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You can’t talk about the geology of Milwaukee’s built environment without first mentioning its two locally produced materials: Wauwatosa Dolostone and Cream City Brick.

This past September, in the first segment of the new “What Milwaukee Is Made Of” series airing on WUWM’s Lake Effect program, producer Sam Woods and I discussed the city’s native rock type  and its use in the landmark Pfister Hotel.

And just this past week, on October 23rd, the series’ second part, on the brick that lent its name to the Cream City, was featured on Lake Effect. This time around we chose to focus on a different type of structure in a distinctly dissimilar neighborhood—the 1875 J. L. Burnham Block, in heavily industrialized Walker’s Point.  Why? Because the Burnham Block has the most direct connection with the city’s once-vast brickmaking industry. The building’s original owner, John Burnham, was a prominent member of a family renowned for its ownership of leading Cream City Brick production firms. In fact, his own claypits and kilns were situated just a few blocks northwest of this location.

Some of Milwaukee’s most famous Cream City Brick buildings have been restored to their original pristine, pale-yellow state. But others, like this site, still wear a considerable deposit of soot, mostly produced before the passage of the federal Clean Air Act (1970, with later provisions).  In the course of our discussion of this grimy aspect of the city’s architectural history, I utter a shocking heresy that is bound to offend all true lovers of tidiness and good order. You are duly forewarned . . .

If you didn’t catch the original airing of this installment, with its heresy and all else,  you can enjoy both it and the first episode it at your convenience. Simply click on this Milwaukee Public Radio link.

And don’t forget that the one best way to get a synoptic view of Milwaukee’s urban geology is get your own print or digital copy of Milwaukee in Stone and Clay. It’s available in your local bookstore and online, including at the publisher’s website.

 

The July 2024 issue of MKE Lifestyle magazine is out, and it contains a “Fifteen Minutes With Ray Wiggers” interview on the subject of my newly released book, Milwaukee in Stone and Clay, and its subject matter.

The digital version of the issue may be found here. The interview starts on page 18. Also, take a look at the rest of this and other issues posted online. There are a lot of fascinating photo spreads and articles on the Cream City’s cultural and historical aspects, as well as quite a few features on Milwaukee’s natural setting and environmental-education resources.

My thanks go to MKE Lifestyle for taking an interest in MSC and the concept of architectural geology.

That said, as all persons in the world of words and printing know, errors can creep into an article with amazing ease. In this case, the caption of one interview-spread photo incorrectly identifies the red, Jacobsville-Sandstone-clad edifice shown as the Loyalty Building. Actually, it’s the Button Block, as is unequivocally stated in MSC. The caption also states that City Hall is made of both St. Louis Brick and Philadelphia Brick. Only the first of these is present, so far as I know. Please note that I am not responsible for these errors.

In book publishing, the author generally does the captions. But in popular-press periodicals, it’s usually a magazine staffer and not the person interviewed who writes them. And there’s usually no understanding that caption facts should be checked with the interviewee. Such was the case here.

But rest assured that the correct information is given in MSC itself. And a correction supposedly will be issued in the August issue of MKE Lifestyle.

In the meantime, I hope you enjoy the interview, which contains much more information that is, to the best of my knowledge, completely correct. And don’t forget to check out my page specifically dedicated to MSC. In my newly added “Item 4” section of that page, I go into the corrections in a little greater detail, and also discuss what I consider to be the most important section of the interview, which was, to my very great regret, edited out of the magazine section. Take a look!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Wild Geraniums (Geranium maculatum) in full flower by my door, a few days ago.

Just last week, after eight months of writing, writing, and more writing, I finished the manuscript for the third book in my Stone and Clay series. It covers the architectural geology of a huge area of northeastern Illinois—about 1,600 square miles—stretching from Homewood in the southern Chicagoland suburbs through the Lower Des Plaines Valley and western suburbs up to the North Shore, Waukegan, and Illinois Beach State Park. Now it’s off for peer review.

If you, too, are a book author, you’ll probably understand that finishing and submitting one’s latest manuscript can definitely produce a sort of post partem depression. But in this case, I was able avoid a fit of the hypos by turning immediately to a number of other projects that have long begged for my attention. So I haven’t had that miserable, what-do-I-do-next feeling this time around.

One  of these projects is a major upgrade of this website. My main goal is to make it, among other things, a discussion forum and information supplement to my books. So you’ll find new pages for both Chicago in Stone and Clay and Milwaukee in Stone and Clay. Take a look, and keep in mind that I will be updating quite frequently from now on.

In addition, I’m also redoing my Lectures and Tours pages so potential hosts and participants will see what I’m offering that’s thematically linked to the Milwaukee and Chicago books.

So . . . let me know what you think!

Kind regards,

Ray Wiggers

 

 

 

Over the past couple of months, I’ve done a number of media events and interviews to celebrate the recent release of my new book, Milwaukee in Stone & Clay: A Guide to the Cream City’s Architectural Geology.

Two of these, including a slide show of some of my best geology and architecture photos, have been recorded and are currently available online:

– My photo-slide show of Milwaukee’s geology and architecture, co-hosted by Boswell Books and Historic Milwaukee, Inc. It has now been posted on YouTube. Here’s the link . Note: It will be available only until Friday 17 May 2024.

– My audio interview on the “Lake Effect” program of Milwaukee Public Radio has been posted as this podcast.

Give one or both a look or a listen if you’d like to learn more about the fascinating and often unexpected links between architecture and geology!

And, while I’m at it, here’s the publisher’s link for Milwaukee in Stone & Clay.

 

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At a ceremony on November 16, 2023 the Geoscience Information Society (GSIS) presented my most recently published book, Chicago in Stone and Clay (CSC), with its 2023 award for the Best Popular Guidebook.

The GSIS, a member society of the American Geoscience Institute and an associated society of the Geological Society of America, is a nonprofit organization composed of science librarians, geoscientists, and other information professionals. One of its continuing and best-known roles is to recognize outstanding books and research papers in the Earth sciences.

I can’t begin to express how honored and uplifted I feel to be recognized by the GSIS selection committee, especially given how many new geology guides appear each year. When I was informed of my selection, the news didn’t just make my day—it made my year.

There’s no doubt about it. I consider this is one of the big achievements of my writing career. This award, along with the Chicago Reader‘s designation of CSC as one of “The Top Ten Chicago Books of 2022,” has given me all the rocket-fueled inspiration I need to carry the Stone and Clay series forward. The Milwaukee volume is due out early in 2024, and I’m now busy writing the third installment, on the Chicago suburbs.

(The awarding officers’ signatures on the certificate above have been typeset to protect their own identity information.)

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sometimes the extended process of writing a book and getting it published makes me feel as though I’m trapped in Zeno’s Achilles-and-the-Tortoise Paradox. However much progress is made, there always seems to be some distance, however miniscule, remaining between me and the goal of seeing the book hit print.

That said, the second volume in my Stone and Clay series is in fact now making its final approach to the finish line. (Forgive the mixed metaphor: I think I shifted within a single clause from an airplane to a racehorse. At any rate, the proofing and indexing of my flying equine has now been finished.)

As it so happens, I’m one of those authors who does my own indexing, and who actually enjoys the process, mostly. But now all that is done, and my Cream City tome is off to the printers. The expected release date? Late winter or early spring of 2024.

I thoroughly expect my publisher (the NIU imprint of Cornell University Press) to once again offer author-distributed discount cards and codes for purchase of Milwaukee in Stone and Clay. If you’d like to receive a sizeable deduction when you buy it from Cornell (probably 30%), drop me a line at rwgabbro1@gmail.com and I’ll make sure you get the card and code as soon as they’re available.

And, finally, I have been honored by NIU/CUP with a third Stone and Clay contract—this time, for a guide to the Chicago suburbs, which are a happy hunting ground for anyone interested in the geology of building stone and fired-clay materials. I hope to have that manuscript in for peer review at just about the same time the Milwaukee book becomes available.

(Cover credits:  design by David Baldeosingh Rotstein. Upper photo © f11photo / shutterstock.com; inset photos by me.)