— The Brittain Family · Three Generations
Sixty-eight years.
One family.
One phone number.
Eagle Moving has been a Milwaukee company since 1958 — through five recessions, two oil crises, and the entire run of Bob Uecker calling Brewers games. Here's how it happened.
1958
One truck, seven kids, a kitchen-table office.
Jim Brittain buys Eagle Movers and runs the whole operation out of the family home in Wauwatosa. Just one truck. The kitchen is dispatch. With a household of seven children, the business spends most of the late '50s and '60s just barely staying afloat — and Jim never misses a payment, never misses a move.
1960s–70s
The "undercover" movers.
An unusual partnership begins with the Milwaukee County Sheriff's Department's Witness Protection Division. During high-stakes crime trials, Eagle Movers is called in for sensitive relocations — moving witnesses out of harm's way under armed Sheriff escort. We don't talk about it much. But we did it for years.
1980s
Tom joins. Then the warehouse.
Tom Brittain — the second oldest of the seven — comes on board in the early '80s. The infusion of new energy leads to the first real expansion: in 1987, Eagle buys its first warehouse in Riverwest. Jim retires shortly after, passing the torch to Tom. David and Jim Jr. follow into the business, making Eagle a multi-brother operation.
1996
Walker's Point. 70,000 square feet.
The three brothers scale the business up significantly, moving operations to a 70,000-square-foot warehouse in Walker's Point — the building we still call home today. The new facility lets us diversify well beyond residential into large-scale commercial relocation, full-service storage, and shipping/receiving logistics.
Today
Three generations. Same answer when you call.
JJ Brittain — the most recent addition to the leadership team — works alongside his father and two uncles. Three generations of the same family, in the same building, doing the same work. Same phone number we've had since 1958. Same answer when you pick up the receiver: "Eagle Moving."
— Filed September 18, 1958
The original $2,600 note.
This is the chattel mortgage note Jim Brittain signed to buy Eagle Movers — September 18, 1958, for $2,600.00 at 5¼% per annum. Twenty-six monthly payments. Filed from the Brittain family kitchen at 637 S. Oak Park Court, Milwaukee, Wisconsin.
We keep the original in the office. Sometimes a customer asks to see it. We always say yes.
— Filed Milwaukee County · September 18, 1958
— Service With A Grunt.
The crew that shows up.
Some of these folks have been with Eagle for fifteen, twenty, thirty years. The ones who haven't usually stick around. Same crew that loads your truck unloads it on the other end. That's the whole point.
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