Follow
Please add profiles of those who were born, lived or died in Green Bay, Brown County, Wisconsin.
Official Website
The Green Bay area was still under British control until the 1783 treaty formally ended the American Revolutionary War. Following the War of 1812, which in part was over disputes related to the border with Canada, the United States built Fort Howard on the Fox River in 1816 to protect its northern border. Doty, Whitney, Arndt, Baird and Martin were among the many British-American settlers whose numbers pushed French culture into the background. As British settlers in the area came to outnumber the French, they referred to the town as "Green Bay" (from the French: Baie Verte).
The Erie Canal was completed in 1825, linking New England with the Great Lakes. This led to the advance of Green Bay as a trading center. The end of the Black Hawk War in 1832 also gave impetus to settlement of the region. Most of the settlers were farmers from New England who began using the Erie Canal to pour into Wisconsin. As more and more New England settlers arrived, Green Bay developed into a trading center for this population.
Wisconsin's first newspaper, The Green Bay Intelligencer, was started in 1833 by Albert Ellis and John V. Suydam. The borough of Green Bay, created in 1838, is the center of the present-day city. The borough combined the town of Astoria (a company town of the American Fur Company), with Navarino, platted by Daniel Whitney. Before Wisconsin became a state in 1848, its commerce was based on the fur trade, which became dominated by John Jacob Astor's American Fur Company. After statehood, there was a shift away from fur trading toward lumbering. "For a short time in 1860s and 1870s, iron smelting in charcoal kilns rivaled the timber industry while the port handled increasing amounts of fuel, feed, and lumber. Today's major local industry had its start in 1865 when the first paper mill was built."
The town was incorporated as the city of Green Bay in 1854. Throughout the 1850s, word spread of America's cheap land and good soil, bringing in an influx of Belgian, German, Scandinavian, Irish and Dutch immigrants, each adding to the culture.
The railroad arrived in the 1860s. Chicago and Northwestern Railroad companies were formed, which allowed people and products to travel all over the state, increasing business and trade opportunities. The area was able to grow and enrich itself with the use of the river and the plentiful timber resources. This led to the paper industry becoming the major employer in Green Bay, and opened up the port for international trade.
Green Bay is home to the National Football League's Green Bay Packers.
Green Bay is known as the "Toilet Paper Capital of the World" because of the prevalence of the paper industry in the city.[64] Northern Paper Company, Fort Howard Paper Company, and Hoberg Paper Company were among Green Bay's first paper companies. Northern Paper Company offered the first splinter-free toilet paper in the early 1930s. The presence of the paper industry helped Green Bay avoid the worst effects of the Great Depression. Today, major paper producers include Georgia-Pacific, Procter & Gamble, and Steen-Macek Paper Company.
Among the earliest packing companies in Green Bay were Acme Packing Company and Indian Packing Company, the namesake of the Green Bay Packers. Today, major meatpackers in the city include JBS S.A. (formerly Packerland Packing) and American Foods Group.
Cemeteries
Links