On May 6, Milwaukee Recreation will cut the ribbon on a massive lineup of improvements at Wick Field, 4929 W. Vliet St., one of the city’s hotspots for softball and other recreational sports leagues.

Wick Field is also where a local Major League Baseball icon made a life-changing decision to leave the pitcher’s mound and crouch behind home plate as a catcher.

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Strolling around the park, it’s amazing to see the transformation, as nearly everything has been touched in some way: baseball, softball and multipurpose diamonds, paths, lighting, restrooms, water fountains, the playground, the landscaping, the parking lot, drainage.

The playfield was closed for renovations for pretty much all of 2024 to complete the work after community engagement events were held during the second half of 2022 to gather feedback on what the surrounding community wanted to see at Wick.

“It’s really rewarding to work on these (playfield) projects,” says Milwaukee Recreation Design & Development Specialist Jason Wilke, as we watch kids and their parents enjoying the playground on a sunny spring weekday morning.

Wilke says neighbors came out often to check progress, and highlighted one resident, was a former Major League Baseball player in the Baltimore Orioles organization, who frequently came by to see – and share his thoughts on – the transformation of the fields he played on as a youth.

Indeed, Wick Field – while drawing users from around the city thanks to its many leagues – is deeply ingrained in its neighborhood.

The modern history of the site begins as a dump, which was outside the city limits in its early days, just south of the 250-acre farm of George Dousman, the son of a fur trader and an early Milwaukee settler, whose land reached from 51st to 60th Street, Vliet Street up to North Avenue, and land owned by businessman and poet Alexander Uhrig.

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Dousman’s son, also George, bottled water from a spring on his land under the Nee-Ska-Ra Mineral Water label.

The City of Milwaukee didn’t extend that far west yet. In 1900 it ended at 47th Street. Six years later the border shifted to 49th and in 1924 it moved again, meeting Wauwatosa at 60th Street.

The 22.8-acre future Vliet Street Dump land – along with some other sites around town, including in Bay View – was purchased by the City of Milwaukee in April 1922 from the Burnam Brothers Brick Company for a total of $50,000 ($22,000 of it for the Vliet Street site).

The Burnhams – the makers of cream city brick – likely dug out clay from the site to make brick, which would explain why the land needed filling in, making it suitable for a dump.

However, it wasn't long before the dump, which opened that same year with rubbish and ashes filling the old site, began to conflict with the building boom that got underway in that area around 1910 and continued apace through the 1920s.

Newspaper reports talk of housewives complaining of paper and other trash flying around the neighborhood and their homes collecting dust faster than they could sweep it up.

In 1932, the Sentinel added, “The Vliet Street dump has been burning again. Again the malodorous fumes ... have been affronting the good people of the exclusive West Side residence districts.”

A line of trees along Vliet Street to block the view of the dump was also suggested at this time (four years later they were planted).

Thus, in October 1932, new alderman Paul Wick suggested ceasing dumping at the site.

“Notices of the hearing distributed to neighborhood residents,” the Journal wrote. “Wick recommends the city accept an offer of a Wauwatosa firm to dump materials in the abandoned quarry near Hawley and State at a cost of 5 cents a yard.”

The Sentinel agreed with Wick and made it clear via editorials and coverage.

"For a long, long time residents in the vicinity have besought the common council to rid them of the nuisance created by the existence of a city dump,” the paper reported in November. “The Sentinel frequently has seconded their requests.

“Certainly the midst of a residential neighborhood is no place for a city dump with its inevitable unsightliness and evil smells. When the dumping began there, the vicinity was pretty well out of town. Now the vicinity is thickly settled. We think the (Wauwatosa) offer should by all means be accepted. The Vliet Street dump ought to be permanently abandoned and so treated that there will be no more offensive smokes and smells from it.”

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That offer was made by the Wauwatosa Stone Co. which hoped the city would pay 5 cents a yard to dump trash in a disused quarry, thus helping the company to fill it up. It was estimated that the city would spend about $49,000 across seven years to fill the hole. Another $63,000 would be spent to haul the trash to the site.

Milwaukee balked at the cost, noting that other companies seeking to fill their quarries didn’t charge anything.

City real estate agent Edward Grieb prepared the report that projected the costs. Grieb opposed closing the dump.

“In other cases where the city has dumped into deserted quarries or holes the owners have gladly let the city fill them free because of the subsequent increased value of their land,” the Sentinel noted.

“Grieb pointed out that ... those who built up the area since did so with the knowledge of the dump’s existence. If the dumping is dropped now the city plan to extend Martin Drive westward over it would have to be abandoned, he said.”

But the neighbors and Wick – a former city tax assessor who later got involved in real estate in 1922 and served as alderman from 1932 to 1936 – did not give up.

Wick, through his businesses Highland Park Building and Loan Association, developed the Beverly Hills subdivision in Wauwatosa and the former Dousman property, west of Hawley Road from Washington Boulevard south to Juneau Avenue.

He was also a staunch supporter of bike paths and safe streets and suggested painting white crosses at the site of every fatal traffic accident. He also was key in creating Hawthorne Field at 55th and State and donated land to Wauwatosa for the creation of a small park on Martha Washington Drive, south of Vliet Street.

His support of filling in the dump and creating recreational space for the adjacent neighborhoods was part of the zeitgeist of the era.

In a 1923 referendum, Milwaukeeans voted for $500,000 in bonds to allow the city to purchase land to expand playgrounds in the city, according to “Our Roots Grow Deep,” a history of Milwaukee Public Schools.

“The Great Depression, beginning in 1929, only augmented the popular demand for more public recreation services and finally added to the (recreation) department’s need for more operating funds.”

During the years 1920-28, the number of playgrounds jumped from 18 to 72.

Some of those play areas were, in fact, already around the edges of the dump. In 1924, three baseball diamonds were approved for 50th and Vliet and installed the following year.

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In 1928, playground equipment was approved for the lower part of the dump, at 50th and Juneau, including a six-swing set, a combination climbing pole and chain with two poles and two chains, tree climbing and a turning bar.

In November 1932 – after Wick suggested a full-on playfield on the dump site – playground engineer Gilbert Clegg wrote to the city's Commissioner of Public Works R. E. Stoelting urging the development of more play facilities at the dump, saying that children in the area had "no adequate place to play," and noting that, "Mr. Rabuck of the Board of Public Land Commissioners made a suggested plan for this area."

Thus, “in 1937 the voters again authorized a doubling of its taxing powers,” for playgrounds, the MPS history noted.

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Also in 1937, the city of Milwaukee used an acre of the easternmost part of the dump to erect a new District 3 station for the Milwaukee Police Department, designed by city architect Charles Malig.

In 1938, the Milwaukee Civic News reported that the Vliet Street Dump had been closed and filled in, though a December 1938 letter in the Milwaukee Recreation archives suggests that dumping was still happening.

"In the near future we propose to close the Juneau and N. 50th Place entrance to the lower level of the Vliet Street Dump, Clegg wrote to the Bureau of Sanitation. "This is necessary because dumping by private contractors and individuals has been unregulated, and material has resulted in several fires.

"We will be very glad to continue to accept clean material, that is rubbish that is non-combustable or non-organic matter which will decompose."

Although Wick died at just 49 years old in July 1938, his dream of a park on the dump site soon became a reality.

In October, newspapers reported that Clegg said 14.3 acres of the site were to be developed over the next year with the assistance of WPA workers and five hard surface and five clay tennis courts would be built.

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By the following May, the 53-acre playfield was under construction and the tennis courts were open.

On June 3, 1939 – pushed back a week due to rain – a ceremony was held to officially dedicate the new Paul Wick Playfield. The festivities included a handball exhibition by four Milwaukee firefighters (a number of firehouses had handball courts inside) and exhibition tennis matches by a trio of players, including Bobbie Jake, the national boys’ tennis champion.

On July 17, the Common Council passed a resolution to name a "certain area in the 15th Ward 'Paul Wick Playfield'."

"The city owned property located between W. Vliet Street, W. Juneau Avenue, N. 47th Streret and N. 54th Street, formerly used by the city as a dump for ashes and rubbish, is now being developed as a park-like recreation center and this development was started during the term of Paul Wick as alderman ... and the development was begun largely because of the efforts of Alderman Paul Wick from 1932 to 1936."

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A 1942 water system plan for the site – which shows the park going all the way south to Juneau Avenue, and notes both a 125-step wooden staircase and a toboggan slide on the bluff down – suggests the playfield was still under construction at that time as at least one baseball field depicted is identified as a "future diamond."

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A long wooden staircase was also built to connect the upper park with the lower section, which on some maps and drawings contained facilities for skating, volleyball, basketball, softball and a playground.

(One reader tells me that he played in this area as a kid and they called it "Dead Man's Hill.)

In June 1946, the Journal wrote that the city planned to buy seven acres of land on the south side of 51st and Vliet Street, “for street opening and widening and playground development.”

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The land, at that time owned by the electric company, would cost $15,000 and in addition to allowing for the extension of Martin Drive and opening 51st Street between Martin to Vliet, the remainder of the land would be used to expand Wick Field.

At the end of World War II, barracks buildings were erected on this part of the site to serve as temporary housing for returning veterans. That facility remained on the site until spring of 1956 when the land was cleared and returned to the jurisdiction of the city playground engineer.

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The site was one of many that housed the men returning from the war. Another nearby facility, the former State Street School, housed veterans and their families during this period.

This is more or less the Wick Field scene that a young Bob Uecker would have known.

Born in 1934, young Ueck lived near 47th and Galena, and according to Washington Heights resident, business owner and booster Dan Schley, in 1950, Uecker made a big move at Wick.

“Thanks to a neighborhood resident, we found out that Bob Uecker switched from being a pitcher to a catcher while playing at Wick Field,” Schley posted on Facebook. “To honor this, we are applying to the Wisconsin State Historical Society for a memorial plaque, which will include a quote where he talks about this...

"I'll tell you the day I quit pitching. We were playing at Wick Field. I'm 16 and getting killed. It was a bad day. The catcher isn't doing much better, isn't helping me out at all. So, I jump all over him, ‘If I couldn't catch any better than that, I'd quit.’

“He says, ‘If you think you're so good, you put this on and do it.” So I did. I caught in that game and liked it."

(If you’d like to make a donation to help defray the roughly $2,000 cost of the plaque, you can make them at Charles E. Fromage, 5811 W. Vliet St.)

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Back at the site, Milwaukee Public Schools sought the westernmost portion of the land (where 51st Street would’ve connected Martin Drive to Vliet Street) to build its much-needed new administration building and plans and discussions for this project began around the time the barracks came down.

But, of course, lots of ideas were floated. While the school board wanted this site, others suggested the new administration building be constructed somewhere else as a part of an urban renewal project.

A committee of the County Board wanted the same land to build a replacement for the aging juvenile detention center at 10th and Galena. It hoped to use three acres to build a new center, probation department and childrens' court, though grudgingly acknowledged that if this site couldn't be agreed upon the new facility could be built on the County Grounds in Wauwatosa. And that's what happened.

As Grassold & Johnson worked with the school board on site and building plans, it was acknowledged the the new building – which would allow the district to move its staff from the old Prairie Street School on 10th and Highland into the new Midcentury Modern central services building in 1961 – would mean that Martin Drive and 52nd Street would not be extended to meet on the site.

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A decade later, when the city began thinking out loud about locating a new fire and police training center on part of Wick Field and moving the baseball diamonds to a dump site on Hawley Road, response was rapid.

Dozens of citizens wrote letters of opposition and respected sportswriter Lloyd Larsen opposed the idea in the Milwaukee Sentinel, leading the city to deny that it ever intended to do such a thing, despite a report that suggested it in detail, even noting that it would cost $115,000 to move the baseball diamonds.

“The Common Council has no intention of building a fire and police training center at Wick Field, one of the city’s busiest recreation areas, said Ald. Mark W. Ryan,” the Journal wrote in August 1971. “A victory for hundreds of users, neighbors and organized groups who have protested any reduction of the 23-acre playfield.

“Ryan is chair of the council’s Buildings Grounds Harbors Committee that would have to recommend a site for the training center. Ryan was criticized for suggesting the site without consulting aldermen. Ryan denied that he would divert park land and that current use was the best possible.”

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Ryan, who questioned if the site could even be used since it was a former landfill, said that he didn’t make the suggestion, but that city planning staff named when it was asked to comment on potential sites.

At this time, Wick Field had a hardball diamond, seven softball diamonds, nine tennis courts, two tennis backboards, a fieldhouse and an equipment building. In autumn, it was converted to four football fields.

During the last full season – presumably in 1970 – the Journal reported that 63,000 played and watched softball there and 15,000 played tennis.

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Over the years, through heavy use and the Wisconsin weather – and despite upgrades, such as a new playset in 1993 and a large walk-through public art piece installed about 20 years ago as part of the Vliet Street Common project – the playfield has been in need of some love.

Thanks to $4.1 million in Milwaukee Recreation funding and $7.55 million in Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief (ESSER) funds authorized by Congress in 2020 as part of the Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security (CARES) Act, pretty much everything looks and feels new, except the tennis courts, which Wilke says were determined not to need replacement yet.

But even those – resurfaced and re-fenced in 2001 – got new lights, which users can activate via a push button that gives an hour of nighttime play.

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We start over on the east end, where artificial turf softball and baseball diamonds have amenities like new bleachers, fencing and scoreboards, team dugouts and fenced bullpens, and upgraded lighting. 

There are even two netted batting cages near the diamonds.

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The lighting and scoreboards can be controlled by coaches and Rec staff from a phone app, Wilke says.

These fields are used by MPS high school teams, Wilke says.

A third, natural turf multipurpose diamond used for things like kickball leagues has gotten a makeover, in part to repair work done on an underground stormwater management and drainage system.

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There are three more softball diamonds – all with grass – further west on the site and those had work done, too, including new infields.

The paths over here were widened and resurfaced, too.

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“We did some renovations to the restrooms,” Wilke explains as we pass the small fieldhouse, which has gotten an addition at the back. “We built the garage for more storage and for our vehicles that we use for maintenance.

“Added a family restroom in there and more accessible stalls in the other bathrooms.”

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The landscaping near the main entrance has been cleared and cleaned up for better safety and easier maintenance.

The installation created in 2000 by artist Jill Sebastian as part of the Vliet Street Commons part of Wick Field – a metal framework upon which banners were attached – has been in need of new banners and it will get them, from Sebastian, in time for the ribbon cutting, Wilke says.

“We were like, ‘everything else is being renovated. It hasn't had the banners on it for a long time’,” Wilke adds. “We contacted the artist and the neighborhood representatives that put it here and got people talking again and we are having, she did a new art exhibit that we're having printed and put up to bring new life to it.

“Then the idea was it would be a rotating opportunity for artists to do different things. Hopefully, we'll get the energy going again.”

Nearby, a chair sits in a grassy patch and it is here that neighborhood activists are working to raise funds to install a historical marker highlighting Wick Field as the site of Uecker’s conversion to a catcher.

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Just west of this area is the newly repaved parking lot, which has been re-striped from two lanes to one for safety, and just beyond that is the stunning new playground and splash pad.

While there was a playground here before, there wasn’t anything like the colorful, sprawling, inviting playset that’s here now – with its spongy surface, artificially turfed mounds and music-making features – and the splash pad is an entirely new addition.

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“We had lots of neighborhood input and families gave input on colors and themes and they really, really wanted the trees to be saved,” Wilke says. “We worked really hard to keep these intact and keep some shade.”

Nearby are three new trees of a different sort. These metal trees provide shaded seating and have outlets for charging phones, etc.

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“These are interesting,” Wilke says. “These are solar trees. They have solar panels on top.It shows kids an idea of creative solar power use in small areas like this. It sends power back to the grid. We have a permit with We Energies.”

Another new feature is the circular basketball court, which has three small courts arrayed in a circle rather than one large rectangular one.

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“There wasn’t a basketball court here before,” Wilke says. “These are more for younger kids and more people can play rather than just one full game going on where smaller kids and families can't get time on it.”

On the western end of the playfield are three softball diamonds, new paths, and new picnic tables at the far end near the MPS administration building for employees to use during lunch. Out this way there’s also what looks like a bus shelter but is a place to put some portable toilets during large events,

While the layout and most amenities will be familiar to Wick Field regulars, everything is much improved and there are indeed some great new features, too.

Now that about a dozen of Milwaukee Recreation’s 52 playfields have been renovated, Wilke says, the department has been re-calibrating its equity plan for renovating all of the playfields over time, but on a schedule that considers the neighborhoods and facilities that need the most attention.

“We just did an update to our priority plan,” Wilke says. “We take out the ones we've already renovated and then we update all the data that we use and we've got a new (prioritized) list now.”

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Read more about the plan here.

The ribbon cutting for Wick Playfield is set for 4:30 p.m. on Tuesday, May 6. At 5 p.m. Rufus King and Pulaski High Schools will face off in a Milwaukee City Conference baseball game on the new diamond at 5 p.m.