Milwaukee's First Police Badge

Milwaukee's First Police Badge
Ever since I started collecting Milwaukee police badges the star shaped first badge became my holy grail. Years later when I finally got one I made owning one example from each of the three makers my next goal. The first maker of the Milwaukee star badges was Charles Friedrich Kleinsteuber. Kleinsteuber was technically skilled immigrant born in Germany Nov. 12, 1822 and died in Milwaukee June 3, 1885 at the age of 62 years. According to his obituary he had lived the last 33 years of his life in Milwaukee. This means that Kleinsteuber came to Milwaukee in 1852 at the age of 29 years. He set up his business and was able to produce the first Milwaukee police star badges by October 1855 when the Milwaukee Police Department was established. An old photograph of his building clearly shows his signs indicating that he was an engaver, a machinist and also operated a brass foundery. In 1863 Kleinsteuber issued a Civil War token giving his address as 24 Tamarack Street. His second token issue dated 1867 shows the address as 318 State Street. Kleinsteuber didn't move, but the street had been renamed and the same location still had an engraving business located there as late as 1930. This interesting information contains some very useful clues when one finds one of these badges that isn't maker marked. In this case badge number 73. To start with the Milwaukee Police Department had 67 sworn officers in 1874. In 1888 the number of officers had increased to 181. The numbers increased by an average of 8.14 men per year. Since Kleinsteuber died in 1885 it would mean that the first 157 numbered badges could have been made by him. (Real life doesn't always work precisely that way so I expect there may be a margin of error in that number.) Badge number 73 also has a brass pin. Remember that Kleinsteuber also ran a brass foundry. None of the later star badges have brass pins. Number 73 has crude zig-zag ornamentation in the numbers and letters while later badges have the flowers ornamentation in just the numbers. Size badge number 73 is 65 mm wide while later badges are 71 plus mm wide. Therefore I must conclude that badge number 73 is an unmarked Kleinsteuber made badge.