The legacy of Milwaukee’s Socialist mayors

November 1, 2026 / 9:58 AM EST / CBS News

Public servants going into government to clean things up? Sounds cliché! But at the Jones Island Water Reclamation Facility in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, that's job number one (and number two).

As our guide Bill Graffin explains, this 101-year-old pioneering feat of engineering treats as much as 400 million gallons of wastewater each day.

So, before the treatment center was built, how was water in Milwaukee treated? "It wasn't," Graffin replied.

Kevin Shafer, executive director of Milwaukee's sewer system, explained: "All the sewage in the region went right to the rivers, which then went to Lake Michigan. And then we took our drinking water out of Lake Michigan."

He said private industry could have built the sewage treatment system, "but that initial capital investment was huge. So, it really took a public tax base to pay for it."

And that's just what happened in 1925 under the leadership of Milwaukee's Socialist mayor.

In fact, Milwaukee was once the capital of American Socialism, and was the only major American city to elect three Socialist mayors. They collectively presided for nearly 40 years, beginning in 1910.

So why, in Milwaukee of all places, did…

Original source: https://www.cbsnews.com/entertainment/