Shorewood A Look Back The Garbage Train

Shorewood’s Department of Public Works began village-wide garbage collection in 1916. The young community, incorporated just 16 years prior, had less than 2,000 residents. Garbage was hauled to a swampy dumping area on the west side of Whitefish Bay.

By the mid-1920s, concerns about water pollution, the distance of the haul, and a sizeable increase in the amount of garbage due to a population explosion spurred Village officials to seek other solutions.

In 1928, Shorewood acquired the land where the DPW is located today, and an incinerator was constructed. By 1931, an average of 14 tons of garbage and combustibles were burned per day, requiring an average of 44 pounds of coal per ton of garbage.

DPW workers used a ”garbage train” (also called “garbage-getters”) to collect residential garbage. The garbage train rattled through Village streets and alleys, pulled by a tractor or truck. Residential garbage cans were emptied into the train cars. When they were full, a canvas top strung from a pole covered the car for the return trip to DPW. The contents of the car were dropped directly into the incinerator.

Although garbage trucks began to appear in the late 1930s, the Shorewood DPW continued to use the garbage train into the next decade. n