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Where to Stay in West Allis, Wisconsin
West Allis is a suburb of Milwaukee in Milwaukee County, Wisconsin, holding the Milwaukee County Zoo among its landmarks.
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Where to stay in West Allis
Each area has its own feel; here's who each one suits.
Milwaukee County Zoo is the reason most visitors take a bed in West Allis. Rooms on that side put the zoo, the Greenfield School, and the Juneau Highlands Residential Historic District inside one short circuit, and Milwaukee is close enough that nothing in the metropolitan area is out of reach. Proximity is the bargain here.
West Allis is a suburb, which sets the terms: the choice of rooms is narrower than in Milwaukee proper, and a stay here is organised around the zoo rather than a downtown. St. Sava Serbian Orthodox Cathedral and the West Allis Post Office are the other fixed points a walk from a room here can be built around. Milwaukee itself is the fallback for range.
Anyone who wants a wider set of hotels, and does not mind travelling out to Milwaukee County Zoo each morning, will do better based in the central city and treating West Allis as the day's destination. The reverse suits families. If you are here for the zoo and for Wadham's Oil and Grease Company of Milwaukee, a West Allis room saves the daily run, and the West Allis Historical Society sits on the same short list of things worth walking to.
About West Allis
What is West Allis known for?
Two landmarks pull attention here: the Milwaukee County Zoo, which stands inside West Allis rather than in Milwaukee, and St. Sava Serbian Orthodox Cathedral. Older fabric fills in around them. The West Allis Post Office, the Greenfield School, and the Juneau Highlands Residential Historic District all record the decades when the city was building out, and the West Allis Historical Society keeps that record.
What are the main landmarks in West Allis?
The range here is wide. Milwaukee County Zoo, St. Sava Serbian Orthodox Cathedral, and the West Allis Post Office sit alongside the Alexander Herschel and Pauline G. McMicken House, the Greenfield School, and Wadham's Oil and Grease Company of Milwaukee. The Juneau Highlands Residential Historic District covers a stretch of the early residential build, and the West Allis Historical Society keeps the account of how those streets came together.
What is the history of West Allis?
West Allis grew as a suburb of Milwaukee. The landmark record traces that growth: the Greenfield School, the Alexander Herschel and Pauline G. McMicken House, and the Juneau Highlands Residential Historic District all belong to the period when the street grid was filling in. Industry left its own mark.
Wadham's Oil and Grease Company of Milwaukee stands on the same list, and it marks the industrial side of a suburb that was never purely residential. St. Sava Serbian Orthodox Cathedral records a community that settled here, and the West Allis Post Office marks the point at which the place was large enough to need one of its own. Milwaukee County Zoo occupies ground here.
That placement tied West Allis to the whole of Milwaukee County rather than to its own neighbourhoods alone, and it is why a suburb of this size carries a regional attraction on its landmark list. The West Allis Historical Society holds the account. Wisconsin has larger cities and Milwaukee is the nearest of them, but the suburb kept a separate name and a separate record through the whole of the metropolitan area's growth.
Where is West Allis?
Milwaukee County sets the frame. West Allis occupies a continuous stretch of that county's built-up ground, sharing its edges with Milwaukee and with the rest of the metropolitan area rather than with open country. Nothing separates the two.
A journey out of West Allis crosses into Milwaukee without a gap, which is what belonging to the Milwaukee metropolitan area looks like on the ground.
What is the climate of West Allis?
The temperate band governs the year here. Four distinct seasons pass over Milwaukee County, and a visit built around the Milwaukee County Zoo and the outdoor stretch of the Juneau Highlands Residential Historic District works differently in each of them. Winter shortens the walking day.
West Allis shares its conditions with the whole of the Milwaukee metropolitan area, so nothing about the weather here separates the suburb from the central city.
How do you get to West Allis?
Milwaukee is the arrival point for anyone coming from outside the region, and West Allis is reached from there as a short onward leg inside Milwaukee County. There is no separate approach. The suburb sits inside the built-up mass of the Milwaukee metropolitan area, so the last part of any journey is a local one, whatever the first part was.
Getting to the Milwaukee County Zoo, St. Sava Serbian Orthodox Cathedral, or the West Allis Post Office is a matter of moving within the county rather than into it.
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Updated August 2026