South end: WIS 32 in Oak Creek South end WIS 32 in Oak Creek | Length 63.87 km | |
North end: I-43 / WIS 32 in Bayside Counties Milwaukee County, Wisconsin, Waukesha County, Wisconsin | ||
State Trunk Highway 100 (STH 100, commonly known as Highway 100 or WIS 100) is a road which encircles the outer edges of Milwaukee County. Officially, the road is designed as a bypass around the city of Milwaukee, but with residential and commercial development along Highway 100 on almost all portions of the road, this purpose has been negated, and it serves as one of the Milwaukee area's major commercial corridors. Highway 100 roughly parallels the freight railroad beltway around Milwaukee constructed in 1912 by the Chicago and North Western Transportation Company, approximately one mile inside the north, west and south county lines.
Map of WI-100, Wisconsin, USA
In Milwaukee's immediate western suburb Wauwatosa, Highway 100's north–south segment was once known as Lovers Lane; parts of the road still have this designation. In the vicinity of Mayfair Shopping Center, it is known as Mayfair Road; this corresponds to 108th street in Milwaukee's numbered roadways scheme.
The roadway served the Muirdale Tuberculosis Sanatorium and County Airfield and Limestone Quarry at what is now Currie Park. In the late 1950s, due to the combination of ready roadway and rail access, the area experienced an employment boom as several large cold storage warehouses and food-related truck terminals were constructed nearby. With the development of the Mayfair Shopping Center in 1958 by malting scion Kurtis Froedtert, the name was changed to Mayfair Road. One of the few vestiges of this earlier era is the roadway's popularity as a "cruising strip" for exhibition motorists. Many signs posted at various intervals on light posts in the median state that it is unlawful to pass a controlled point more than three times in West Allis, which can result in a fine.
Inexpensive land and burgeoning growth in western Milwaukee County and the adjacent Waukesha County have served to create a new edge city commercial center centered on this busy arterial. Mayfair Shopping Center remains a key component of this area. With the privatization and redevelopment of the County Grounds including Muirdale and the expansion of Froedtert Hospital and the Medical College of Wisconsin there will be increasing pressure to develop the last large parcels of adjacent privately owned open space in the area; and there will likely be additional traffic pressures placed on this onetime Lovers Lane.