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Schoonmaker Reef
2024 Speaker Series
March 14, 2024 @ 7:00 pm – 8:30 pm
Join us for the first Speaker Series event of 2024 where Donald Mikulic, curator at the Weis Earth Science Museum in Menasha, will delve into the fascinating history of the Schoonmaker Reef.
Did you know Wauwatosa boasts an ancient reef dating back 425 million years to the Silurian Period, when most of North America was submerged in a tropical sea? In 1862, geologist James Hall marked a distinctive rock mound at Schoonmaker Quarry as a textbook example of an ancient reef and potentially the first fossil reef in North America—and possibly the world.
During the 1830s, individuals discovered substantial dolomite mounds in the walls of the Menomonee River valley. This led to the establishment of quarries for limestone extraction, quickly evolving into a significant industry. In the same era, Increase Allen Lapham, a self-taught geologist and minerologist, initiated a study of local geology and the Wauwatosa quarries. Comparing fossils from these quarries with those in the Niagara Escarpment of western New York, Lapham commenced correspondence with James Hall, who subsequently published their research.
While Lapham was the initial fossil collector at the quarry, it was Dr. Fisk Holbrook Day who significantly elevated its prominence. A physician for Milwaukee County institutions and an amateur geologist, Dr. Day constructed the impressive Dr. Fisk Holbrook Day House, also known as Sunnyhill Home, at 8000 West Milwaukee Avenue in 1874—in part to house his growing collection of paleontological artifacts. For over two decades, Dr. Day was nearly the sole collector of fossils at the Schoonmaker Quarry, granting him the privilege to choose specimens freely. The collection grew so vast he dedicated a room at Sunnyhill to accommodate it. In 1880, he sold the majority of his fossil collection, and it found a new home at Harvard University’s Museum of Comparative Zoology. Dr. Day shipped 8,265 pounds of specimens to Harvard as part of this transfer.
To learn more about the history of the reef, register for the speaker series event. Though Speaker Series event registration is free to members, registration is still required.
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