the effects of lead on student behavior and academic achievement, which, we know that was a major issue in Milwaukee public schools just this past year. The effects, the brain science, the neuroscience connected to lead poisoning, elevated lead levels, is absolutely staggering. But I think we need to look even deeper and look at the effects, the neuroscientific effects of trauma on students. That's just something that distinguishes the students in District 4 from, let's say, students in predominantly white districts. The levels of trauma that they've been exposed to, I think, is much more acute than students in a predominantly white district.

Katherine Kokal: Yeah, thank you. I want to ask, what are specific examples of things that can work in your eyes to close this gap and help students perform better and help them learn better?

James Ferguson: Well, one thing that I'm very proud of, this year, we've been able to kind of resurrect, albeit not at the level that it needs to be resurrected, but the community school model. The community schools model was a model where it was all hands on deck. You know, that was the political scene, public safety, Children and Family Services, Milwaukee Public Schools, SNAP benefits, all of these different entities coming together and working cooperatively to lift up, in this case, a certain school. But when we saw this model at work and when it was done right, we saw kids doing better academically. The other thing is there's this thing called the AGR program that we've been participating in as a district, the Achievement Gap Reduction Program. What we know is detrimental to this goal of seeing increased performance academically among students, what we know as what works against that is when we ignore, when we ignored the fact that certain groups have special needs. When we treat every student the same without regard to their circumstances, their unique circumstances or their unique needs, what we see is that gap continue to widen. But when we specifically focus in and lean into and not shy away from, but lean into these groups that are underperforming or, historically, that are not are not proficient. When we lean into it and we develop, when we develop programming specifically around the achievement of that group, we see the group increases. We just finished the year-end report for the Achievement Gap Reduction Program. The data is very positive, and it speaks very clearly that when we leaned into, instead of shying away from, we actually see better outcomes. And everybody is working in concert, our ducks are in a row, and we're all rowing in the same direction. And when that happens, when you see that type of cross collaboration, and that when we're actually laser-focused on a certain thing, we see the needle move forward. And that's why I will continue to elevate this story, elevate these voices, because I know that the enemy of progress is silence.

Katherine Kokal: Director Ferguson, thank you so much for talking to me about this today. It's really important. I appreciate it.

James Ferguson: Thank you for having me. It's an honor, and I appreciate you for bringing a microphone to this important issue.

Audrey Nowakowski: Dr. James Ferguson is the Vice President of the MPS Board of Directors. He spoke with WUWM education reporter Katherine Kokal. You can listen to Katherine's story with more voices and viewpoints on the racial achievement gap at wuwm.com. Lake Effect is available as a podcast, so you can listen when you like. Find it wherever you get your podcasts, then subscribe, download, and listen on demand. Imagine your community being overrun by millions of frogs. It actually happened in the 1950s, right here in Wisconsin. And we'll tell you all about it in about 15 minutes. But first, we'll talk about bank swallows and the unique homes they have on the bluffs of Lake Michigan. Keep listening to Lake Effect on WUWM. You're listening to Lake Effect on 89.7 WUWM. I'm Audrey Nowakowski. "Beyond Our Senses" is a new nature documentary that gives you a bird's-eye view of the world of bank swallows. The 30-minute film follows thousands of bank swallow as they migrate to Lake Michigan's bluffs in the spring. It explores how the small birds navigate the breeding season with their unique vision and flight abilities. David Busse is the director behind the film and a Milwaukee native. He joins Lake Effect's Xcaret Nuñez for this month's Chirp Chat to talk about bank swallows and the making of the film.

Xcaret Nuñez: Walk me through how you got the idea to make this film.

David Busse: One day I was at Sheridan Park, and I walked out to the edge of the bluff, and I saw thousands of birds swirling. And I was not a bird guy before this, so I had no idea what they were, but I was just fascinated by the fact that so many birds seemed to be thriving so close to the city of Milwaukee. And after that day, it just stuck with me. I always had the idea to return and to create a documentary about it, but it was a couple years later that I eventually came back and started filming. And what I thought was just going to be a day or two of filming ended up turning into a summer, and then eventually a couple summers of filming, editing, and eventually landing on a 30-minute documentary. Like, when I started, I thought, you know, this was maybe gonna be five minutes, and then it just slowly evolved as I became more and more interested and fascinated with everything that I was seeing.

Xcaret Nuñez: You said that you weren't a birder before starting this film. I'm curious, like, what's your relationship to birds or birding now?

David Busse: Yeah, well, it's interesting because now, when I think back, I was always fascinated by birds. But it was always in, like, little moments, instead of just feeling connection with them as a whole. Yeah, I mean, I definitely love birds now. The bank swallow, I guess, maybe was my spark bird.

Xcaret Nuñez: I mean, it makes a lot of sense what you're saying. Like, that curiosity led you to wanting to learn more about bank swallows. So before we keep going, for listeners who aren't familiar with bank swallows, can you describe what they look like?

David Busse: Yeah, so bank swallows, I think, are really a very plain looking brown bird. Their wings are brown, most of their head is brown, and then their chest and neck is white. And then they have a signature brown tie that goes down their chest. I mean, I think, yeah, they have about a 10 inch wingspan, and they weigh half an ounce.

Xcaret Nuñez: Oh my gosh. So tiny. So what do bank swallows eat?

David Busse: Bank swallows eat insects, lots of them. An adult typically eats about 1,000 insects a day, and then when they're raising their brood, each adult has to capture about 3,500 insects a Day.

Xcaret Nuñez: That's like a friend I'd want to have around me.

David Busse: Yeah, well that's interesting. Lots of people want to chase away barn swallows, but if you don't like mosquitoes, you should keep those barn swallow nests around you if you don't want the bugs.

Xcaret Nuñez: Right. And do bank swallows migrate or do they stay in Wisconsin year round?

David Busse: Yeah, bank swallows migrate. So in our region, they migrate from South America to North America every year. They're considered a cosmopolitan bird, so they exist basically all over the world on, I think, five continents.

Xcaret Nuñez: And I know that other types of swallows, like the tree and barn swallows, they build mud nests in trees or along buildings. But what about bank swallows? Like, how are they unique?

David Busse: So bank swallows, that's where they get their name from, because they dig burrows into banks. And it's basically always along rivers or lakes. And in this case, it's along Lake Michigan. So they need really sandy, they call it friable soil, which just basically means soil that's really easy to dig into, that doesn't really have any roots or vegetation. They have so many burrows along Sheridan and Warnimont Park. It's just a really great habitat for them.

Xcaret Nuñez: And something that you note in your film is that, globally, the conservation status of banks swallows is of least concern. So I'm wondering, like, what made you decide this was a bird worth talking about and raising awareness of?

David Busse: I mean, it really did just start by me being amazed at just seeing them fly like fighter jets through the sky and living in these burrows that just all felt very alien to me. So it started off as more of a curiosity than a mission-driven thing about conservation. But regarding the conservation, it is really interesting because, as much as they have this really strong colony, their numbers have dropped by about 90% in the last six decades or so. And they're considered threatened species in Canada, and also in California, but like you noted, they're still considered a species of least concern globally. So even though we've lost so much of their population, they still haven't crossed that threshold for however we measure species.

Xcaret Nuñez: Right. And from the research that you've looked into, what are some of the threats that banks swallows face?

David Busse: I mean, a lot of it is just really the insect population. They might be considered an indicator species where, as the insect populations has declined, so has the population of all aerial insectivores. So bank swallows, along with anything that hunts insects, their populations are declining. One of the threats too to them is that they basically more or less need erosion to live. Like, they've done studies in California where they did some bluff remediation along the coast, and the bank swallow population wasn't doing too well. So then they removed the bluff remeditation, basically allowing the bluff to erode more. And then the bank swallow populations rebounded, so it's this interesting tension where, you know, we generally see erosion as like a bad thing, but bank swallows, they need erosion for their habitat. But as much as their population has been declining, their habitat generally seems to be okay, because they live in all these in-between places where humans can't really do much with. Even, they live along riverbanks where it's eroding and where it is hard for us to build things. So I think the biggest thing that we can do is try to help the insect population to rebound. So anything you can do to use less pesticides in your lawn or... Something people can do to provide them with habitat is to actually build a nesting wall. It's basically a giant bird box, but instead of just one nest, you know, you could have up to 40.

Xcaret Nuñez: I'm Lake Effect's Xcaret Nuñez speaking with David Busse about his documentary on bank swallows called "Beyond Our Senses." So I wanna move on and talk about the making of the film. You show so many different action shots and really make audiences feel the point of view from the bank swallows. Why did you decide to tell their story this way?

David Busse: You know, I had about 40 hours worth of footage, and I really just wanted the audience to feel the fascination that I felt when I was watching them. And I thought that trying to bring them into their world, to me, what felt like an alien place where they lived along the coast of Lake Michigan, but also what are their perceptions that allow them to capture 3,500 insects a day? Well, it's not like we could ever do that, so what is happening in this bird's mind that's allowing it to capture that many insects? Basically, it all just comes down to how it's wired, how it is programmed, how it perceives the world and processes the world. It evolved in a way where, if we were to drop ourselves into their minds, it would just be like you're in a parallel universe. So I just wanted to dig a little deeper into their lives and their world.

Xcaret Nuñez: So I'm wondering, as someone who wasn't really a birder before making this film, how did you learn so much about bank swallows and know what information to share with viewers?

David Busse: Well, that was a long journey. It was basically, I captured, you know, what amounted to about 40 hours worth of footage. And as I was watching it, I still didn't really understand their behavior. So I got a lot of my information from the Cornell Lab of Ornithology. After that, though, there was still a gap with their perceptions. So one of the most fascinating parts of their perceptions to me was something I actually found in a research paper, how all swallows have four distinct areas of focus in their vision. And when I found that research paper, I eventually reached out to one of the authors of the paper, Dr. Luke Terrell. I feel like I basically became a student where I was just like, I probably asked him what felt like 100 questions, and he answered them all in detail. I was really deep in research for, it was probably about two years of, you know, researching it in the free time I had.

Xcaret Nuñez: What was the most challenging part about making this documentary?

David Busse: Yeah, so my day job is I'm a senior video producer at the ad agency, CI Design. And then I went to University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee for film. So I've made a variety of short films, music videos, and stuff like that over the years, but this is easily my most ambitious project. I did make another nature documentary right before this one called "Snowstorm," but that was much more simple. I was at Bradford Beach one day during a snowstorm, and I saw gulls and ducks just navigating this storm, and I filmed it for about an hour, then edited it together into a five-minute video with just music and no voiceover. Yeah, that's what I thought this was gonna become. So when I started diving more into the story and trying to develop into something, I felt like I was in way over my head. So one of the big challenges for me was to figure out how do you take this research-heavy, the science-focused topic and make it engaging? And I was really struggling with that. I got a lot of feedback from a lot of different collaborators throughout Milwaukee. It was all very helpful, but I was still struggling with it. So I ended up reaching out to a writer with National Geographic. His name is Jack Chapman. And he helped me to take the script from something that felt science-focused and dry to something that was really emotive and story-driven. So I would say for me, trying to create an engaging story out of it felt like the most challenging part of it.

Xcaret Nuñez: David, before I let you go, we've reached the end of Chirp Chat, which is when I love to ask guests to shine a spotlight on a bird for the month. And since you've become a birder, since you made this film, I'm wondering what's a bird you'd like to highlight this month.

David Busse: Well, I'm gonna have to say the Kingfisher. And the reason for that is because the Kingfisher is maybe the unwanted neighbor of the Bank Swallow. So they burrow with each other where, if you were looking at a colony of Bank Swallows, you might notice a larger burrow somewhere. And there's a good chance that that might be where a Kingfisher lives. And it's just so fascinating to watch, because they share the same space, but they always also seem to be fighting with each, and they're very territorial. Both of them are territorial though. They'll kind of like, seemingly, yell at each other and be trying to chase each other away, even as their neighbors, and sharing the same habitat.

Xcaret Nuñez: Well, I don't think anyone's ever highlighted the Kingfisher, so thank you for sharing. Well, David, thank you so much for sharing your incredible documentary with me. I'm really excited for more people to see it and learn about bank swallows.

Audrey Nowakowski: Thank you!

Audrey Nowakowski: David Busse is the director and producer of the documentary, "Beyond Our Senses: Bank Swallows." He spoke with Lake Effect's Xcaret Nuñez for this month's Chirp Chat. You can find upcoming screenings of the film at beyondoursensesfilm.com. It's July 1952 in Oconto, Wisconsin. You wake up, stretch, pour some coffee, all while strange sounds filter in from outside.

Tea Krulos: It sounds like a finger being rubbed on an inflated balloon, so if you can imagine that sort of croaky sound, the air is filled with it, and also, sharp popping noises at times.

Audrey Nowakowski: Some witnesses compare the sharp popping to rifle fire, only it isn't distant rifles making these sounds. It's 175 million frogs. Tea Krulos is a contributing writer for Milwaukee Magazine who wrote about the great Oconto frog invasion for this month's issue. He sat down with Lake Effect's Sam Woods to discuss the phenomenon and how little of it is remembered today.

Sam Woods: Can you paint a picture. Like, what was reported from this time, and what did residents describe of what does 175 million frogs look like?

Tea Krulos: Yeah, so the story got some local attention in papers. But there was also a big magazine piece in The New Yorker, of all places, about the story in 1953. And they describe how, in the summer of 1952, there were millions of frogs pouring into Oconto near Green Bay, and the town was completely overwhelmed. I mean, the frogs far outnumbered the people. And so you had scenes like someone hearing chirping and flashing their flashlight into the backyard and seeing millions of glowing eyes kind of reflected back. It was kind of a grisly scene as people were running over them with their cars and mowing their lawns. You can imagine that was kind a mess. And then, eventually, it subsided and things went back to normal. But it was this kind of freak frog invasion.

Sam Woods: There's some skepticism on the number of frogs, so whether it's 175 million or just millions. But say there was indeed this big of a population boom of leopard frogs, what factors could lead to such a boom out of nowhere?

Tea Krulos: Yeah, so a great source for the story was, I was able to speak to Joshua Kapfer. He's from UW Whitewater, and he's co-author of a book, "Reptiles and Amphibians of Wisconsin." So I figured this would be the guy to talk to. And yeah, he did express some skepticism over that number, simply because we don't have a lot of good data from that era. He kind of pointed out that game fish and birds have been pretty well tracked. Reptiles and amphibians is not seen as a priority. So he said that this could have been possible at that time to have that large of a number. And the reason for it is he described frogs as being a boom or bust type of animal. So that means they lay a massive amount of eggs, because the environmental factors and predators will get a lot of those eggs. So they overproduce, so they can have a population. And usually, what happened in that area was the water level would drop and then it would rise, so a lot of the eggs would get wiped out. But this particular summer, that didn't happen. So all of the eggs were in pretty good shape, which is why you had this massive amount of frogs who emerged that particular year.

Sam Woods: The type of frog we're talking about is a leopard frog. What do we know about this frog and its relevance to Oconto's economy and culture beyond this fateful summer where we were just overrun with them?

Tea Krulos: Well, there's a lot of jokes because it happened at that time, frog legs were also very popular at bars. That was kind of a trend of the time for sure. Um, people were enjoying frog legs and restaurants and in bars, so they had plenty of supply that year.

Sam Woods: You mentioned in the article and The New Yorker talked about as well in 1952 that it was kind of, it's not like that this boom spurred a new industry in frog legs because it's, as you mentioned, it is kind of a boom or bust. It's not necessarily, you know, you get $175 million or so in one year, and then the next year is kind a normal or a bust year. And so, to set up your livelihood around this kind of thing isn't necessarily the easiest or most prudent business decision.

Tea Krulos: Right, yeah, and I did find an article from 1953. It was really short. It was just a couple sentences, but I think it had a picture of a frog and it said that the residents were relieved that the summer of '52 hadn't repeated itself, and they were overwhelmed by the frogs. But that must have been a disappointment to people who were maybe thinking it would be a trend and they could cash in on frog legs.

Sam Woods: You mentioned finding a short article about this, as well as the kind of larger New Yorker piece that it seems like kind of made this story famous or made the story live on. Tell me more about your reporting process of digging up this plague of frogs from over 70 years ago now.

Tea Krulos: Yeah. So I mean, the New Yorker article is the first thing you'll probably find if you're trying to dig into the story. And then I went to, you know, it's a good resource, newspapers.com, and just kind of did some keyword searches. And, you know, just found little scraps of stuff here and there. There's one really short article that it shows an Oconto resident, and it's hard to see in the photo because it's a reproduction or it's been scanned, but he's pointing at the window well of his basement, and it's full of frogs. So he's pointing that out to a reporter. So there's this like little tidbits of information, but not really like a cohesive story, which I kind of like, because it gives it a little bit of a air of mystery to it.

Sam Woods: I get that, and on the one hand it seems like 175 million frogs, this should have been in papers all over Wisconsin, if not the country. Like that is a wild scene. Did you encounter any skepticism, either at the time or afterwards, that this event happened at all given that you'd think it would be all over, you think everyone would be talking about it?

Tea Krulos: Yeah, you would. I don't know. I mean, things just kind of... News traveled in a different way back then. I didn't see any skepticism at the time. There were local Oconto area newspapers that reported on it. They just didn't make a big deal out of it, which I agree is kind of strange. I think the skepticism is about that 175 million number in particular, because I looked at The New Yorker article again, and I'll give you the single quote that references that. The author, Eli Waldron, says, "Frogs are difficult to count, but scientists and county officials in Oconto made a stab at it and estimated there was 175 million of them in the area." And that's the beginning and end of the information. So it's like, who were these scientists and county officials? Like, how did they come to that number? There's not really any information on that. So, again, like, what I've been led to believe is that it certainly would be possible at that time. It wouldn't be today because, sadly, leopard frog habitats have been in sharp decline since the '60s at least. And that has a lot to do with development, predators, including invasive species. So there's no way that would happen these days. But in 1952, it certainly was possible.

Sam Woods: How does this story live on? How does Oconto or Northern Wisconsin remember this?

Tea Krulos: It's a story that seems to kind of get dusted off perennially. Like, every once in a while I saw like Discover or Discovery Magazine had done a story on it. It gets dug up once in awhile and someone will do, you know, a piece on a website or something about it. There's no, like, thing to commemorate there. I mean, I always love it when a small town will have a festival celebrating their local lore, you know. That's what makes a place unique, but there's no frog invasion festival. There's no frog statue, unfortunately. There is a country lane called Frog Pound Road, and I was told that that was inspired by this incident, but that's about it there so far.

Sam Woods: I can imagine how the story comes back perennially, given my reaction when I saw the description of the story that you had written, not even the story itself. And I was immediately captivated as like, holy moly, like what, what are we even...am I reading this right? There's no way.

Tea Krulos: It's a very strange little chapter of history, for sure.

Sam Woods: So I want to ask you, Tea, before I let you go, speaking for yourself, do you view frogs the same after this story?

Tea Krulos: I never really wrapped my head around seeing so many of them at once. I can't imagine what that was like. I mean, just imagine you walk out your front door, and the entire surface area of the ground is just completely covered in frogs hopping around and croaking. Like I don't know what I would do in that situation. You know, I would be afraid that... I wouldn't be afraid, but I wouldn't want to leave the house, just because, I don't know, I don't want to step on a bunch of frogs everywhere I go. So it must have been a really weird, surreal time in Oconto.

Sam Woods: Well, until the next frog invasion, Tea Krulos, thank you so much for joining me on Lake Effect.

Tea Krulos: Thank you.

Audrey Nowakowski: Tea Krulos is an author and contributing writer for Milwaukee Magazine, who wrote about the great Oconto frog invasion for this month's issue. He spoke with Lake Effect's Sam Woods. We'll take one more break, and when we return, we'll revisit one of our favorite episodes of Bubbler Talk about how Milwaukee got its nickname, the "Cream City." Keep listening to Lake Effect on Milwaukee's NPR.

Michelle Maternowski: This is Lake Effect on 89.7 WUWM Milwaukee's NPR. WUWM is celebrating 10 years of Bubbler Talk by listening to some of our favorite episodes and chatting with the people who created them. I'm Michelle Maternowski, WUWM's audience innovation manager. And today, we're listening to a story about how Milwaukee got the nickname, "Cream City," with our news director, Ann-Elise Henzl. Hi Ann-Elise.

Ann-Elise Henzl: Hello.

Michelle Maternowski: So you reported this story back in 2017. Let's listen to it and then chat. Sounds good.

Bubbler Talk Intro: Bubbler Talk, quenching Milwaukee's thirst for knowledge.

Ann-Elise Henzl: Wisconsin has a nickname. You've seen it on license plates, "America's Dairyland." And in Milwaukee, you may have heard this moniker: "Cream City." It intrigues Bubbler Talk listener, Anne Bromfield, who asks, "Why was Milwaukee once referred to as Cream City?" The answer might surprise you. It has nothing to do with the dairy industry.

Josh Ballew: Milwaukee is known as the "Cream City" because of the yellow, cream-colored brick that were first discovered and made here in the 19th century

Ann-Elise Henzl: Josh Ballew is Tour and Membership Coordinator for Historic Milwaukee.

Josh Ballew: Those bricks were used for many of the buildings and businesses, breweries, schools throughout the 19th century.

Ann-Elise Henzl: To take a look at some of the creamy-colored structures, I met Ballew at the old Schlitz Brewery complex on the northern edge of Downtown. He says it's one of many places to see Cream City brick.

Josh Ballew: This is just a good example, pretty much due to the size.

Ann-Elise Henzl: Ballew says cream-colored bricks were first produced in Milwaukee in 1835 and quickly became popular because of their pleasing color. Architect Vince Micha has a fondness for the bricks and is surrounded by them daily. He's with the Kubala Washatko Architects in Cedarburg. Its offices are in an old power plant, built of cream city brick. Micha shows me a historic photo.

Vince Micha: And here you can see what the Cedarburg Municipal Power Plant looked like the day that we obtained it.

Ann-Elise Henzl: Micha says you can find Cream City brick in older buildings up and down the coast of Lake Michigan. That's where the clay to make the bricks came from.

Vince Micha: Well, what we have here in Southeastern Wisconsin is the glacial lake deposits that deposits these silts and clays. And we can see them along the lake shore of Lake Michigan and a little further inland. And that became a ready source of raw materials for making bricks.

Ann-Elise Henzl: Micha says builders began to choose other types of bricks from other regions when trains and improved trucking gave them more options. There were downsides to using Cream City brick. It's softer than some varieties, making the bricks less sturdy. And because of their porous nature, the bricks easily absorb soot, turning them black. Micha points to an example on the exterior of the old power plant.

Vince Micha: That rusty muffler down there, that used to be the outlet from the turbines, from the diesel fumes, and that black penetrated into the brick. And we did some testing on it, and we could only get so far with it. And we said, you know what? That's the history of the building. We're gonna let that be.

Ann-Elise Henzl: Micha says these days, though, most people appreciate the historic building material and have learned how to care for it properly. And decades after the bricks heyday, the nickname Cream City is still going strong. A number of businesses use it.

Gregg Hutterer: My name is Gregg Hutterer. The name of our company is Cream City Caramels and Confections.

Ann-Elise Henzl: He says he chose the name Cream City to connect the products to Milwaukee, his hometown. Besides, he adds, even though it's associated with building materials, not food, it just has a certain ring to it.

Gregg Hutterer: We thought, because there's a lot of cream used in our caramels, that people who weren't from Milwaukee, who wouldn't necessarily recognize the Cream City name as being Milwaukee, would think of cows and cream in that way.

Michelle Maternowski: So the takeaway is bricks, not dairy.

Ann-Elise Henzl: Yes.

Michelle Maternowski: Correct. I really appreciated listening back to this story because I feel like learning our local history helps us just gain a greater appreciation of Milwaukee and the built environment around us. What stands out to you listening back to this story?

Ann-Elise Henzl: I guess something that I didn't go into was just the vast scope of how much of the history in Milwaukee includes Cream City Brick. The boom in Cream City brick was from the early 1800s to the early 1900s. And that was the time that Milwaukee was having its big boom in growth, starting downtown and moving to the neighborhoods nearby. And when you just drive through the community, you see example after example after example of Cream City brick. And I think I took it for granted that when I reported on the story that people would say, oh yeah, I know the Cream City brick. But really, start looking around you and it's everywhere.

Michelle Maternowski: What made you interested in this Cream City question?

Ann-Elise Henzl: I've always liked Cream City houses, and I grew up in Racine where there are hundreds of Cream City worker cottages, chiefly on the north side of Racine, near the lake and near the Racine Zoo. And if you're familiar with the Racine Zoo, there's a big pond in front. It's a pond that's big enough for ice skating, and they used to have ice skating on it, back when I was a kid. And I found out many years later that the pond was created because that's where there was a clay quarry, that they were scooping out all of the clay to make all of these bricks for these hundreds of worker cottages all over the north side of Racine. And I thought that they are beautiful and cute. And it wasn't until I moved to Milwaukee that I found that Cream City was a thing, they weren't just pretty yellow bricks, that there was a story behind them and a story behind why we have those bricks in this part of the world.

Michelle Maternowski: And it makes me wanna dig a hole and find some of the Cream City clay and make my own thing with it.

Ann-Elise Henzl: Well, and that's something that I'm not sure about. And I couldn't easily find an answer to this question when I was doing some reading and preparation for our conversation. I wanted to know, did we exhaust the clay deposits here? There was a lot of the clay that created Cream City bricks in the Menominee Valley. And I don't know if at the same time that bricks became more popular from other parts of the world, if the clay was drying up, or if you could still go there and create your own brickyard, big-scale or small-scale. I don't know the answer to that question, so that's another one to report on.

Michelle Maternowski: There's so much more to learn about Cream City bricks. It's amazing. It's never ending. You've reported a lot of early Bubbler Talks. Like, you really were one of the reporters to help get it off the ground. Besides the Cream City story, do you have a personal favorite?

Ann-Elise Henzl: Yes, it would have to be the question about why you get a beer chaser with a Bloody Mary in Milwaukee. That's something that you don't find everywhere. Apparently, it's not only in Milwaukee, but in Milwaukee it's expected. Other cities, you might find it, maybe in some other cities in the Midwest, for instance. And here there are some bars that have taken that beer chacer to another level by giving you a beer that's about same size as the Bloody Mary. And of course, you're probably familiar with places that give you a Bloody Mary that basically has a buffet sitting on top of it with giant pieces of chicken, maybe a slider, a lot of different garnishes.

Michelle Maternowski: Isn't there a whole chicken that can place?

Ann-Elise Henzl: I have seen a photo of that. But I haven't seen it in person. But that just, to me, creates this great sense of whimsy, and it's also connecting us to the history of the taverns on the corners in Milwaukee, many of which are still around these days, where that became the habit to have your Bloody Mary and have a little glass of beer to go along with it and wash it down. And it just became a thing here that so many places still do. And I like those those stories of things that are kind of quirky, the only in Milwaukee kinds of stories especially

Michelle Maternowski: Yeah, I think when you leave the state, like I remember this with my mom, we were, I think we were in Utah, and she ordered a Bloody Mary with a beer, and they're like, you can't have two drinks at the same time. Like we're not going to serve you that. And you just think of like another person overhearing that story who knows what she's talking about. That's like an instant connection between the two of them. You have edited so, so, so many Bubbler Talks with our reporters and our producers. Emily Files now does the editing, but you're kind of like the O.G. editor for Bubbler Talk. What do you think makes a super strong, memorable piece?

Ann-Elise Henzl: Well, Emily is here in the studio with me. And when you started to bring up editing, I looked over at her because I think she is predicting where I'm going with this. My very favorite Bubbler Talk of all time was one that Emily did that we used as part of this special 10th anniversary celebration. It's about a dragon that was very briefly on the water tower on the east side for just a handful of days, I believe. And an artist put it there because she thought that Water Tower looked like it needed a dragon on it because of its cool, kind of castle-y sort of appearance. And the people who remember seeing that dragon wanted to know more about it. And this happened decades ago, but they remembered it like it was yesterday. And I'm going to get choked up again. I always do when I think about the story, because Emily did such a wonderful job weaving together the power of memory, the power of art, how things stick with us and why they stick with us. And she wrote it in a really lovely way, too. And she made me cry when I was doing the edit, and I'm a little embarrassed now that I'm crying just thinking about it. But it was just such a powerful example of a little snapshot in time that was so meaningful to some people. And I don't remember that story, and most people probably don't know that story, A) because it's been a few decades, and B) because the dragon was up for a really brief period. But I feel like I experienced it with it by listening to the recollections of the people who experienced it. And Emily's story also, and I guess this is a pitch to check it out if you haven't heard it yet, she also talks to the artist, who doesn't live in the area any longer, but was responsible for creating that dragon. And here's what it was like for her and her recollections. And it's just a really beautiful piece.

Michelle Maternowski: Yeah, I don't think there's any need to be embarrassed about having a strong emotion. I think that's beautiful. And it makes me wonder, like, how many other stories have you edited where you've had a reaction like that? Like the fact that a story can get to that like core of you, I think is, is a really special thing.

Ann-Elise Henzl: Thanks, I do too. I just try to act a little tougher. I don't want people to see that tender side. But I would say that it's quite common for me to feel a strong response to stories based on the sound bites that come from the individuals who are directly involved in an issue, or directly affected by an issue. There's something about the power of radio, and this is a comment that many listeners give when they talk to us about why they support the station or why they listen to the station, that when you're hearing the voices of humans express why something matters to them or how they're impacted by something, there's something about the tone of their voice, the pacing of the speaking, the way that they say something. There's so many things that you can detect from a human voice that you can't get in print, but when you hear somebody speaking, it can really strike you to the core.

Michelle Maternowski: I can tell why they put you on during member drive.

Ann-Elise Henzl: Thanks, Michelle.

Michelle Maternowski: I think it also speaks to that our reporters, our editors, we are human. And we deeply care about this community. We aren't like stones. We are also impacted by what we report on and what we hear. And it's nice to like bring out that side of us, because I feel like, so often, like yes, we're here to tell the story. But these stories that we're telling also have lasting impacts on us as well. Okay, I got one last question for you, Ann-Elise. If you could submit a question to Bubbler Talk, what would your question be?

Ann-Elise Henzl: Let me think. I think about this from time to time when I'm driving around and I'm noticing things. As you know, Michelle, I'm crazy about animals. So a story that would maybe give some perspective as to how did the Humane Society get its start? How did MADAC get its start? How have animal welfare societies evolved over time? Something like that, I think, would be really fascinating. There was a historic statue outside of the Humane Society in Milwaukee of the Humane Society founder reaching down and petting a dog. And that would be a great place to set maybe the first interview for the story and then go into the shelter, and see if we can dig into their archives and learn some more. That would probably be at the top of my list.

Michelle Maternowski: Yeah, we've done a lot of zoo-related, but we haven't done anything in that realm. And we know there's interest. So, someone, submit that question. Well, Ann-Elise, thank you so much for chatting with me. This has been really wonderful, kind of going down memory lane with you. But I also want to give a big, big, big thank you to our listeners, because it's you who have made the series so great. So a sincere thank you for the questions that you've sent our way, and keep them coming. You can send us yours at wuwm.com/bubblertalk, and subscribe to the Bubbler Talk podcast as we continue to listen back to our favorite episodes for this 10th anniversary.

Audrey Nowakowski: And that wraps up Lake Effect for today. I'm Audrey Nowakowski. If you've missed any of Lake Effect this week, you can find all of our conversations at wuwm.com. If you'd like to take the show on the go, you can download the Lake Effect podcast wherever you get your podcasts. Tomorrow on Lake Effect, we'll meet Wisconsin's first cartoonist laureate. Plus, learn about a time when the Milwaukee Brewers played baseball during breakfast. You can catch those stories on tomorrow's show, but for today, thank you so much for joining us right here on listener-supported 89.7 WUWM, Milwaukee's NPR.