Marinette County Wisconsin 2015 Visitors Guide

F
arnsworth and his Native American common law-wife,
referred to as Queen Marinette whom the city is said to
have taken its name, operated the trading business from
the log post for several years. Farnsworth associated
with Charles Brush in a business venture, which marked
the beginning of a new industry that would dominate the
Menominee River Basin for the next fifty years. In 1832,
the partners erected a water-powered sawmill at the
foot of today's North Raymond Street.
A second sawmill was constructed on the river in 1841, which was followed by several
more in the next few years. In 1856, the New York Lumber Company built a steampowered
sawmill at Menekaunee, now Marinette's east end. As lumbering prospered,
so did Marinette. In 1853, the population was 478; by 1860 the number of people in
the growing community had reached 3,059.
Isaac Stephenson arrived in Marinette in 1858, when he
purchased a quarter interest in the North Ludington Lumber
Company sawmill. Stephenson became a town supervisor,
county board chairman, justice of the peace, member of the
state legislature, a U.S. Senator, publisher of the Milwaukee
Free Press, instigated the construction of the Sturgeon Bay
Ship Canal, and owned iron mines in Michigan's Upper
Peninsula. He donated the Stephenson Public Library to the
city, built the Stephenson Block, the Lauerman Brothers
Company Department Store, and founded the Stephenson
National Bank.
Marinette was incorporated in 1887, and by
1900, was the tenth largest city in Wisconsin.
It had a new courthouse, city hall, opera
house, two hospitals, a street railway, more
than a dozen hotels and boarding houses,
thirty saloons, and major industries, including
the Marinette Iron Works, Marinette Flour
Mill, the A.W. Stevens farm implement
company, and the M & M Paper Company.
36 l Marinette County