Archive: Marinette Postcards #3

Dear George,

This is the third archive of Marinette, Wisconsin, postcards that I've posted.  Previous entries can be located by searching "archive" in the box at the upper left.   Marinette is my hometown Menominee's twin city, just across the Menominee River, and it played a significant role in our growing up -- a frequent destination for shopping, eating out, going to the movies, cruising around as teenagers, and my first paid  employment at my grandfather's Marinette Rexall drugstore.  My paternal grandparents lived on Merryman St. near downtown, having immigrated to Marinette from Sweden, and my dad and his siblings were Marinette High School graduates.  

Circus parade, Dunlap Square (see above)

The circus’s arrival in the twin cities was a major highlight of the summer.  Our family would get up at dawn and go to the circus grounds to watch the tents being erected by the workers and their crew of elephants.  Then there’d be a parade through the town, followed the Big Show – the most exciting event of childhood in our small town.  This parade is in downtown Marinette is in the early part of the twentieth century.    

Masonic Temple

The Masonic Temple in Marinette was located at 1610-12 Main St., right across the street from my grandfather's Marinette drugstore.  It was built in 1907 in a Neoclassical style and served as the town's meeting hall for the Masons.  The first floor has been transformed into commercial storefront space and houses Paul's Music and The Psalms.  

Boom logs

Our family moved to the shore of the Menominee River shortly after World War II, and the outskirts of Marinette were right across the river.  Sixty to eighty years earlier the river had been the conduit for the world's largest white pine logging industry, and remnants were still available in the vicinity in the form of log structures and deadheads in the water.  We were well aware of the river's famous history and sometimes fancied ourselves to be young lumberjacks. 

Camp We-Ha-Kee

Camp We-Ha-Kee for Girls was established by the Sisters of the Dominicans of Sinsinawa on the shores of Green Bay near Marinette in 1923.  It's named after Mary WeHaKee La Batte, a young girl raised by the Dominicans whose mother was a Sioux Indian and whose father was French.  In 1964 the camp was moved from Marinette to Hunter Lake in northwestern Wisconsin where it's still thriving today. 

Post Office 1909

Here is the Marinette Wisconsin Post Office in 1909.  I haven’t been able to locate a date for its construction.  Marinette County was formed in 1879 and the City of Marinette in 1887, so I suspect the post office had been around for a couple of decades when this picture was taken. 

Ella Court School

The Marinette & Peshtigo Eagle reported on January 8, 1876, that the "lower part of Ella Court School is finished and ready for use."

Bastol Dairy Meal

According to the Annual Report of the Dairy and Food Commissioner of the State of Michigan, Vol. 20, Bastol Dairy Meal was produced by the Lignum Chemical Company of Marinette.   The report for its analysis listed 12% protein, 20% crude fiber, 46% nitrogen free extract, and 4% fiber extract.  

Parade, Main Street, WW I (1918)

This parade on Main Street in downtown Marinette, in the vicinity of my grandfather's drug store, was held in 1918.  My dad was 10 years old and probably was in the crowd.  A Marinette County genealogy website lists 71 local men killed during World War I, a shocking number for a small, predominantly rural county. 

Yacht Basin boats

Both of the twin cities had popular yacht basins for local and Great Lakes boaters.  Menominee's marina was right on Green Bay off the Sheridan Road downtown business district, while Marinette's was on the Menominee River near where the river passed under the Interstate Bridge.  We'd check out the boats while walking across the bridge to go to the Fox or Rialto movie theaters in downtown Marinette.  

Marinette Opera House

It's quite amazing, but the twin cities of Marinette and Menominee both had large opera houses at the turn of the last century.  The Marinette Opera House had 1,275 seats and a 10-seat orchestra section.  While I’m sure my grandparents went there many times in the early 1900s, the opera house was long gone by the time that my siblings and I were growing up in the 1940’s. 

Sauve’s Courtesy Motel

Given that this is a chrome postcard from the fifties or sixties, Sauve’s was there on Highway 41 during my youth.  We probably passed it by many dozens of time on Marinette’s outskirts as we teenagers drove to Peshtigo and back.   

Camp Bird

Camp Bird near Crivitz in Marinette County is located on land that was owned from 1875 to 1920 by Isaac Stephenson who used it as a fishing and hunting camp.  Sold in 1929 to a land company, Marinette County became the owner that year because of $82.75 in unpaid back taxes.  The plans to build a youth camp were approved by the County Board in 1939, and construction was begun by the WPA in 1942.  Camp Bird opened in 1943 and has been used since that time by the Boy Scouts, Girl Scouts, 4-H, schools, and religious organizations. 

Loret’s Beauty Salon

In my mom’s final years she experienced severe pain in her legs and wasn’t up and around much.  My task on home visits was to take her for her weekly appointment at the local beauty parlor.  It wasn’t Loret’s, but I’m sure her salon was similar  It’s hard to describe the invigorating effect that going to the hairdresser had upon my mother.  She loved conversing with the stylists and fellow customers and getting filled in on the gossip of the day. 

Lakeside Inn

To the best of my knowledge, the Lakeside Inn was located at the Chautauqua site on the outskirts of Marinette along the Green Bay shore.  When we were kids this had become the residential area of Pine Beach.  My grandfather lived there with my Aunt Martha and Uncle Ralph and their kids, Ann and John.     

July 4 parade 1913

This is a shot of the Fourth of July parade on Main Street in downtown Marinette in 1913.  It's clearly a grand occasion.  Lauerman Brothers Department Store is in the background to the left.  My grandfather's drug store was two blocks up the street in the direction that the parade was proceeding.  My father was four years old at the time of the parade, and odds are that he was there, taking in the splendor.

Miscauno Inn

The Miscauno Inn (now the Four Seasons Resort) was located on Miscauno Island in northeast Marinette County on the Menominee River.  It opened in 1905 and initially served a Chicago railroad clientele before being destroyed by fire and then becoming an exclusive club and golf course.  Legend has it that Al Capone was a frequent guest at the Miscauno Inn, using it as a getaway when the heat was on in Chicago.  Reportedly because Chicago gangsters were such regular guests, all of the private resorts in the area had armed guards and barbed-wire fences.  (Source: NY Times, "Where public enemies went for a little peace and quiet," 6-26-09) 

St. Anthony’s Church (interior)

St. Anthony's was located at 900 Wells St. in Marinette.  In 1958 the four Marinette parishes of St. Joseph, Sacred Heart, St. Anthony, and Our Lady of Lourdes assumed joint control of the former Our Lady of Lourdes High School, establishing Marinette Catholic Central High School (which later became the St. Thomas Aquinas Academy).  To my understanding, St. Anthony's church is now located in Niagara in Marinette County.    

Oakwood Beach Club

The Oakwood Beach Club is a mystery to me, and even Google couldn't untangle it.  I did find out that Oakwood Beach Road is located in Marinette's Pine Beach neighborhood, just south of the Bay Area Medical Center, and it seems likely the clubhouse was located there.  As kids, we spent much time visiting the Burkes and swimming at Pine Beach.  

Schofield Resort, Lake Nocquebay, Archie Photo 1944

Lake Nocquebay remains a major resort area and tourist center in Marinette County, though I don't find traces on the Internet of the Schofield Resort today.  Noquebay is one of Wisconsin's largest inland lakes, offering 2400 acres of fishing for Bluegills, Perch, Crappie, Walleye, Bass, and Northern Pike.  The Mohawk Resort and Supper Club, located 4 miles east of Crivitz, might be Schofield's replacement.  It offers eight lake front cottages and a year-round vacation home spread along a 500-foot beach.  (Source: www.exploringthenorth.com) 

We plan to visit Marinette and Menominee soon, and we look forward to stopping by at least some of these scenes from days gone by.

Love,

Dave   

Archive: Menominee Postcards (#7)

Menominee County Courthouse and Jail

Dear George,

Every few weeks I post a vintage postcard image of my hometown, Menominee, Mich., in the sidebar of this blog.  Because each gets deleted a week later, I’m posting a batch of these postcard images here as a permanent archive.  Earlier Menominee Postcard archives (posted on 6/26/10, 2/5/11, 6/17/11, 1/11/12, 7/28/12, and 10-3-13) can be accessed by going to the blog’s righthand column, scrolling down to “Labels”, and clicking on “Archives”.  There are also archives of Marinette postcards there (Menominee’s twin city), as well as of my dad’s family photos taken in Menominee in the 1940’s and 1950’s (“Vic’s Photos”).  

Love,

Dave

A Birds' Eye View of Downtown Menominee

According to an 1883 encyclopedia description: Menominee is located on the delta lying between the Menominee River and the shore of Green Bay, extending from the railroad bridge to the river's mouth and one and a half miles along the bay shore.   The population approached 10,000 in 1883, and 2,000 men were employed in the many large lumber mills, cutting 160,000,000 feet of lumber each year.  The county was organized in 1863, the first newspaper (the Herald) was issued in 1863,  the Menominee River Manufacturing Co. (lumber) was incorporated in 1866, the First Presbyterian Church was erected in 1868, the railroad from Fort Howard (Green Bay) was completed in 1871, and the city's first blast furnace opened in 1883.

Fishing on the Menominee River

Here is a lone fisherman on the Menominee River in the early 1900’s.  His craft looks more like a raft than a boat.  The river as seen in this photo is narrower than it was at our house, and I wonder if this is the river channel that ran behind Pig Island along the Marinette shore.  As kids, we did a little fishing for perch and sunfish, but we didn't have much success.  The Menominee River is a popular location for anglers today, and I guess that was true a hundred years ago as well.  

Snowstorm, 1909

This photo was taken along Main St. (later Sheridan Road and now First St.) in Menominee in 1909.  We'd have snowstorms of this magnitude once in a long while during my childhood, and it was always an event filled with wonder and endless possibilities for play and adventure.  Frankie St. Peter and I would build a snow fort in front of our house on the west side of Sheridan Road, a couple of other neighborhood kids would build theirs across from us on the east side, and we’d lob snowballs at one another for hours.  

Durow’s Resort, M-35

Durow’s Resort was located along the Green Bay shore on M-35, roughly a quarter of a mile north of the O’Hara’s home near Turtle Creek (if my memory is correct).  Elroy Durow, whose family owned the resort, was a high school classmate of mine, and we were members of the Air Scouts together. 

SS Ferdinand Schlesinger Great Lakes Freighter

From its earliest days Menominee, with its location on Green Bay and the Menominee River, has been a significant Great Lakes shipping port.  This real photo postcard from 1908 documents the visit of the SS Ferdinand Schlesinger from Milwaukee.  The ship was built in 1891, and Menominee was its winter headquarters.  On May 16, 1919, the Schlesinger foundered southeast of Passage Island in Lake Superior, and, though the ship was lost, her crew of 22 was saved. 

Train wreck, 1910s

This train wreck occurred in Menominee County in the 1910s.  The lumber and mining booms in the latter half of the 1800's led to the expansion of railroad lines in the the U.P.  The Chicago and Northwestern Railroad line from Fort Howard (now Green Bay, WI) to Menominee was opened in December, 1871, and the line from Menominee to Escanaba was completed a year later.  From there it extended all the way to Lake Superior.  Menominee's railroad bridge was built in 1872.

The Grand Department Store

A.L. Sawyer (1911) reports that Adolph E. Guensburg, born near Prague, came to Menominee in 1893, and he and his brother Emil, who joined him in 1898, operated the Grand Department Store in Menominee.   According to the American Cloak and Suit Review, Vol. 10, the Grand Department Store was sold in 1915 to the Wilson-Henes Co., the members of which were Walter Henes, Otmar Henes, and A. M. Wilson.

Tourist Haven Cabins

Menominee is the entry point to the Upper Peninsula via Highway 41 from Milwaukee, Chicago, and other points south, so lots of tourists passed through or stopped for a while.  I don't recall the Tourist Haven Cabins myself, though they were on M-35 where lots of our family friends lived.     

Wells Lumber Company Fire, 4-13-31

The J. W. Wells Lumber Co. burned down on April 13, 1931, with a loss of over $1 million.  The fire spread to nearly 50 other buildings in the community, and sparks were carried across the river to Marinette.  Firemen reported smelling kerosene at the site of the fire, and company president, A.W. Wells, said he believed that the fire was caused by arson.  The fire ended a century of sawmill operations on the Menominee River.

Mystery Ship Seaport

The Alvin Clark was a 105-foot, two-masted schooner that was constructed in 1847 and that sank off Chambers Island in Green Bay in 1864.  It was salvaged in 1969 and put on display at the Mystery Ship Seaport on the Menominee River at the foot of Sixth Avenue.  While the ship was in near-perfect condition when it was raised, no plans were put in to effect for its conservation.  It rapidly deteriorated, and its remains were destroyed in 1994 to make way for a parking lot.  A group of our family members visited the Mystery Ship Seaport in the 1980's, and we were pleasantly surprised to find that one of our cousins was the tour guide.  

Home Comfort Inn, 1940s

I think that the Home Comfort Inn was along the Green Bay shore on M-35, but I can't swear to it.  There were a couple of tourist auto courts there in the 1940's while we were growing up, and my parents used to put us up at one when we came home for family reunions in the 1970’s and 80’s.  

Cyril Quever’s Beer Garden, 1942, Meissner banquet

The owner of this postcard reports that Meissner’s Miniature Bowling Banquet was held on May 13, 1942, at Cyril Quever’s Beer Garden in Menominee.  According to ancestry.com, Cyril Quever’s Bar and Meissner’s Beer Garden were located on 13th  Street in Finn Town in Menominee.  Cyril Quever was born in 1903 and died in 1951. 

Whittier Trail, Henes Park

Henes Park, a 50-acre park on the Green Bay shore, was donated to the city in 1907 by local brewer John Henes.  Its wooded nature paths are named after Schiller, Goethe, Longfellow, Shakespeare, Whittier, etc.  The park was designed by landscape architect Ossian Cole Simonds, well-known for nature-based parks including Palmer Woods in Detroit.  We spent many happy times on the Henes Park trails in our childhood, and now our grandchildren and their cousins go there when visiting Menominee.      

F. C. Nowack Coal and Ice Yard

When I worked as a clerk at my grandfather’s Marinette Rexall drugstore, we’d get regular deliveries of both coal and ice to the store, though I don’t know if they came from Nowack’s.  One of my occasional tasks was stoking the furnace with chunks of coal.  I believe that the blocks of ice were cut from Green Bay in the winter and then stored under sawdust through the summer months, though it’s hard to imagine how this was possible. 

The Green Bay Shoreline

Green Bay, a huge bay off of Lake Michigan, is 10 to 20 miles wide and 120 miles long, extending from Green Bay, Wisconsin, at its south end, and up to Escanaba in Michigan’s Delta County to the north.  Menominee's main shopping district is spread out along the Green Bay shoreline on First St., and most city parks are on the bay as well.  A number of our family friends had homes or cottages on the shore, e.g., the Mars, Sargents, Caleys, O'Haras, Jacobsens, Sawyers, and others.  We spent many childhood hours swimming in the bay, hiking along the beach, and occasionally fishing off the breakwater pier. 

Gateway Café

Though it doesn’t exist any more, I have pleasant memories of the Gateway Café as one of the significant gathering places of my teenage years.  It was located on Ogden Avenue, just across the street from the St. Joseph-Lloyd hospital.  From age 16 onwards (i.e., the year that our driving privileges began), our teenage peer group would get together at the Gateway after Friday night football or basketball games and the post-game dance at the high school.  Our favorite order was a cheeseburger, fries, and a coke or chocolate shake.  However, it was often difficult to come up with that much money, and one might have to settle for an order of French fries instead. 

Pine Trees, Menominee, Mich.

The immense logging industry that was centered in the Menominee and Marinette region in the latter half of the 1800’s dealt mainly with the harvesting of white pines, which were then floated down the Menominee River to local sawmills.  We had majestic Norway Pines in our front yard at river house, and the pine tree is one of the iconic images of our youth.