Ahnapee & Algoma: A Sports Minded Community

Algoma High School’s girls’ basketball team stands out once again. The girls are a powerhouse in a long line of such athletic prowess. Algoma, and Ahnapee before it, is a small place proving that big things indeed come in small packages.

The community’s interest in sports goes back to its earliest days. German immigrants organized a sports and musically minded Turn Version Society in early summer 1866. When Wenzel Wenniger built his Wilhelmshoeh on Wenniger Heights – the hill on the north side of the river – he included both a bowling alley featuring iron balls and a

shooting gallery. Wenniger assumed management of the place being called Ahnepee* Gardens as early as 1871 and enhanced it. (Right)

The “baseball nine” was organized about 1870 when the city was playing teams from Clay Banks, Forestville and Sturgeon Bay. That team included pitcher William Henry, Mike McDonald, M.T. Parker and Mike Mullen. They played at Wenniger’s and they played on the clearing on the Knipfer farm just below the Lake Street hill near the south city limits. They had winning seasons.

Abisha Perry was Ahnapee’s finest baseball player and athlete of the day. Fifty years later George Wing was writing memoirs saying that the likes of Perry had still to be seen. The strong Perry had no trouble slugging a ball. His long legs ate up the bases and his lungs were so powerful he had no trouble running. DeWayne Stebbins played too, probably prompting a few cuss words from his team. Steb usually played left field and when the ball came his way, he was known to take his time getting it. If the fellows were playing in the empty space now occupied by the Dug-Out and the ball went over Mrs. Loval’s First Street barn and Steb found it, he was one to stop and discuss the politics of the day with her, rather than throwing the ball.

German immigrant George Sachtleben was a shoemaker who arrived in the 1850s. In May 1883, he contributed to a winning season with new blocks for the nines' shoes and boots. Ahnapee beat Kewaunee 28-9 in the very next game. While some were impressed, the Record felt Sachtleben’s blocks didn’t really help "because the Kewaunee boys didn’t practice much."

Baseball continued and there were leagues. The Spaulding Co. promised to give the Lakeshore League a silk banner with the teams’ names on it if it would adopt its ball. There was money in baseball even then. Baseball provided a social life for the villagers who were joined by the band crowding on to the Goodrich steamers to go to such places as Kewaunee, Sturgeon Bay or even Marinette. Looking at the lakeshore today, it is hard to imagine a steamer carrying 700-900 people stopping at most of the ports.

It wasn’t only baseball. Ahnapee even had a prizefighter. Johnny Mulligan had his headquarters and boxing school in Ahnepee in 1869. Less than 10 years later the Daily News announced the billiard table in Charley Anderegg’s Steele Street barbershop. Whether “right here in River City” it contributed to the corruption of the city’s boys as Meredith Wilson’s Music Man would suggest nearly 100 years later is anyone’s guess, but 5 or 6 years later the village thought it had to do something about the boys bathing in the river behind the brewery. They were there where they could be seen, not wearing a stitch of clothing.

March 1885 saw a public roller rink open on the second floor of Swaty’s Store in the triangle of Lot 6, across from what is now Von Stiehl Winery. Afternoon admissions cost 5 cents and skates rented for 10. Evening prices were a nickel more. John McDonald’s 3^rd Street rink was 50 x 115’ with a gallery large enough to hold 250-300 spectators when it opened in June. Two roller rinks at the same time in Ahnapee? There was a third about which little is known. It stood on Steele in a frame building replaced by the 1906 Busch building, which stands today.

Molle’s Bike Shop was another popular spot. Today the site of Community Improvement Association, Molle’s was the home of Ahnapee’s champion bicycle rider. Bicycling was the rage that roller skating was, however there were races as distant as Marinette and sometimes beyond. Hotly contested races assured spectators plenty of entertainment. When women eventually began cycling, some regarded it as scandalous to see women on such contraptions, chasing after men. Besides that, it was downright dangerous.

During the winter, young and old enjoyed ice skating on the river above the bridge. With its location on Lake Michigan, Ahnapee was a place for surf bathing. Women’s bathing costumes didn’t allow swimming as we know it today. Men were not so encumbered and were able to show their skills. And physiques.

Basketball and football were associated with the high school but that was a few years after graduating its first classes which were predominantly women. High school teams by then included baseball and Algoma went on to win and to lose. Records were made to be broken. Trophies were won. 1972 brought Title 9 which gave rise to sports' equality within the schools. A mere 10 years later the Algoma girls rode into town on a fire truck, followed by a parade of cars in a din of honking horns. Coach Bob Hafemann and the girls had just won the state high school girls' basketball tournament. It didn't stop with that first state appearance.

When that early “baseball nine” was playing, the team was made up of adult men. Civil War vets and a newspaper editor.  Abisha Perry and DeWayne Stebbins were younger. George Wing probably played too if health allowed. If he didn't, he was a supporter. Algoma today has programs for kindergarteners and residents of all ages. On a cold winter day, one can walk the track at the Dug-Out thinking of the baseball once played on the site, knowing that spring will come. Eventually.

*Ahnepee became Ahnapee in 1873 in somewhat of a "if you can't beat 'em, join 'em" kind of thing as the name was consistently spelled incorrectly on maps and so on.

Sources: An-An-api-sebe: Where is the River?, c. 2001; Ahnapee Record, Algoma Record; picture postcards from the blogger's collection.