Algoma, Wisconsin: Built on a River Delta

 

As early records tell us, Algoma’s present-day history begins in the mid-1830s when Major Joseph McCormick and several men from Manitowoc ventured north to today’s Algoma to observe lands they heard about from the Pottawatomie who populated the area along the western shore of Lake Michigan. Upon reaching the (now) Ahnapee River, the McCormick party turned into it and sailed upriver to what is now Forestville.

Impressed with the area, McCormick envisioned a city built on the hill on the north bank of the river. The Pottawatomie living near the mouth of the river maintained their small village on that while two of their burying grounds were in the area of today’s St. Agnes-By-the-Lake church and in hill at the south

entry to the City of Algoma. The area once known as the Campsite, now Crescent Beach, (left) was a stopping off place, a place of celebration, and a place of rest for the Pottawatomie paddling back and forth to their major planting grounds at Black Earth, near Mishicot.

Algoma’s first permanent settlers – those of European extraction – came in 1851. John Hughes settled on the northside hill near the mouth of the river. Orin Warner built his home near today’s China Moon on North Water Street. Edward Tweedale was the only one of the three to live near the south side of the river, living for a short time in the approximate area of 4^th and Navario. Within a couple of years, he relocated to just above what is now the Lake Street hill. George Schatleben, Jackson VanVranken, and Mathias Simon were among the 1850s newcomers who settled on the north side.

The Catholic Mr. Simon donated a piece of his northside land for a Catholic church and cemetery, also donating land for a church and cemetery to his Lutheran countryman. The Lutheran Church was relocated to 4^th and State, however the cemetery remains in the original location on Wolf River Road.

Why was the present downtown Algoma not an early favorite?

The Abandoned Shore Lines of Eastern Wisconsin, c. 1907, indicates most of the city of Algoma is built on a broad terrace-like deposit of gravel and stratified sands, about 20’ above the lake. It resembles an old delta of the Ahnapee River in a re-entrant of the lake during the 17-foot stage. The steep bluffs that enclose this sand flat north and south of the town are suggestive of both higher and lower terraces.

During the research period in the early 1900s, the railroad depot was at the foot of Steele Street and from there, one could look north along the clay bluff to a low headland less than a mile away to see a small 18’ terrance that formed a “clean cut notch” in the profile. That notch was another valuable scrap of extinct lake records that were almost destroyed by the receding shore line.  The area totaled less than 400 yards, however it did offer a view of the closely packed gravels (left) and especially of an old headland of the 17’ stage which the terrace encircles. The researchers felt the piece of old shore topography would be completely destroyed by the waves within a few years of their work. The photo below shows the view north along the old clay bluffs of the Nipissing shore line.

As the book points out that an ancient creek flowed south from the main branch of the Ahnapee at approximately 6^th Street to the approximate area that is now Division Street, then meandering east at the base of the Lake Street hill. David Price was known to be in Wolf River as early as January 1854 and possibly before. He lived on the south side of the river on what was then called Price’s Creek, a small stream south from the river and a little further west than the ancient stream bed, or so it seems.

Price’s Creek became Chapek’s Creek and has been a drainage challenge for much of the city’s history. As early as June 1887, Fremont Street was being graded at Chapek’s Creek, an area of on-going issue. The creek bed was cleaned out, there were storm sewers, and in 1960, its width was increased from 4 to 8’. Residents claimed a downpour, especially in the Fremont area, quickly turned the creek into a lake. It was thought the storm sewers draining into the creek caused the problems whereas in the “old” days, rain seeped into the ground and found its way to the creek. Mill and Buchanan Streets were on higher ground than downtown Algoma, and in the days of the ancient river in the Division Street area, lands to the west drained into that area. In a 2003 interview, the late Frances Serovy Goetz, whose family home was near the intersection of (today’s) Jefferson and Division, said as late as 1940 the lower Division Street was sometimes mucky and sported cat tails, which survive in wetlands and marshes. A gravel pit in the same area served as a dump even into the 1920s.

The 1880 Birdseye map of the City of Ahnapee (above) illustrates the hills on the north side of the Ahnapee River, the hills to the west and to the south of the city. The swamp from 5^th to Mill and from a bit north of Fremont to South Water, now Navarino, is evident. Division Street did not exist farther north than Fremont in 1880. Hundreds of years ago, drainage from the hills on the west of Division Street likely found its way to the lake via the river that faded into history.

In the first 65 or so years of the city’s history, there were multiple brickyards from today’s St. Paul School playground (Storm’s brickyard) and into the hill. It was the treacherous hill and other topography issues further south that brought the road from Kewaunee into Algoma via what is now Longfellow Road to County K, to Evergreen Road, and finally to Fremont Street. 

The painting at left comes from a postcard illustrating a different old creek bed within today's south city limits. By the time of the photo, the lakeshore road was being improved to a point where a bridge was built. The hill between the the bridge and Lake Michigan is evident. There were other such creek beds north and south of Algoma. Roads have been improved to an extent where only small culverts are visible today.

Much of today’s downtown Algoma - east of 4^th and south of Steele - was full of knolls, stumps, clumps of cedars, fallen logs and briars in the early days of the settlement. Historian George Wing who lived at approximately the northwest corner of 4^th and Clark said it took “a lot of nerve” to venture across that area to the lake shore.

The swampy area from 5^th to Division, between Steele and Clark, (now Perry Field) was once known as Eveland swamp, Blocks 11 and 12 of the Eveland Plat of the City of Algoma. Filled in as it is, one can still see the downward slope from 4^th and then the incline west from Division toward Mill Street. Crossing the swamp was never easy and was tragic for early resident Dave Youngs’ whose yoke of stags was dragging a load of timber through the mud and mire of the swamp when the animals were killed by a falling tree. As early as September 1876, the Record called attention to the fire raging for days in Eveland swamp and advised residents to keep an eye on it.

May 1879 found citizens petitioning for a sidewalk along Steele from 5^th to Division because of the difficulty in crossing the swamp. A year later, the paper called attention to the sloping sidewalk crossing the swamp. It was slanting to such an extent that slipping into the mud was possible, and walking through it in the dark was something to be feared.*

During spring 1887, the Record came up with a way to make money while helping the community at the same time. Editor DeWayne Stebbins felt Eveland swamp consisted of acreage that could be reclaimed for little money and made to be a valuable property. Twelve years before that, Editor William Seymour said the timber had been cut off, but nothing was done since. He thought if the land could be drained to be bone dry, it would be in demand for building. Until then, planting in hay would bring in enough money to ditch the swamp. The paper saw the plan as an opportunity for investment and income.

Clam shells were capturing huge interest in May 1890 when Ahnapee Record reported that creeks in the area were running so dry that one could cross in mid-stream and not get wet feet, at least in the trickle called the Ahnapee River. The paper also said a week previous a resident was picking up clam shells in the riverbed and came upon a rich find. Breaking open the shells, the fellow found bright objects about the size of green peas which he supposed to be pearls. Plans were to have the objects analyzed. If anything came of it, it does not appear to have made the Record. A late May 1891 Enterprise commented on the young folks looking for pearls in the clam shells. At the time of the article, Editor A.C. Voshardt said that about 5,000 clams “lost their lives” while only about 5 real pearls were found. Voshardt didn't see pearl harvest as a money making endeavor, however, in 1902, the Enterprise carried a reprint from the Fond du Lac Commonwealth which told readership that Wisconsin fisherman made at least $81,000 from clam shells in 1901. 

Eveland swamp was being cleaned up in May 1892 while residents were using it to pasture cows. In a 2003 interview, the late Millie Kirchman Rabas remembered taking her grandparents’ cow from its stable at the Kirchman Hotel (on the northeast corner of 4^th and Clark) to the swamp for daytime pasturing. Finally, in October 1924, the city outlawed garbage from being thrown into the swampy area and began to clean, till, and fill in the swamp, by then Perry Field. Today - 100 years later – Perry Field is a playground and a sports field donated by Mr. and Mrs. Melvin Perry in honor of their son who was killed in action in World War 1. For the first half of its life, it served as Algoma High School’s athletic field.

When the U.S. government constructed the south pier in 1911, the utility decided to drill a new well, which was the first artesian well on the peninsula. The well was 1334’ deep and drilled into St. Peter sandstone. Something new. Wikipedia says St. Peter sandstone is found chiefly in parts of Minnesota, Iowa, and in most of Wisconsin. It further says it “originated as a sheet of sand in clear, shallow water near the shore of a Paleozoic sea and consisted of fine-to-medium, well-rounded quartz.”

The city had more than a swamp to deal with in 1912. There was a cave-in when Algoma’s city well was being drilled in late May. The Record said a depth of 1,030’ had been reached and it was thought that another 400-500’ needed to be drilled to reach a good flow of water. Water struck at 465’ was enough for ordinary purposes but inadequate for meeting the needs of the industries at the same time. The first 465’ was drilled through Niagara limestone. At 485’ and for the next 500’ there was Cincinnati shale. Then came Trenton limestone which was drilled for about 40’ before the Cincinnati shale caved in. About 300’ of casing was put into the hole before the drilling could go forward.

What the city learned during the cave-in is what was somewhat outlined years earlier in an April 1878 paper which pointed out the bedrock under Kewaunee County, saying it was Niagara limestone except for a narrow strip of Cincinnati shale in Red River along the bay of Green Bay. However, that was not the only shale in the county.

The paper also said the county averaged from 60’ to 209’ above Oceanic Michigan with the highest elevation in Section 36 of the Town of Red River, which appears to be incorrect. https://www.anyplaceamerica.com/ reports that it is Cherneyville hill, 1014’, in the Town of Montpelier, which is followed by Dhuey hill, 912’, in the Town of Lincoln. The article explained that during the glacial period, immense bodies of ice came from the north to modify and re-arrange the face of nature. The article mentions the chalybeate* springs characterized by iron compounds, derived from iron pyrite decomposition. It went on to say that such springs are moderate in flow, have a little sulphur and a lot of iron although the water’s taste is pleasant.

Algoma Record Herald in July 1966 told readers that Kewaunee County’s major rivers were the Ahnapee, the Kewaunee and the East Twin, all draining the county and flowing toward Lake Michigan although the flows were not entirely within the confines of the county. Rising in Door County near Brussels, the Ahnapee drains the northeast part of Kewaunee County, while the Kewaunee drains the central area, and the East Twin drains the southern part of the county. Red River is part of the drainage system though is a tributary of the bay of Green Bay. Red River flows intermittently.

The 1966 paper continued saying the “most recent Valders ice invasion” partly determines the course of the Kewaunee River while the Ahnapee River Valley once provided an outlet for Glacial Lake Oshkosh which was a large body of water to the south of the retreating ice in the Green Bay-Fox River lowland. South of Dyckesville, Glacial Lake Oshkosh drained east into the Kewaunee River. As it melted, it opened a new channel northwest of Maplewood thus leading to the Ahnapee River Valley.

Most of the Ahnapee River valley in Kewaunee County and the lower stretches of the Kewaunee River are considered drowned valleys, estuaries formed when rising sea levels flood existing river valleys. As the lake level rose to a more recent stage, the estuaries formed are now the marshy alluvial floodplains of the streams.

As did the rest of today’s Kewaunee County, the topography of downtown Algoma has changed drastically since Joseph McCormick’s party observed the area 190 years ago. Technology is ever-changing, enabling NOAA, the US Geological Service, Wisconsin DNR, and others to look back at hundreds of thousands of years of geology. George Wing’s research in the late 1800s, years of articles in the Ahnapee Record and Algoma Record Herald and the observations of citizens beginning with McCormick and those who came later such as E. Storm, M. Dier, F. Stoller, H. Nell, Mrs. Rabas and Mrs. Goetz offer a fascinating story. A host of websites offer current information that can only be called riveting for those living in the area.

Note: *Ahnepee changed its name to Ahnapee in 1873 when it became a village. Ahnapee became a city in 1879. In 1897, the place was renamed to the City of Algoma.

*Chalybeate springs are natural mineral springs containing iron salts.

*Division was not a street in 1880. Mill St., where there were commercial establishments and residences, is the first street shown beyond the swamp.

Sources: Ahnapee Record, Algoma Record, Algoma Record Herald, Kewaunee Enterprise; The Abandoned Shore Lines of Eastern Wisconsin, Wisconsin Geological and Natural History Survey, Bulletin No. XVII, Scientific Series No, 5, James W. Goldthwaite; Wikipedia; 

https://www.anyplaceamerica.com/directory/wi/kewaunee-county-55061/summits/

https://www.co.door.wi.gov/DocumentCenter/View/1073/Analysis-and-Management-Plan-for-the-Upper-Ahnapee-River-Watershed

https://dnr.wisconsin.gov/topic/Watersheds/basins/lakeshore

https://ngmdb.usgs,gov (National Geologic Map Database).

https://oceanservice.noaa.gov.education.est04_geolog

Graphics: Postcards and the painting are from the blogger's collection.

Kewaunee County: Buried Forests & Shell Marl

Kewaunee county’s present-day history begins in the mid-1830s when Major Joseph McCormick and several men from Manitowoc ventured north to today’s Algoma to observe the lands they heard about from the Pottawatomie who populated the area along the western shore of Lake Michigan. Upon reaching the now Ahnapee River, the McCormick party turned into it and sailed upriver to what is now Forestville. At roughly the same time,  Montgomery and Patterson of Chicago were struggling to maintain their new sawmill on the Kewaunee River while Government Surveyor Sylvester Sibley, Guerdon S. Hubbard and James Armstrong were trying to establish a sawmill at Red River. It was 1851 before there was a permanent settlement in the county.

Millions of years preceded the county’s printed history. The much earlier history is written in the rocks and soil, and below those same rocks and soils. With ever-increasing advances in technology, it is a story that continues to be written.

Early county historian George Wing – the 16-year-old co-founder of Ahnapee Record – was interested in all things bygone. Wing was learned. He wrote his memoirs and, for a time, wrote/edited The Owl, the Wing family chronicles/genealogy going back to their roots in England. Many of those volumes can be found in the Menominee, Michigan, history center. Further information can be obtained through Menominee Public Library.

On January 12, 1912, Algoma Record reported that The Bureau of American Ethnology at the Smithsonian asked Mr. Wing to do a paper on aboriginal remains. Wing did, and his paper was published. Within Wing’s writings, there was much on geology.

The Record tells us Wing wrote that the peninsula was “almost a new land that emerged from Lake Michigan,” however not more than 2,000 years earlier. He said that when Christ walked the earth, the peninsula was still under the water of a great lake, “basing this hypothesis upon the gradually receding water of Lake Michigan and upon the beach sand and water-torn pebbles found at points now miles distant from the shores of the lake.“ He continued: “By computing the annual withdrawal of the lake in inches and the height of the terrain of adjacent lands, calculations indicate the peninsula is a new land.” It was said among the most convincing evidence of this came from deep within the earth. Found in a depth of 30’ to 80’ ridges on both side of the Kewaunee River for 5-12 miles above the mouth was a buried forest indicating that in the glacial period a mountain of ice, snow, rocks, and muds, came from the north to bury the first terrain of forests.

In the summer of 1874, one Professor Chamberlain of Beloit College was surveying in Kewaunee County. The Enterprise told readers he was a professor of geology, chemisty and zoology and described him as informed and courteous.

Chamberlain said his examinations revealed something not known earlier, saying the “Potash Kettle” region which went north and south through southern and central Wisconsin extended as far as Kewaunee County and ran through the hills of the Town of Casco* He said he geological formation of Kewaunee County was not much different than other lake shore counties and that the lake counties had the ability to make the finest lime in the world.

Chamberlain found two outcroppings of such lime, one at Footbridge and the other at Wilmott’s. He talked about the shell marl island in Little Lake in Pierce and said it was the largest and purest deposit that he’d found. He didn’t see it as being great for plaster but did see it as fertilizer.

1876 Kewaunee County Plat Map: Towns of Kewaunee showing the location of Cory hill, the Wilmott property, and the Town of Casco showing the location of J. Wilmott’s property. The top quarter of the map is Pierce. A map showing Little Lake is below.

Chamberlain said the geological nature of the area precluded hopes of finding enough valuable ores for a payback. He divided the county into classes of red clay, heavy marly clay and a little sandy soil, claiming soil wears out in other areas but with the rich, fertile, heavy marly clay subsoil, Kewaunee County soils had high agriculture capabilities.

The Enterprise told readers that Wisconsin law demanded the results of the geological surveys were to be presented to the governor by January 1 each year.

There was research again in 1878 that indicated the county was at one time submerged by Lake Michigan. The article made an exception to “two small islands, the outlines of which could (then) be traced by beds of pebbles in the towns of Montpelier and Casco.” That validates Wing's comments about the pebbles found miles inland.

In 1878, it was said Lake Michigan was “steadily advancing at the snail’s pace of one foot a year.”  The article went on to say that the county’s most distinguishing feature was that the northern terminus of “the famous potash-kettle range” was in the town of Casco.

Explaining the range, the paper described it as mounds of drift going through Kewaunee, Manitowoc, and Sheboygan counties to near the state line, then going west and north to the head waters of the Wisconsin River, thus governing the drainage of Wisconsin.

Wing said a well-defined beach extended across the peninsula near the valley of the Kewaunee River indicating that at one time all the land north of that valley was either submerged or formed islands, the center of the Town of Red River being the most prominent.

Wing described a buried forest, 30’ below ground, at Casco Junction from which he had a piece of tamarack found in the clay above the primeval forest. When the railroad company was digging a well about 50’ west of the depot, they struck some substance with such a nauseating smell that workmen were forced to suspend their work and move their sleeping car. An investigation revealed the smell came from the decayed tree trunks buried in sold clay. Railroad superintendent Frank Seymour had the excavation filled in.

Kewaunee County Plat Map, Town of Luxemburg, 1912: Casco Junction is in Section 24. Scarboro is in Section 25 is at left..

Two feet beneath the surface at the Nast Lime kilns (now Bruemmer Park) in West Kewaunee were the complete remains of a snake in solid lime, although Wing felt the snake was not evidence of antiquity because animal and vegetable matter petrify fairly fast.

Wing discussed Carlton where there was lowland covered with vegetable matter from which a farmer cut blocks with a spade. Then the squares became as hard as stone when they were exposed to the air. The squares became a barn foundation. A piece of a block showing beech nuts, acorns, and other forest refuse was in Wing’s possession.

A May 1878 Ahnapee Record published an article describing Professor Chamberlain’s geological report of the fine shell marl deposit in Sections 17-20 in the Town of Pierce.* The marl was found around the edges of a small lake with a shoal. Drainage that Chamberlain called ”recent” caused the shoal to become an island. Record editor Capt. DeWayne Stebbins* said there was extensive marl of the same kind at Ahnapee. Stebbins described it as mixed with peat and alluvium in places while other places saw pure shell debris. Chamberlain noted there were places in Door and Shawano Counties with such deposits, usually associated with peat, although in lesser quantities.

Kewaunee County Plat Map, Sections 16-20, Town of Pierce, 1876: Little Lake/Detloff Lake.

Stebbins said the debris was soft, light, porous and pulverulent (powdery or crumbly) on the surface although underwater it was soft, somewhat granular and a clay like mass made up of carbonate of lime with lesser carbonate of magnesia, silica and organic matter, making it valuable for fertilizer in areas lacking lime. The same information was part of an article a month earlier that called the “small lake” referenced by Stebbins as Detloff Lake.

In late December 1959, more of Wing’s work was reprinted though significantly edited for length. That article again said northern Wisconsin was practically a new land. It and other articles described the buried forests.

Joseph Pavlat was the first county resident to find evidence of a buried forests. Pavlat was a Bohemian settler who lived just above the Cory hill in the Town of West Kewaunee. He bought his forested land, cleared it, built a house, and began to dig a well. At 60’ down, he found a bed of hard blue clay and came to a tree trunk about 10” in diameter. He sawed through it and took a piece to Kewaunee. A few years later, Charles Kinstetter was also digging a well when he found buried tree trunks in solid clay at a depth of 70-80’. Kinstetter lived across the river less than a mile of Mr. Pavlat. It was within a dozen years that the well-digging issue at Casco Junction occurred.

Location of Pavlat and Kinstetter properties where buried trees were found.

Wing felt that since similar wood deposits found at depths varied from 30’ to 120’ at Columbus, Ohio, and Bloomington, Illinois, archeologists placed the drift period at 30,000 years earlier, thus indicating the trees unearthed by Pavlat, Kinstetter, and Seymour were the same age.  

There were other geological finds in the county.

The Enterprise of July 7, 1891, informed the public about the important and valuable  bed of shell marl at Detloff Lake near Alaska. It said the real practicality of the discovery was only learned a few days earlier when Albert E. Cline arrived from NY where he represented two Syracuse cement companies. Cline initially let it be known he was in the county for the fishing, however he engaged Civil Engineer Rooney of Kewaunee. Cline was  busy examining the substance, specimens of which were sent to the companies. The specimens were said to be the finest marl in existence, and Cline was authorized to buy the Detloff Lake property. He took options from John Buettner, Albert Teske, August Detloff and J. Kopetsky. The paper went on to say the price for all was about $6,000. A day later other speculators showed up. But it was too late. One of the companies represented by Cline employed about 1,700 men and the word was that its plant was going to be relocated to either Alaska or Kewaunee. It was felt a pure quality of clay could be found in Kewaunee, and, if so, the factory would be moved there. Marl would come from the Detloff Lake area via a railroad the company would build.

                                    

Kewaunee County Plat Map, Town of Pierce, 1895: The map shows Sections 17-20, property owners 4 years after the options were taken, and Little Lake/Detloff Lake. The options list Kopetsky while the map shows Kopecky.  

The Enterprise discussed the analysis and described an article in Geology of Wisconsin saying the marl deposit was in Sections 17, 18, 19, and 20 in the Town of Pierce and around a small lake, and upon a shoal within it. The shoal had been recently drained to become an island. In some places the shell marl was mixed with peat and with alluvium in others, but the shell debris was said to be almost perfect on the island. It was described as soft, light, porous, and pulverulent on the surface. Material brought up from below the water level was soft, a bit granular and clay-like mass. A pole sunk 9’ down indicated the material did not change. The analysis was published in the paper. What happened with the project?

Again in early 1903, a Mr. Lunack from a Chicago cement company was in Alaska investigating the extensive marl bed that was in one of the lakes. Lunack was trying to secure purchase options. The Record reported that if  the marl was “right” and if Lunack could purchase the property, Alaska could incorporate as a village. That investigation appeared to fizzle as the earlier one did.

On November 14, 1946, Kewaunee Enterprise told readership about the state officials investigating the Lake Michigan shore from Point Beach State Forest north toward Two Creeks. The Manitowoc County Town of Two Creeks borders the Town of Carlton in Kewaunee County.

The investigators ran into an interglacial forest bed that was once a flourishing spruce forest,* a significant find in the U.S. Twenty-five thousand years earlier an exposed bank was washed by lake waves during a period of high water. Geologists explained that the ice sheet came from the northeast and that logs showed violent twisting and the bend of live trees before they fell. The ice carried millions of smooth, round boulders, hills of logs, dirt, gravel, and glacial debris. Thousands of years later, the ice receded leaving behind what it carried. Then came another ice avalanche with a red tinge. It was thought that ice ran over iron ore areas thus picking up the red color. The red till provided an excellent protective covering for the Two Creeks forest bed. The ancient spruce trees found by the geologists were much like those found in Wisconsin in the 1940s. Geologists L.R. Wilson’s report was published by the Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts and Letters.

Current geological research and papers can be found by Googling. Reading about the Two Creeks buried forest on the National Parks’ site and Wisconsin DNR is certain to prompt a trip.

---------------------------------------------

Notes: Record editor DeWayne Stebbins was referred to as Captain denoting his rank while serving in the Navy during the Civil War.

*Black spruce according to WPR, January 31, 2924

Larry Meilor’s WPR program on January 31, 2024, dealt with the relationship between the late ice age and wetlands. Meilor’s guests discussed the Two Creeks’ buried forest and noted the trees were black spruce. His guests brought up a three-day wetland conference to be held in Green Bay beginning on February 20, 2024.

More info - Event website: https://conference.wisconsinwetlands.org/

Contact: Ginny Carlton, Conference & Workshop Coordinator

Email: conference@wisconsinwetlands.org

Sources: An-An-api-sebe: Where is the River?: Ahnapee Record, Algoma Record, Algoma Record Herald; Door County Advocate; Kewaunee Enterprise; Kewaunee County Plat Maps.

Kewaunee Post Office: Fodder for a Novel

 

*The above imagine is from Smithsonian American Art Museum, online. See notes below.

 If author Charles Frazier had set his new book on Lake Michigan rather than in a small Wyoming ranching town, his novel The Trackers could have been set in Kewaunee.

Valentine Welch lll, Fraizer’s fictional character, is a painter chosen for the New Deal art project. Welch is one of the eras’ 850 men and women selected to create a mural in a post office or library. If the story had taken place in Kewaunee, it would have been Mark Faulkner brushing on the paint for the post office mural.

The fictional Val Welch explains that such paintings needed to fit a specific space in a small office, and that space was generally above the postmaster's office door. History tells us that to find a subject for the murals, artists poured over old photographs, went through local histories, and read the articles others were writing as part of the Federal Writers' Project. Welch tell us - as does history - that painting and writing were part of Works Progress Administration, or WPA, to which some referred as "We piddle about." WPA came out of the Depression as a way of providing artists, writers, and laborers with a means to earn money and thus put food on the table. Painters were paid after each stage of their process was approved.

In her 1997 article found at https://postalmuseum.si.edu/off-the-wall-new-deal-post-office-murals, Patricia Raynor writes that the murals were produced through the Treasury Department's Section of Painting and Sculpture (Treasury Relief Act Project) in a commission-driven program based on quality. Raynor points out how the program contrasted with the work-relief mission of WPA "which is often mistakenly used to describe all New Deal art, including the post office." New Deal artwork is a more accurate term to describe the works of art created under the federal art programs of that period.

As the "We piddle about" suggests, there was criticism in the support of the federal art projects. As Ms. Raynor points out, FDR's relief administrator Harry Hopkins was quoted saying, "artists have got to eat just like other people."

Between 1934 and 1943, 1,371 murals were painted in post offices across the U.S. The 850 artists included 162 women and three African americans. Such paintings were to "boost the morale of the American people suffering from the effects of the Depression by depicting uplifting subjects the people knew and loved." Selected artists were to paint a realistic scene in an American style rather than modern or abstract art which were discouraged. The controversial and tragic were to be avoided. Artists were commissioned through competitions and were paid as part of the cost of new post office construction, one percent of the cost being slated for the artistic improvements. Existing federal buildings were also in line for art, however that program was in effect for a shorter time, 1935-1938.

Today – well over 80 years since the murals were painted – there is an effort to preserve them. Some murals have disappeared, others have deteriorated, and there are places where the art is worth far more than the buildings. Kewaunee post office mural is a treasure and its patrons are among the fortunate.

How did the postal murals come about? WPA was one of Depression era alphabet soup agencies in place to bolster the U.S. economy. President Franklin D. Roosevelt knew the American spirit was also in need of lifting when he said, “Always the heart and soul of our country will be the heart and soul of the common man.” For that he looked toward the arts. And, Kewaunee was a beneficiary.

Postmaster William Wright announced in the April 14, 1939, edition of the Enterprise that Kewaunee was chosen to have a mural painted in its new post office. The Section of Fine Arts of the Treasury Department notified Wright that Chicago artist Paul Faulkner had been invited to present a design for the large painting which would be painted on the interior wall of the office.

Faulkner won the preliminary mural competition and wrote to Wright, asking for ideas for the mural. Wright asked for community input while local historian Henry Baumeister assisted him in gathering material.

According to a late September article in Algoma Record Herald, during the previous week artist Paul Faulkner had begun chiseling away at the new plaster on the west wall of Kewaunee’s post office. Faulkner’s design was a winter scene of men with skis and another group on a toboggan. Faulkner felt the work would take about two months.

The Enterprise said the fresco painting was probably a first in Wisconsin post offices. Explaining the process, the paper told readers,  “a small amount of plaster, five coats thick, is applied to the wall at a time and the coloring is applied while the wall is still wet. By a technical combination of chemicals in the plaster, the color and the air, the finished painting becomes part of the plaster and produces a very rich and unusual effect.”

Editor John Read Karel went on to say that the picture was not what Kewaunee expected. The winter scene portrayed a ski jump and a group of men with skis while another group was preparing to go downhill on a toboggan. The hill overlooked a valley in which there was a river with perfectly straight shorelines on which ice skaters were having a “swell time.” A factory was part of the background. Karel felt the scene was just a typical winter scene of almost anywhere but not Kewaunee. As one wag was heard to quip, “Kewaunee of all places gets a picture of a hill full of ski jumpers?”

Artists drew criticism when the planned murals were not an accurate description of a specific city, prompting The Section to encourage design changes, thus eliminating what might be typical of another area and therefore offending local citizenry. Tongue-in-cheek, Editor Karel suggested that a Florida beach scene would be appropriate for patrons coming out of a howling blizzard, but Faulkner said the Treasury Department approved the scene and “that’s that.”

Postmaster Wright announced the official unveiling of “Winter Sports” during an open house in the post office lobby on Thanksgiving afternoon, November 30. The paper went on to say that Faulkner was putting the finishing touches on the mural which was by then known to be the first of its kind in Wisconsin. During the open house, Faulkner would be present to explain the mural and the process used in creating it. Just as the fictional Val Welch’s work in Dawes, Wyoming, Faulkner’s work created substantial interest among the boxholders who followed the work day-by-day. Welch’s observers came in to see him working on the scaffold while Postmaster Wright said anybody doubting the project could come to the post office to see the artist on the job.

Wright encouraged residents and those in the vicinity to walk off their Thanksgiving dinners by coming to the post office to examine the fresco and talk with Faulkner. Then the Kewaunee post office announced expanded hours from the Saturday prior to Thanksgiving through the holiday season. Expanded Saturday hours – till 6 PM – would provide additional services to Christmas mailers as well as offering opportunities for the public to drop in to see the 8’ x 26” mural.

Kewaunee’s post office was placed on the National Register of Historic Places in October 2000. Accessing https://www.wisconsinhistory.org/Records/Property/Hl26594 will bring up information about the building, its setting, architect, post office hierarchy and more. A renewed interest in Depression-era murals offers a glimpse into American heritage in a time that was. Many of them have vanished in the 80-plus years while others are deteriorating.

And, Paul Faulkner? Wikipedia reports that Paul W. Faulkner was an American artist born in North Platte, Nebraska, on April 2, 1913. He graduated from the University of  Nebraska and received his master's degree from the Chicago Art Institute. Faulkner taught at the Layton School of Art in Milwaukee, the Norwich Free Academy in Connecticut, and worked at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C. He died in Connecticut in January 1997.

NOTES:

*americanart.si.edu/artwork/winter-sports-mural-kewaunee-wisconsin-post-office-35951. The website verbiage is as follows: Paul Faulkner, Winter Sports (mural study, Kewaunee, Wisconsin Post Office 1939, tempera on fiberboard, image 8' x 26" (20.c x 66.0 cm), Smithsonian American Art Museum. Transfer from General Services Administration, 1974.28.346."

uca.edu/postofficemurals/ says “endearing images” transformed the post offices into a “truly democratic art gallery.” It goes on to say that “Americans searched for images that could serve as beacons of hope during a time of economic and emotional despair.” The artwork was designed to provide work for the unemployed and destitute.

Wikipedia says Faulkner did the painting in 1940. Algoma Record Herald and Kewaunee Enterprise chronicle Faulkner’s work from April to December 1939.

 SOURCES:

Algoma Record Herald

americanart.si.edu/artwork/winter-sports-mural-kewaunee-wisconsin-post-office-35951

 Frazier, Charles, The Trackers, New York, NY, Harper Collins Publishers, 2023.

Kannerwurf, Dr. Karl, Patricia Sharpe & Virginia Johnson, Here Comes the Mail: Post Offices of Kewaunee County, Sturgeon Bay, WI, Silverdale Press, 2010.

https://daily.jstor,org/uwos-post-office-murals/ The paintings were egg-tempera-on-plaster which fictional Val Welch describes.

Kewaunee Enterprise 

 "National Register Information System". National Register of Historic Places. National Park Service

https://postalmuseum.si.edu/off-the-wall-new-deal-post-office-murals; article by Patricia Raynor, Vol 6, Issue 4, October-December 1997

Roosevelt, Franklin, Campaign Address at Cleveland, Ohio, November 2, 1940, Roosevelt Public Papers, New York, 1941, accessed online.

Wikipedia

https://www.wisconsinhistory.org/Records/Property/HI26594