SS Milwaukee back and forth from Milwaukee to the Grand Trunk Railway's dock in Grand Haven in western Michigan. This route enabled shippers to avoid the crowded railroad yards and sidings of Chicago. The "Milwaukee" was home-ported in the city for which it was named. The docks of the Grand Trunk Milwaukee Car Ferry Company were located on the Kinnickinnic River, and their ferries were familiar sights to residents of Jones Island. Around 2:00 pm on October 22, 1929, the "Milwaukee" sailed off on Lake Michigan into a storm bound for Grand Haven, and was lost. The "Milwaukee" had been loaded earlier
Milwaukee "inner-ring" suburbs. In the 1920s Chicago gangster activity came north to Milwaukee during the Prohibition era. Al Capone, noted Chicago mobster, owned a home in the Milwaukee suburb Brookfield, where moonshine was made. The house still stands on a street named after Capone. By 1960, Milwaukee had grown to become one of the largest cities in the United States. Its population peaked at 741,324. In 1960, the Census Bureau reported city's population as 91.1% white and 8.4% black. By the late 1960s, Milwaukee's population had started to decline as people moved to suburbs, aided by federal subsidies of highways. They