Sunday, August 22, 2021

New Territory... Michigan

 

We made it to Michigan, and there is an Elks lodge close by, in Marinette Wisconsin. This place is about two blocks before the Wisconsin / Michigan border.
We stopped in for a couple of drinks, and pick up pins, before we headed for dinner. How many other places can you go where you have a drink in one state, and dinner 3 miles away in another state?

There are places to visit here... provided you choose good dates for staying in town. Unfortunately we are not going to be able to visit some of the museums and historic places. 

We did visit Peshtigo Wisconsin. You ask... what is so important about Peshtigo? Some folks may remember the Chicago fire of 1871, well 1871 was important to Peshtigo too, they suffered from a fire that wiped out the entire town one October night.

A little background on Peshtigo. The town had the largest woodenware factory in the country at the time. The factory produced all kinds of wooden items ranging from wooden pails to wooden bath tubs. If you lived in the area you probably swept your livingroom floor with a broom that had a handle made in the factory. This town had wood everywhere... sawdust streets, wood sidewalks, and wood structures.

The town was home to about 1750 people, a good share worked at the woodenware factory, mills, and those that were lumberjacks. 
This is a rendering of what Peshtigo looked like before the fire storm.
Within the dotted lines of the photo was the extent of the firestorm. The drought of 1871 was a major factor. Southerly winds kicked up small normally controlled fires which gathered considerable force. These fires became fire tornados. The fire swept a 60 mile stretch north of Green Bay and 50 miles stretch on the Door Peninsula, and this is what became known as the Peshtigo Fire. Total human lives lost were estimated at 1200 to 1500, that does include the folks of Peshtigo. 
This rendering is the infamous October night. By the next day over 800 men, women, and children dead... 300 of which were unidentified. The town was burnt to the ground, and like a Phoenix, it came back to life. Because Chicago was a known city, the press spent more time on a fire that only killed about 250 people total. Visit: http://www.peshtigofiremuseum.com.

How about a walk around the museum. Obviously there isn't anything from the town after the fire devastation. 
Let's take a walk down memory lane.
Above photo is looking down a wooden water pipe... the little guy in the middle in the photo below.
This is not a UFO model, it is an early humidifier and stand.
The first carpet sweeper was invented in 1860, having brushes and bellows which generated a suction, however, it was not mass produced. 1901 was the first motorized vacuum. In 1906 Kirby created a vacuum that used water for collecting dust. 1909 Eureka Vacuum Company was created. 1920 the first disposable bag was used. 1930 provided the first plastic vacuum. In 1963 Oreck came on the scene. 1978, Dyson wanted to play the vacuum game, and in 1979 Black and Decker thought they should get in the game. 1997 Electrolux; 2002 Roomba. Look at us today. 
One step up from the wooden bath tub. 

From the museum we took a drive to the Forgotten Fire Winery.

Our last day in Menominee was partially spent at the Regional Historical Museum (https://menomineehistory.org). This was a small eclectic museum in a beautiful old church building.

The only way to start this adventure is making a decision...
I personally prefer to be seen in photo "B", vice "in" photo "A".
Let's take a quick overview of the museum:
The instruments are memories from the Northernaires. The band was started in 1953 at the D.A.R. Boys Club of Menominee. In 1954 they began participating in parades in the UP (upper peninsula), and were well received. 1956 they began competing, and by their last contest in 1968, they won 51 contests, and came in second in 51 of the 135 contests they entered. The Corp was originally called D.A.R. Boys Club Corp up to 1958, when they changed the name to Northernaires.

In a room off to one side of a very large circus display, was a  dedication to women's right to vote. 
Some states were more open to allowing women the opportunity to vote, as far back as 1890. Don't be fooled guys, women suffrage movements began way back in the 1840s. It is really amazing that it took women almost 100 years to get the right to vote, guaranteed via the 19th Amendment. There was one thing that has changed over the last hundred years...
How about this dust pan and broom... far from plastic.

One of the displays in the main area of the museum looked like it was about a tragic story regarding orphans, street urchins, and foundlings.
It was estimated between 120,000 to 200,000 children were loaded on trains, and shipped from New York City to various homes in the Midwest... some as far as Arizona. Like I mentioned earlier, it sounds sad, but there was hope. Believe it or not, this was a pilot program to place children in good homes, a controversial beginning to the foster care program.

Some of us remember the early 20th century when polio was a major epidemic... I was not around at the time. Some adults and children contracted polio, and had to spend time in a cigar cylinder that breathed for them... it was called an "iron lung".
The lower right section under the cigar tube is the bellows that helped the people breath.

After the museum tour we took a drive to a local lighthouse near downtown. Originally driving downtown the lighthouse looked closer to the marina than it was. The actual location was almost two miles from the marina. This is the Menominee Pierhead Lighthouse... from a distance. We decided not to walk to it because we could not enter it, it is still active.
The lighthouse became operational in 1877. When the pier was extended another 305 feet in 1881, the lighthouse was relocated to the end of the new pier. Here comes 1886, and the pier is extended another 345 feet, and again the lighthouse was relocated, this time to its current location.

The original lighthouse was only the red structure and lamp assembly. In 1927 U.S. Army Corp of Engineers dismantled the lighthouse, took it ashore, replaced the wooden pier with a concrete pier at the far end. After the pier was completed, they built a concrete building and reconstructed the lighthouse on it, as you see today. In 1972 the the lighthouse was automated, and the U.S. Coast Guard personnel were reassigned. In 1973 the fog horn was discontinued, and the Fresnel lens was replaced with a modern Marine LED Beacon light. 2008 the city of Menominee took possession of the lighthouse from the U.S. Coast Guard.

This campground is a neat place... they allowed me to wash the trailer. Our next stop is farther up in the peninsula in a town near Brimley.

Sunday, August 15, 2021

Last Stop Before Michigan

 It was a long 120 mile drive to our next campground in Kewaunee Wisconsin. 

This campground appears to have been an old KOA campground. The place was an ok place for a short stay. The site are tight, with close social area between sites. There were a couple of places to visit around town.

A short drive back into town we visited the worlds largest grandfather clock.

The clock was built in 1976 to celebrate the country's bi-centennial. The original location was at the Svoboda furniture factory, who built the clock. Over time the clock looked a little worn, the clock was dismantled in 2013, refurbished, and erected in 2014 in its current location.

After our 5 minutes looking at the clock we took a walk over to a tug boat on display. The tub boat was built in 1943 at the Jacobsen Shipyard in Oyster Bay, New York. Originally christened Major Wilbur Fr. Browder, and saw service in WWII. The tug towed ammunition barges across the English Channel during the D-Day invasion at Normandy, France.

In 1947 the tug came home and was re-assigned to Kewaunee, and renamed "Ludington".

For a small donation, visitors can take a self-guided tour of the boat. We started the tour in the galley, from there we moved to the engine room.

This tug has an 8-cylinder, 1200 horsepower engine. The engine was the demise of the tug. The proper way for a tug to change directions, was to come to a complete stop, then reverse direction. One day the procedure was not followed, and the engine was damaged beyond repair.

It took special people to operate the electrical switchboard on these boats. Old timers will remember the term "dead man" switches, and this boat is a prime example.

This boat also ran on DC current, in other words, batteries.

The engine room was two levels, lower level contains most of the engineering workings: compressors, winch, generators, etc.
There were quarters for the crew, not exactly suites for their enjoyment, but enough to get some rest.
The next priority area involves navigation, and the bridge.
You cannot get to the bridge, except through the navigators station.
This tug functioned into the the years where electronics made a contribution to navigation. The green piece of equipment told the bridge watch what was around them... things like land, shallow water, and other vessels. Back down to the main deck and off the boat.

Kewaunee's waterfront has a bit of history itself. Economics, geography, and transportation technology posed a unique issue to the industrial world. The three major railroad companies came together and created a railcar ferry system on Lake Michigan. The Kewaunee Railcar Service made its first trip in 1892, departed Frankfort Michigan, headed for Kewaunee Wisconsin. This first trip carried four cars containing coal; the next day 22 cars left Kewaunee to points east. 1990 the service made its final run.

Continuing our tour of the waterfront, we headed to the lighthouse. A building can be seen across the water, 200 yards maybe, is the Life Saving Station, Kewaunee. The station was constructed in 1893 due to maritime mishaps that occurred in 1886, Lake Michigan got rough because of a storm, sinking the Emerald and Dickenson schooner barges. With the sinkings came loss of life. Life Saving Stations were location up and down the shore of Lake Michigan, manned with personnel and row boats. In 1915 U.S. Life Saving Service and Revenue Cutter Service combined to form the U.S. Coast Guard. The Kewaunee station operated until 1947, when it was closed.


Continuing down the pier we walked around the Kewaunee Pierhead Lighthouse.

This is what the lighthouse looks like today, in 1923 it looked a little different:


The lighthouse was not open for us to climb. The pier is close to 1,000 yards long.
Looking from the lighthouse back to shore.

We made our way back to shore and had lunch before we went to visit the Jailhouse Museum.

The view from our table. The trees to the right are hiding the Life Saving Station. After lunch we climbed back into the truck and headed for the museum.

The name Jailhouse Museum is a bit of a misnomer, it is a museum located in the old jailhouse. Like many small town museums, it shows the history of the region. The basement was history of farming in the region, the second floor contained the actual jail cells displaying more culture of the region, and the third floor was... you guessed, more region history and culture. The museum was still interesting. Carol and I found a particular picture intriguing, it was made from nuts and seeds.
Again we have seen another small town with big regional history. 

Next stop, Michigan