During a recent walk around Jones Island, I was reminded of an article I had seen. This story detailed -- in words and pictures -- the remarkable makeover Amsterdam has given to its old industrial areas, transforming them into neighborhoods full of shops, offices and families, with children playing in the streets.

And it made me think about what Milwaukee would be like if Jones Island was a bridge between Downtown and the Third Ward and Walker's Point and Bay View. Hard to imagine, isn't it?

But once upon a time, Jones Island was home to Milwaukee's most unusual and, arguably, most idyllic community.

First a bit of background. Jones Island wasn't originally an island. It was a marshy peninsula connected to the Third Ward and separated from Bay View by the city's old -- natural -- harbor. To the west was the Milwaukee River and to the east, Lake Michigan. When Father Zenobius Membre visited the peninsula in 1679, there were villages occupied by Native Americans of the Fox and Mascouten Indians.

During the 1850s James Monroe Jones opened a shipyard on peninsula and at the same time, the city began to cut a new harbor across the width of peninsula near the northern end.

The straight cut, as it was called, was completed in 1857, the same year the Jones' woes began as his shipyard was threatened by financial strain and the batterings of lake storms.

But the new island would come to be known as Jones Island in his honor. Over time, however, the lake deposited sand in the old harbor and soon it was filled, making the island a peninsula again, but this time it pointed north!

But more than just geography was changing on Jones Island. In the 1870s, Milwaukee's third major Polish neighborhood sprouted as immigrants hailing for the Kaszuby region of Poland began to settle on Jones Island. Soon they were joined by Pomeranians and other groups and their town -- unique in Milwaukee -- grew.

"Their village, whose population ultimately peaked at nearly 1,600, was a picturesque jumble of homes, saloons, fish sheds, and net reels linked by a street system that might best be described as improvised," wrote Milwaukee historian John Gurda in his book, "The Making of Milwaukee," published by the Milwaukee County Historical Society.

"While their counterparts on the mainland took places in the industrial rank and file, Jones Islanders continued the semi-rural, village-oriented way of life they had known for centuries in the homeland."

But, as you can see, time waits for no man on Jones Island and the Kaszubs and their neighbors' way of life was ephemeral. In 1880, the island became the site of a pumping station that received the city's liquid waste and sent it out into the lake. In 1902, a garbage incinerator was opened on the island to burn Milwaukee's trash.

By the 1920s the Kaszubs were all but pushed off Jones Island and the island was transformed. One particularly hearty soul, Capt. Felix Struck, managed to hang on until 1943, but most others left quickly as the river was dredged and the muck dumped on the lake side, widening the peninsula considerably. Today's sewage treatment plant was installed on the north end of Jones Island in 1925 and a carferry to transport trains across the lake by ship was built in 1929. Shipping industry buildings and docks were added during the following decade.

Industrial development has continued ever since on the island. Drive along on one of the few streets and you'll see piles of salt and sand and who knows what. Ships are still loaded and unloaded on both river and lake side and train tracks criss-cross the peninsula, which is practically barren of trees and grass.

At night, drivers exiting the Hoan Bridge -- which spans the island -- at the south end can see the lights of solitary cars on the island. Bay View rumor has it that the old Kaszub town is the perfect place for prostitutes and drug dealers to do business.

The site of the former immigrant is marked by a "park" that boasts one of the island's perhaps dozen trees, a park bench and a patch of grass. But it, too, is surrounded by warehouses, empty box cars, freight containers, stacks of railroad ties, discarded palettes and the like.

We've got a long way to go before Jones Island becomes the heart of a new neighborhood. In the meantime, it remains the backbone of Milwaukee's shipping industry.

Click to the next page to see a photo gallery of Jones Island today.