Stables, Not Garages

Work of tearing down the old stable at the rear of the Stebbins Hotel began during September 1933, according to the Algoma Record Herald.

It’s removal marked the passing of a structure believed to have been built about 1870, a time when stables, not garages, had a place in history. That stable had room for at least 20 teams, much like this one behind the Kirchman Hotel.

Places all over Kewaunee County had stables for those who stayed the night, those who came into town just for the day and teams that needed protection from the hot sun or the cold winter winds. St. Paul’s church in Algoma maintained a stable behind the parsonage for church goers.

Stabling with an attendant hostler was necessary for business, but the advent of the railroad, and then the automobile and truck some years later, brought a decline in the need for such facilities.

At one time the Stebbins, then called the Ahnapee House, had another stable on the spot that Harmon Allyn’s Laundromat now occupies. It was considerably larger and could house 50 teams, which was not adequate for hotel purposes. That stable was torn down just after 1900 when a vegetable garden was put in its place. The garden provided fresh produce for the hotel’s dining room.

John Slaby was managing the hotel when the 20-team stable was demolished. His plans included seeding and beautification as soon as debris was cleaned up. Ridding the property of the old stable significantly reduced the fire hazard in that part of the city.

It wasn’t only stables that disappeared. Horse watering troughs at intersections, hitching posts and steps along the streets to facilitate alighting from a buggy are nowhere to be found in today’s Kewaunee County.

1852: Kewaunee County is Born

What today is the Door Peninsula was once part of Brown County, as illustrated on this undated map representing Northeast Wisconsin before 1851. American Indians inhabited the wilderness that became Wisconsin and Indian lands west of Fort Howard -Green Bay today - appear on the map.

Chapter 664 of the Laws of 1851 of the State of Wisconsin created Door County, setting it apart from Brown. A year later Kewaunee County was created and set a apart from Door. Governor Leonard Farwell approved the new county, created in Chapter 363 of the Laws of Wisconsin, on April 16, 1852. An Act to attach Kewaunee County to the 4th Judicial Circuit and to Manitowoc County, for judicial purposes, was approved almost four years later on March 31, 1856. Door County had also been judicially attached to Manitowoc County. From then until the organization of Kewaunee County - on or  about January 24, 1857 - the county's records were kept in both Manitowoc and Brown Counties. In a letter to Edward Decker on April 8, 1857, James Parker of Green Bay mentions the judicial attachment. It was on May 4, 1858 that the Legislature approved an Act organizing Kewaunee County judicially.

Edward Decker was chosen as Register of Deeds in the first general election that November, and the office opened on January 1, 1859. At that point, records held in Manitowoc County were transcribed and deposited in Kewaunee.

There were earlier elections. However as there were no roads in the county, which early surveyors estimated to be 90% timber and 10% marsh, and when possible travel was by water. The first county election was held on May 10, 1852 at John Volk's home at the mouth of the Kewaunee River. The men of Wolf River (today's Algoma) were among those arriving by boat. 

During the meeting, the Town of Kewaunee, the county's only town, was organized. Orin Warner was elected as a supervisor and Abraham Hall was chosen as the first town clerk. John W. Lee was elected as one of the constables and John Hughes was elected as one of the justices, although the county was attached to Manitowoc.  They were Wolf River men as were George Rosier and William Dutton who arrived in Wolf River in the spring of 1852. They attended the meeting and were among the 16 county men men voting.

Twenty-eight men voted in the November 1852 presidential election, favoring Franklin Pierce to General Winfield Scott  by 23 to 5 vote. The meeting was again at Volk's home. It took another six years before there was an attempt to divide the electorate into parties. A year later, 1859, the new Kewaunee Enterprize encouraged immigrants to file their "first papers" so they could vote.

Note: The Enterprize was renamed Enterprise in 1865.

Kewaunee County's "Big Steb"

Noted genealogist/historian Shirley Ver Bruggen's blog presents the story of her ancestor Ahnapee's DeWayne Stebbins. In Kewaunee County's 160 years of existence - that anniversary will be marked on April 16, 2012 - DeWayne Stebbins remains one of its most illustrious sons. That Big Steb entered politics was not a surprise to Wolf River residents.

Baseball bound the young men of Wolf River together as it does in Algoma today. Abisha Perry was an athlete who Bruggen's ancestor George Wing would write of 50 years later remembering his slugging prowess and the long legs that just "ate up the bases." It was Steb who generally played left field, and if the ball came his way, he took his time getting it. If the ball was slugged over Mrs. Lovel's First Street barn and Steb found it, he would often stop to discuss politics rather than throwing the ball. Wing never proffered an opinion on Steb's contribution to the team, but his contributions to his community, county and country are well documented.

DeWayne Stebbins was elected as a state senator in 1872. When he died on June 12, 1901, he was the oldest member of the Senate and had also been a 27-year member of the Kewaunee County Board. At his 66th birthday a few months earlier, his fellow senators expressed their appreciation of his work by presenting him with a gold-headed cane. In 1900 Steb was a candidate for the Republican nomination for governor, but he withdrew in deference to Bob LaFollette. LaFollette was among the three thousand others at his funeral only months later.

A Wisconsin State Journal columnist wrote in 1938 that "few men have served in the Wisconsin legislature who had a larger degree of common sense than Mr. Stebbins." It was said Steb did not talk much and rarely debated. Had Mrs. Lovel been living, she might have disputed that. Steb was known to carefully investigate the measures before him. Constituents could depend on his voting. record.

It was said never introduced a bill, but he did. Rumor had it that unobserved in 1894, he slipped through a bill permitting cities and towns to changed their names. Ahnapee had long been the butt of jokes and took advantage of the legislation when it changed its name in to Algoma in 1897. Years earlier, January 1873, the Enterprise reported that Steb introduced a bill prohibiting smoking and the reading of newspapers within the bar of the House. Though Steb was ahead of his time, the legislature was not and the bill was voted down.

Mr. Stebbins' importance was noted in a September 13, 1883 Record article when it was pointed out that he had a "telephone instrument" at the Bank of Ahnapee so he could "communicate with the outside world without leaving his office."

When Frank Slaby bought the Ahnapee House, he renamed it the Stebbins Hotel. It remains on the corner of 2nd and Steele in Algoma, though few residents are aware of the naming and know little of the illustrious Big Steb.

                                                                                      

Kewaunee County and Parker Pens

Imagine what fourth grade would have been like if you had a ball point rather than a fountain pen. Remember that glass bottle of blue ink, filling the pen, your stained fingers and worrying what your mother was going to say about ink on your clothing again? Then there was the inkwell in the desk. There was trouble when boys had fun trying to dip the braids of the girls sitting in front of them into the inkwells. That memorable fountain pen probably came from Janesville’s Parker Pen Co, a company with a close connection to Kewaunee County.

Will Palmer was the son of Seymour C. Palmer, onetime owner of the Ahnapee Record. He was born in Racine and was 8 years old when he came with his family to Ahnapee. Will conducted a telegraph and post office in the present Algoma Mercantile building before leaving town in 1882.

Ten years later, Will was an insurance salesman sharing a hotel room with Mr. Parker in Janesville. Parker was a telegraphy instructor who conceived ideas about a perfect pen while repairing the different makes used by a school. Parker supplied the patent, Palmer the money and a new company was born.

The pen was originally manufactured in the east but within six months the demand was so great that Parker and Palmer opened their own factory. Twenty years later they were employing over 100 men and were turning out ½ million pens for an international market. At one time Parker Pen’s Main Street plant in Janesville was the largest writing instrument plant in the world. The company was eventually sold to Guilette and then sold again.

As so many others with roots in Kewaunee County, Will Palmer achieved a prominence well beyond its borders and yet remains obscure.

Boundaries...................

For Kewaunee County residents who fish, hunt, enjoy the casinos or have cottages in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, it is not far away. Why that part of Michigan isn’t Wisconsin is a mystery to many. But, it was "politics." What any mother calls two-year-old behavior was reflected in the politics of the time. Some things never change.

Wisconsin’s boundaries were laid out in the Ordinance of 1787, although there was no name for the place then. As territorial residents began to plan for state governments years later, they began to think boundaries were unjust. To give Illinois outlets to Lake Michigan, that state’s northern boundary was moved 50 miles north of the line set down in 1787. Then Michigan got the slice of land south of Lake Superior that should have been Wisconsin's. That was the inducement offered to settle Michigan’s southern boundary dispute with Ohio.

The Wisconsin Territory was in need of internal improvements and offered in 1834 to stop agitating about boundaries if the Federal Government would build a railroad from Lake Michigan to the Mississippi River, would improve the Fox River waterway and provide harbors on Lake Michigan. Today we would say the offer was blown off, though the drive for statehood continued. In 1846 Congress authorized Wisconsin to prepare for admission to the Union. When the Federal Government found that the line separating Wisconsin and the Upper Peninsula could not be run, it laid out a new line. The new line, however, did not really affect anything.

Wisconsin became a state in 1848, after the people voted on it at least twice. The state had an area of 56,066 square miles but it would have been more, and have counted two lakes as boundaries, if politicians had just left things alone.

 

The map is from The Abandoned Shore-Lines of Eastern Wisconsin by James Walter Goldthwaite, Assistant Professor of Geology at Northwestern University. The book was published at Madison, Wisconsin in 1907. It came from Bulletin No. XVll, Scientific Series No. 5 of Wisconsin Geological and Natural History Survey. The book is in the author's collection.