Kosciuszko Park is located on the South Side of Milwaukee, bounded by W. Becher Street and W. Lincoln Avenue and by S. 7th and 10th Streets, near the Basilica of St. Josaphat. The City of Milwaukee purchased the land in 1890 from J.C. Coleman, and the area was originally known as Coleman Park. It was renamed in the mid-1890s as Lincoln Avenue Park and given its current name in 1900. The park memorializes General Tadeusz (Thaddeus) Andrzej Bonawentura Kosciuszko (1746-1817), who fought in the American Revolutionary War on the American side and in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth’s struggles against Russia and the Kingdom of Prussia. The park is home to a bronze statue known as the Kosciuszko Monument. The Milwaukee Polonia commissioned Italian sculptor Gaetano Trentanove (1858-1937) to design and construct the public art piece in 1903. It was installed on the north side of Kosciuszko Park, near Becher Street, in October 1904, and formally dedicated on June 18, 1905, during a ceremony attended by 60,000 people. In 1951 the statue was moved to its current location on the south side of the park. The statue was fully restored and rededicated in 2013.
Kiran Dhillon
Graduate Student
University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee