GREEN BAY, a city and the county-seat of Brown county, Wisconsin,
U.S.A., at the S. extremity of Green Bay, at the mouth of the Fox
river, 114 m. N. of Milwaukee. Pop. (1890) 9069; (1900) 18,684, of whom
4022 were foreign-born and 33 were negroes; (1910 census) 25,236. The
city is served by the Chicago & North-Western, the Chicago, Milwaukee &
St Paul, the Kewaunee, Green Bay & Western, and the Green Bay & Western
railways, by an inter-urban electric railway connecting with other Fox
River Valley cities, and by lake and river steamboat lines. Green Bay
lies on high level ground on both sides of the river, which is here
crossed by several bridges. The city has the Kellogg Public Library, the
Brown County Court House, two high schools, a business college, several
academies, two hospitals, an orphan asylum and the State Odd Fellows'
Home. It is the seat of a Roman Catholic cathedral, the bishopric being
the earliest established in the North-west. The so-called "Tank
Cottage," now in Washington Park, is said to be the oldest house in
Wisconsin; it was built on the W. bank of the river near its mouth by
Joseph Roy, a French-Canadian _voyageur_, in 1766, was subsequently
somewhat modified, and in 1908 was bought and removed to its present
site by the Green Bay Historical Society. Midway between Green Bay and
De Pere (5 m. S.W. of Green Bay) is the state reformatory, opened in
1899-1901. Green Bay's fine harbour accommodates a considerable lake
commerce, and the city is the most important railway and wholesale
distributing centre in N.E. Wisconsin. Its manufactures include lumber
and lumber products, furniture, wagons, woodenware, farm implements and
machinery, flour, beer, canned goods, brick and tile and dairy products;
and it has lumber yards, grain elevators, fish warehouses and railway
repair shops. The total value of the factory product in 1905 was
$4,873,027, an increase of 79.9% since 1900. The first recorded visit of
a European to the vicinity of what is now Green Bay is that of Jean
Nicolet, who was sent west by Champlain in 1634, and found, probably at
the Red Banks, some 10 m. below the present city, a village of Winnebago
Indians, who he thought at first were Chinese. Between 1654 and 1658
Radisson and Groseilliers and other _coureurs des bois_ were at Green
Bay. Claude Jean Allouez, the Jesuit missionary, established a mission
on the W. shore of the bay, about 20 m. from the present city. Later he
removed his mission to the Red Banks, and in the winter of 1671-1672
established it permanently 5 m. above the present city, at Rapides des
Peres, on the E. shore of the Fox river. In 1673 Joliet and Marquette
visited the spot. In 1683-1685 Le Sueur and Nicholas Perrot traded with
the Indians here. In 1718-1720 Fort St Francis was erected at the mouth
of the river on the W. bank, and after being several times deserted was
permanently re-established in 1732. About 1745 Augustin de Langlade
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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