Picturing
Change: A Photographic Look at the Development of Manitowoc
Growing
up in Wisconsin one is bound to hear the name Manitowoc at some point. It
blends in with the myriad of other Native American named cities of the state,
the Sheboygans, Oconomowocs, and Milwaukees. There is no doubt that essentially
the entire state has been shaped by the maritime tradition with its western
border being the Mississippi river and its eastern being the second largest
body of fresh water on the planet, not to mention the countless tributaries and
smaller lakes that dot the countryside. With this in mind, it is obvious that
many of the cities of the state owe, at the very least the beginning of their
existence to various maritime pursuits. Some of these cities were greater
effected by the maritime tradition, and in return had a greater effect on it,
and none more so than Manitowoc. Located on the shore of Lake Michigan
Manitowoc had long been a hub of maritime activity since before the settling of
the ‘new world’ and it continues to be so to this day. The Wisconsin Historical
Society’s photo collection titled “Manitowoc-Two Rivers History Showcased -
Image Gallery Essay” provides a fascinating look at the way in which the city
of Manitowoc grew into the city again, and how this grown was greatly dependent
on the maritime tradition.
In
the language of its original settlers, the Ottawa, Patawatomi, Menomonee, and
Ojibwe tribes “Manitou” means spirit and it became the place of the good
spirit, and a good spirit it has indeed been for the state, and for maritime
trade on Lake Michigan as a whole. Starting out as a fishing community
established by Native Americans who were later joined by French and Canadian
settlers, Manitowoc soon began to grow as the fishing and fur industry grew
until soon the traditional small two man mackinaws used by those who lived in
the area simply were not enough. It was
at this time that a resident of Manitowoc named William Wallace Bates would found
a ship yard and developing the Great Lakes Clipper Schooner, which was larger,
faster, and more able to navigate the sometimes treacherous waters of Lake
Michigan than earlier boat designs which is why he “is credited with
establishing it as the definitive shipbuilding center on the Great Lakes.”
(Wisconsinhistory.org) The success and popularity of this design and the boat
yard brought many immigrants to the city to work in the boat yard of on the
docks. In the 1860’s the Burger Boat Company was established by Hennery Burger
which built large steam ships and schooners; an offshoot of the company started
by Hennery Burger’s nephew which produced smaller watercraft still operates to
this day, though under different ownership, producing custom luxury yachts. During
World War II Manitowoc’s maritime resources were turned toward the war effort
with Burger Boat constructing wooden submarine chasers and Manitowoc
Shipbuilding Company obtaining a contract from the government to construct
twenty eight submarines. The launching of the first of these submarines, the
USS Peto, which was completed 288 days ahead of schedule can be seen in the
photo collection.
Manitowoc
is a very important city within the Great Lakes maritime tradition because it
is near impossible to talk about it without Manitowoc being a central focus. A
plague commemorating Mantowoc’s Maritime Heritage erected by the Wisconsin
Historical Society reads “The Challenge, believed one of the first clipper
ships produced on the Great Lakes, was built by one of the shipyards that lined
the river banks. The Cora A., launched here in 1889, was the last schooner
built on the Great Lakes.” (hmdb.org) Manitowoc’s residents used the lake
freely as did all native peoples at the time, and as settlers began to move in
and the fishing and fur trading shifted to a more commercial purpose they were
once again at the forefront of the trend, designing and building some of the
very first large European style ships to ever sail the Great Lakes. As time
passed and the demands of shipping and lake faring changed so did the city,
creating new kinds of ships incorporating new technologies to stay at the
forefront of the ever changing maritime world. Having the last schooner to be
build being constructed within the city is also conveniently symbolic, showing
that the city was there from the beginning to the end of that particular age of
maritime history; the fact that they also constructed over two dozen submarines
for the US navy also showed that they would allow the last schooner be the last
ship build in their storied shipyards.
Clearly
the city of Manitowoc owes its existence to its location and its involvement
with the trade throughout the Great Lakes and its tributary rivers, and nowhere
is that more clear than in this birds eye view map of Manitowoc from 1883 from
the gallery.
While
most cities would likely have spread out into the surrounding countryside, Manitowoc
remained centralized around the mouth of the Manitowoc River. In the places
that it does begin to spread away from the central location of the harbor the
most heavily populated areas spread away from the harbor either along the lake
shore or else following the winding curve of the Manitowoc River. The city
fills in between these areas, but the farther away from the river mouth one
looks the less densely packed everything is and the less populated therefore. In
a city where agriculture is a major source of sustenance for the citizens you
would expect to see neatly portioned off farming fields spreading through the
open areas near the town. Instead we see only ragged and wild groves of trees
for the most part, a sign that little to no effort has been made to tame the
surrounding area for agricultural use. This clearly shows both the dependence that
the city had on its trade on Lake Michigan and its boat building, and just how
profitable that trade was that there appears to not have been any real desire
on the part of the citizens to search else ware, like farming, for a livelihood.
Another very interesting aspect of this photo
that adds to its historical context is the steam ship present in the bottom
right hand corner of the image and a smaller one exiting the harbor. Had this
been done twenty years earlier the only visible ships would have been the
wooden sailing ships but this image comes from near the beginning of when ship construction
on Manitowoc moved from wooden schooners to steel steam ships. Still, there are
two visible steam ships in the image and more than twice as many wooden sailing
ships. We can see illustrated a fact of history that some, especially casual
observers who rarely think on history, don’t often think about, the
transitional periods of history. Often times when speaking about history it is
said that this empire was replaced by that empire of X date, or it was in X
year that we moved from sails to steam power as the more reliable source of population.
Giving specific times like this leads to the mental image that one day
everybody simply woke up and where there had once been wooden hulled sailing
ships docked in the harbor there were not steel steamers ready to bring their
cargo to distant ports. This is of course obscured if you think about it, but
it is still too easy a trap to fall into when thinking casually on the past and
this image dispels is nicely.
Also
contained within the collection are maps of the harbor area of the stretching
across several decades and the remarkable fact about these maps is that they
change very little over time, because even the earliest map has the area jam
packed. The area is so densely settled that there was simply no room for any new
buildings to go up without tearing down old ones and so the general layout of
the area remains largely the same. It’s not surprising that the city is as densely
packed as it is in even the earliest maps since they are from the 1850s, long
after the city was founded and by that time all the best real estate would certainly
have been claimed. Some of the maps do show larger sections of the city proper
and those sections do grow larger as the years pass, further demonstrating how the
city is so closely centered around the mouth of the Manitowoc River.
This
collection of photographs and maps of Manitowoc and Two Rivers shows a
fascinating look into the past of a very significant city within the maritime
tradition of the Great Lakes areas and in doing so shows how the city evolves
as time passes. The passing time also shows how the city becomes more important
on a global scale when it is called into service to create submarines for the
war, something that many people would not think would have been done within the
Great Lakes, especially one of the most landlocked of the Great Lakes. These
glimpses into the past can help those who see them, especially those who have
grown up on and around the Great Lakes, truly appreciate just how much our
worlds have been shaped by the maritime tradition of the Great Lakes, even and
especially in ways we’d never imagine.
http://www.wisconsinhistory.org/Content.aspx?dsNav=Ntk:All%7cP_City%3amanitowoc+OR+P_City%3aTwo+Rivers%7c5%7c,Ro:0,N:1136&dsNavOnly=Ntk:All%7cP_City%3amanitowoc+OR+P_City%3aTwo+Rivers%7c5%7c,N:1136
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