Brown Deer

History

The Brown Deer area was organized as part of the Town of Milwaukee in 1835, and the first white settlers began arriving around that time from New England and New York, including some settlers from Granville, New York. In 1841, the Town of Milwaukee was subdivided and the Brown Deer area became part of the new Town of Granville. In the 1800s, the town was a predominantly agricultural community, and many residents were of German and Irish extraction. The Village of Brown Deer has its origins in a rural hamlet that formed at a crossroads in the northeastern quadrant of the Town of Granville in the 1870s. The area remained characteristically rural from the 19th century through the mid-1940s, when the post–World War II economic expansion caused a building boom in the area, and many of the farms were subdivided into suburban residential neighborhoods. In 1955, the Village of Brown Deer and the City of Milwaukee scrambled to annex more of the Town of Granville, with Brown Deer making five annexations by the year's end. In 1956, the city and the village both attempted to annex all of the Town of Granville's remaining territory. The municipalities began a court battle that would last until 1962. In August 2013, the village was listed as 19th on CNNMoney's rankings of Best Places to Live – Where Homes Are Affordable, the highest ranking community in the state of Wisconsin.

Geography

Brown Deer is located at (43.172858, −87.977899). According to the United States Census Bureau, the village has a total area of , all land.

Race & ethnicity

Most-observed species

• Northern Cardinal

  Cardinalis cardinalis (Linnaeus, 1758) · Aves
  34,176
• American Robin

  Turdus migratorius Linnaeus, 1766 · Aves
  33,852
• Black-capped Chickadee

  Poecile atricapillus (Linnaeus, 1766) · Aves
  31,818
• American Goldfinch

  Spinus tristis (Linnaeus, 1758) · Aves
  29,682
• House Sparrow

  Passer domesticus (Linnaeus, 1758) · Aves
  29,676
• Mourning Dove

  Zenaida macroura (Linnaeus, 1758) · Aves
  25,667
• House Finch

  Haemorhous mexicanus (P.L.Statius Müller, 1776) · Aves
  24,532
• Downy Woodpecker

  Dryobates pubescens (Linnaeus, 1766) · Aves
  24,032