Jones Island is now an industrial peninsula in the Milwaukee Harbor. It was
originally a marsh island between the Milwaukee and Kinnickinnic Rivers. The island
gained its name from James Monroe Jones who opened a shipyard there in the 1850s. In
the 1870s the island was settled by Kaszubians from Poland. The main industry on the
island became fishing and Jones Island was Milwaukee’s fishing village. The last of
the Jones Islanders were pushed off the island in the 1940s. In the time between
when the island was settled and when its final inhabitants left, a pumping station,
trash incinerator, sewage treatment plant, car ferry, shipping buildings, and docks
had all been added to the island.
