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Marinette County History

MARINETTE
Milwaukee Free Press (23 December 1912) submitted by Diana Heser Morse

Travelers who pass through Marinette see a mammoth sign which reads, "Marinette, the Queen City". This is the official slogan of the city, and Marinette is probably the only city in the United States which is named after a real queen. The regal lady was Queen Marinette, who was Queen of the Menominee tribe of Indians. Some of her descendants still survive on the Menominee Indian reservation. Some of the older settlers of this city remember the kindly queen, who was closely identified with the pioneer days of Marinette and was always a friend to the white people who were fair to her race.

In the world at large, Marinette is usually classed as a "lumbering town". This has been true in the past, but the character of the city's manufacturies is rapidly changing from exclusive lumbering to general manufacturies. More timber has floated down the Menominee river, at the mouth of which Marinette is located, than any other stream in the world.

The city has a population of 15,000. Located as it is on a speldid harbor of Green Bay, near to unrivalled water powers, and at the gateway of the north, the city is believed to be destined to become a big commercial center.

One of the sights of Marinette is the famous Northern Chautauqua park on Green Bay. At this Chautauqua many of the most famous men in American political life today were heard. The park contains on of the few standing grove of pine trees left in Wisconsin. In and near Marinette there are several of the prettiest naturla parks in the northwest, and fine drives connect Marinette and its sister city Menominee, and the parks of both cities.

Marinette probably has more paved streets than any city of its size in the state. It has a public library, the gift of Senator Isaac Stephenson, a county agricultural and training school, the site for which was donated by Senator Stephenson, after whom it is named, and has as a whole as fine school buildings, public and parochial, as any Wisconsin city.

Senatory Stephenson is undoubtedly the best known citizen of Marinette, as he is also the most public spirited. The city is often referred to as "Uncle Ike's town".

Marinette has extensive fishing industries, a large portion of the Chicago and Milwaukee supply of fresh fish coming from this city.

The city does not take a back seat for any of its size in the matter of churches, every denomination having a suitable building, and many of the churches are as beautiful and costly as found in any city of 50,000 population.

The Marinette Chamber of Commerce, a body made up of substantial citizens, is a permanent organization which has done much in transforming the city from lumbering town to a town of general manufacturies.

The Queen City is fortunate in having a very good municipal government. For a number of years all of the city elections have been non-partisan in fact as well as name, and the average citizen does not know whether there are more Republicans or Democrats on the city council.

Marinette is one of the few cities in the country that owns and operates a municipal dock. The dock was built to encourage water shipping.

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