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Little is known regarding the history of the two quarries in the village of Germantown. Original purchases of these lands in section 22 in the Township of Germantown from the federal government were:
At this point what does the future Village of Germantown physically look like. Going north from Milwaukee to Fond du Lac on the original Fond du Lac trail you would see trees, everywhere trees. You would come to the top of a ridge line running north-south and gazing north you would see a second such ridge about a half mile away also running north-south. There would be a river/creek just beyond but that is about all that would be noteworthy. Had you walked from Milwaukee, it would now be late on in the day, close to nightfall. The 1859 plat map tells us that Jacob Schlaefer continued to own his hand but the ownership of George Geismann's land cannot be determined although it had been divided into two twenty acre parcels. There is no indication at this time of any lime producing activity. By 1873 things begin to change. Ownership of Schlaefer's land has not changed but P. Schneider now owns the land which had originally been purchased by George Giesmann. The 1873 plat map identified stores, saloons, breweries, blacksmith shops but it does not identify the existence of a lime kiln. From this one might suspect that the lime kilns did not yet exist and did not exist until H.B. Bond and Company took ownership of the land and this happened after 1873. In 1892 H.R. Bond & Company owns the Schneider property and it looks like the triangle property. Kilns are identified west of Park but not on the triangle property. Both areas have connecting railroad spurs. A.L. Schlaefer owns 71.25 acres of the original 80 acres identified as Spring Valley Dairy Farm. Adding confusion to this, there were four furnaces at the west facility and two furnaces at the east facility. The size of the west quarry is insignificant as compared to the size of the east quarry. The west quarry did not run out of rock. Hearsay has it that water needed to be pumped out and at one point the pumps became inoperable. By the time they were fixed the water level had risen to such a degree that they abandoned the mining and closed these four furnaces. The book History of Washington and Ozaukee Counties, Wisconsin published in 1881, identifies that Jacob Schlaefer and the Germantown Lime Company owned lime burning facilities and the lime produced was of excellent quality. The former part of this statement does not help to clear this situation as plat maps say Mr. Schlaefer was not the owner of any of this land although he did own at that time the land north of Fond du Lac Road by the east kilns. In 1912 the Book Washington County Past and Present and the 1915 plat map identify there existed in South Germantown the Cream City Lime Company where Gehl's Dairy now stands. In 1915 the Cream City Lime Company also owned the land on the north side of Fond du Lac Road. Therefore sometime after 1892 and before 1915 Mr. Schlaefer sold this land at which time he would have been solely in the dairy business. This saga of the kilns in South Germantown needs substantiation as it is based on speculation, not that it existed as we know that, but the time line and players have not been identified.
The year 1912 was determined as the date of this picture as it was acquired from the book Washington County, Wisconsin Past Present published in 1912. North Street would have been just to the left, view northeast, and the kilns were situated just west of the front entrance door of the present Gehl's building. Notice the railroad car situated front center as this would be the location of the spur line. Also found is a picture of the Cream City Lime Company facility identified as MACE Lime Company. From this what can we surmise. First, at some point the demand for lime was great enough to cause six lime kilns to be constructed. On the other hand they may have initially constructed too many furnaces and as they grew wiser, the second facility with its two kilns might better have matched demand requirements, assuming they came later. When the demand diminished or seepage water directed, the west kilns were abandoned and finally the east were abandoned. This would have happened sometime before 1915 as the Cream City Lime Company was identified on the 1915 plat map as the then owner of the land. The east facility and contiguous land to Church Street was said to have been purchased by John P. Gehl in 1915 and as we know the Gehl dairy facility was constructed there. The Cream City Lime company land north of Fond du Lac Road was purchased by Mr. Walterlin.
One wonders which took precedence, Fond du Lac Trail or the quarry. We know the trail was there first but the quarry extended on both sides of Fond du Lac. So was the trail temporarily rerouted and later straightened or did quarry excavation first begin on the south side of the trail then later on the north side. The writer is of the opinion that the trail always existed and at some point, the lime company was in need of an additional rock source, which just happened to be available on the north side of the road. So the company excavated down on the north side then constructed a tunnel under the trail and through this tunnel moved rock from the trail's north side to the kilns on the south. This scenario was developed after looking at the picture on your right, quarry view northeast, which includes the tunnel. If the quarry had been excavated and then the trail routed through it, the base of the road would be fill, not lime stone strata. The picture shows lime stone strata.
What is known is there was an open drainage cannel on the west side of the east kiln's south quarry running west to the river. In the 1940s this drainage line was placed underground coming back above ground just west of Park Avenue. It continued to flow into the Menomonee river.
Suspect this drainage was employed to stabilize the level of the water after the dairy began using the quarry for water discharge and the natural drainage flowed west. We also know the grade for Park Avenue is several feet higher than the original lay of the land. Houses built along it had their land area raised to road level.
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