The Milwaukee Historic Photos digital collection represents the start of the process of making historic photos of Milwaukee available to the public online. The photos from this collection are pulled from the Milwaukee Public Library's historic photograph collection. The entire collection includes over 20,000 photographs of Milwaukee dating from the late 19th century to present day. The current digital collection is only a small fraction of the total available photos, but is growing all the time, so stop back to see what new images become available. The photos were donated to the library by many different means. Some are family photos from individual donors, others came from various city departments including the Municipal Reference Bureau and the Milwaukee Fire Department, and still others were donated to the library by various businesses and corporations.