The Name "Milwaukie"

Milwaukie, OR derives its name from Milwaukee, Wisconsin which was named by the Pottawattomie tribe and means "a meeting place of waters." Lot Whitcomb, one of the first pioneers to settle in Milwaukie, had much admiration for the Wisconsin city and wanted to find a suitable location to settle. What is known as Milwaukie today seemed to be the answer to his aspirations because of the multitude of streams and springs that feed the Willamette River. Various stories about why the spelling changed to Milwaukie have been told, but the most logical may be that the post office changed it to ensure that mail was sent to the appropriate place

Native American Days
  
The land that currently makes up the City of Milwaukie was once home to Native Americans known as the Clackamas Tribe. Their main source of food was fish and they lived in large shelters of logs and bark. Before white men began to settle in what is now known as Milwaukie, there was an almost continuous string of native huts from the falls at Oregon City to the Clackamas River. The natives were not very hostile to the white men when they arrived and like many other native peoples fell hard to new illnesses such as smallpox, measles, and venereal disease. By the time the City of Milwaukie was founded very few native people remained.

A Town is Born 

The person often hailed as the founder of Milwaukie was Lot Whitcomb who was born in Rutland, Vermont in 1806 and died in Milwaukie in 1857. After reading an account of the Oregon country by Joel Palmer in 1846-47 entitled "Palmer's Wagon Train," Whitcomb became enthralled with Oregon and left Illinois in March 1847. Whitcomb foresaw that lumber would have a booming market due to the California gold rush. Once arriving in Milwaukie in 1848 he built a sawmill where Johnson Creek empties into the Willamette River. Whitcomb began to hold the opinion that Milwaukie would someday be a great city since it was located at the head of navigation on the Willamette River. 

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