Postcards

Take a peek into Wauwatosa’s rich past through our searchable database of nearly 600 vintage postcards. This collection features images of iconic buildings, long-gone restaurants and businesses, city parks, distinguished homes, public schools, historical churches, and much more.

Dig into this digitized time capsule to see what the Village looked like with a train station, horse-drawn wagons, and streetcars. Postcards contain images of Hart Park’s Muellner Building from when it was called the Recreational Building at Athletic Park. Get a glimpse of places we still visit today, like Mayfair Mall and the County Grounds complex, to see how they’ve changed over the years. Even significant weather events, like the ice storm of 1922, are memorialized in postcards.  

The postcards are a virtual walk through the decades, revealing interesting details such as a bandshell in the Village that was taken down to make way for St. Bernard’s Catholic Church and the former Aetna Park Grade School, which stood where Jefferson School is today. When available, the messages on the back are included along with the images on the front, providing even more detail about how residents lived in days past. 

In addition to many images of Wauwatosa and its landmarks, the collection includes postcards of nearby attractions and spots of interest, including State Fair Park, Washington Park (and the former zoo housed within it), the beach at Lake Michigan, the Tripoli Shrine Temple, and more.

The postcard collection is sourced from the generous donations of Wauwatosa Historical Society members and the broader community. Among the most significant contributions, longtime member and volunteer Len Borkowski donated many postcards he spent years collecting from around the state after his retirement. Barbara and Ken Lindl also provided a shoebox full of postcards from the Garvens grocery store, which Barbara’s family operated in the Village. Many of the postcards were originally published by one of Wauwatosa’s noted families, the Lefebers, who owned a general store in the Village decades ago.