Historic American Engineering Survey

HISTORIC AMERICAN ENGINEERING SURVEY

PORTAGE CANAL HAER No. WI-104

Location:Waterway connecting the Fox and Wisconsin Rivers in

the City of Portage, Columbia County, Wisconsin.

UTM: 16/303476/4826025; 16/300676/4823075; 16/302725/

4823675 (USGS quadrangle: Portage, WI)

Dates of Construction:Initial construction and dismantling: 1849-51, 1959-60

Dates of replacements or significant modifications:

Portage Canal: 1858-59, 1875-76, 1891-92, 1897, 1927

Portage Lock: 1877-78, 1880, 1892-93, 1900, 1926-28

Ft. Winnebago Lock: 1858-59, 1874-75, 1890, 1900-01, 1936

Designer:Milwaukee District, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers

Builders:Portage Canal: Conro, Starke & Co. and Milwaukee

District, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (after 1873)

Portage Lock: M.E. White Company, Chicago (1926-28)

Fort Winnebago Lock: Milwaukee District, U.S. Army Corps

of Engineers and S.A. Harrison (1890)

Present Owner:The structure is owned by the State of Wisconsin and

administrated by the Wisconsin Department of Natural

Resources, 101 South Webster, Madison, WI 53707-9721.

Present Use:The Army Corps of Engineers closed the structure to

navigation in 1951, and it is currently not in use.

Significance:The Portage Canal gains significance as part of the Fox

Waterway which operated as a complete facility between the late 1850s and 1951. The canal's components are representative of canal construction for the periods in which they were built. The improvement of the canal and waterway by the state with a federal land-grant, state-supported private enterprise, and federal government was a common sequence for the development of internal improvements. At the west end of the canal, the Portage Lock was tied into a levee system which prevents overflow of the Wisconsin River into the adjacent lowlands. The construction and maintenance of the levee reflect the operation of local, state, and federal government laws regulating navigation and flood control. They were significantly altered through time, affecting the treatment of the levee. The 1920s improvements along the canal were in part stimulated by strong contemporary interest in deep channel navigation.

Project Information:The documentation represents the partial fulfillment of

the Memorandum of Agreement among the Army Corps of Engineers, the State of Wisconsin, and the City of Portage necessitated by the improvement of the Portage Levee crossing the west end of the canal.

THE LOCATION AND SETTING OF THE PORTAGE CANAL

The two mile-long Portage Canal links the Fox River to the Wisconsin River near the head waters of the Fox in the City of Portage, Columbia County, Wisconsin. The Portage Canal lies along a low, marshy sand plain at the summit level or highest point of both portions of the waterway, the Portage to Green Bay section along the Fox River and the Portage to Prairie du Chien section along the Wisconsin River. The rather unique geographical setting at Portage stimulated the development of the two rivers for navigation. Striving to create a navigation channel connecting the Great Lakes and the St. Lawrence and Erie Canal to the Mississippi and Gulf of Mexico, the State of Wisconsin began to improve the waterway in 1849 (Wisconsin Board of Public Works 1850). Although promoters of the waterway had intended to improve both the Fox and a portion of the lower Wisconsin River, work on the Wisconsin ceased by the 1880s. Hence, the waterway is denoted as the Fox Waterway or the Fox-Wisconsin Waterway as well as the Fox River Improvement (figures 1-4).

The improvement project encompassed four components along physically distinct sections of the Fox Waterway (figures 2-3). The improvement of the Lower Fox resulted in the gradual development of a slack water system in which the natural fall of the river was altered to a series of steps by the construction of dams which created pools between them. Short canals with one or more locks lifted boats around the dams between the pools. Originally, navigation of the Upper Fox was to be accomplished by dredging and cutting channels across the sharp bends of the river. This section of the waterway was gradually altered to a slack water system. The Portage Canal united the Fox to the Wisconsin. A navigation channel along the Wisconsin River was to be created by the construction of wing dams and dredging. This improvement strategy for the Fox-Wisconsin waterway was altered several times during the period of the its operation (Meindl 1991: 9).

The Fox River, then, is divided into the Upper and Lower Fox. Connecting the Portage Canal to Lake Winnebago at Oshkosh, the Upper Fox flows for a distance of approximately 137 miles and descends relatively gradually at 40'-0" or 5" to the mile from Portage (figures 3-4). The Fox River originates in the marshes in northeast Columbia County and northeast of Portage. It curves northwest toward Portage where it abruptly turns northeast toward Green Bay within 1.5 miles of the Wisconsin River. This portion of the Fox flows through three small lakes, lakes Buffalo and Puckaway and Lake Butte des Mortes which also connects to the Wolf River near Winneconne. Between 70' and 300' wide, the shallow river flows between relatively low banks. It meanders through a level, glacial landscape which includes peat marshes, muck, and fine silty and sandy loams with poor drainage. During periods of significant high water caused primarily by high precipitation, the river floods the surrounding marshes to a depth of 3' to 5' over an area as great as two to five miles wide. When protected from overflow and drained, these marshes become productive agricultural lands. When dredging failed to maintain an adequate channel in the sandy river bed of the Upper Fox, the construction of low dams eventually established a slack water system along the Upper Fox in the 1870s. Because of the level terrain, they were developed as navigation rather than power dams. The Upper Fox flows through a rural landscape of agricultural fields, marshlands, and wooded areas connecting at widely spaced intervals the small trading centers of Omro, Eureka, Berlin, Princeton, Marquette, Montello, Packwaukee, Endeavor, and Portage (Kabat 1957: 18; Whitbeck 1915: 14).

The Fox River flows into Lake Winnebago at Oshkosh and exits into the Lower Fox in two channels at the north end near the cities of Neenah and Menasha. The government dam at Menasha controls the depth of the water flow along the Lower Fox. Lake Winnebago serves as a storage reservoir for the maintenance of navigation and power during periods of low water and for the reduction of the level of spring floods. The Lower Fox drops an abrupt 168' in thirty-nine miles between Lake Winnebago and Lake Michigan at Green Bay. Between 300' and 3,000' in width, it flows between high banks and crosses eight series of rapids. A system of channels and seventeen locks provide access around the navigation and power dams. The Lower Fox flows through a more urbanized area than the Upper Fox connecting Neenah, Menasha, Kimberly, Little Chute, Combined Locks, Kaukauna, De Pere, and Green Bay. Its dams provide power to the pulp and paper mills and other industries of the lower valley (U.S. ACE[1] [Report] 1839-1963 [serial 1278, S. Doc. 16, 1867: 2; serial 9664, H. Doc. 212, 1932: 5-6]; Whitbeck 1915: 17-19).

The Wisconsin River flows generally south from its source in north central Wisconsin, curves abruptly southwest and away from the Fox River at Portage, and runs southwest 118 miles to the Mississippi River at Prairie du Chien (figure 1). The Wisconsin River lies 6' to 7' higher than the Fox River at normal flow. For this reason, water moves east through the canal from the Wisconsin to the Fox. Before the construction of levees along its banks, the Wisconsin flooded the lowlands and occasionally flowed across the portage into the Fox during high water. Prior to the construction of dams in the twentieth century, the Wisconsin River was a shallow river with multiple channels separated by small islands. Although one of these channels retained a depth of 5' to 6', it usually followed a crooked and changing course. The Wisconsin River flows over a bottom of course sand. Although its sand bars were generally permanent in their location, they altered frequently in their size, shape, and depth of water above them. Obstacles or an expansion in the width of the river quickly became the nucleus around which a sand bar formed. This characteristic and the sinuous course of the channel eventually frustrated the development of a navigation system along the Wisconsin (General Engineering Co., Inc. 1991: 5; U.S. ACE [Report] 1839-1963 [serial 1278[2], S. Doc. 16, 1867: 27]).

Measuring 2.12 miles in length, the Portage Canal connects the two rivers in the City of Portage (see figures a-d, 16; photograph WI-104-33). Encompassing 36.07 acres, the canal property was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1977. The Portage or Wisconsin River lock is located at the west end of the canal (figure a-b) and is incorporated into the Portage Levee (figures 15-16) which follows the east bank of the Wisconsin River in the City of Portage and in the towns of Lewiston to the northwest and Pacific to the southeast. The city's commercial area lies to the north of the canal at this west end, and a small industrial area is located to the south. In 1993, portions of both areas were placed on the National Register of Historic Places as the Portage Retail Historic District and the Portage Industrial Waterfront District (McKay 1993a; 1993b). Residential districts occupy much of the area along the canal between Adams and Townsend streets and the Milwaukee, Chicago, and St. Paul Railroad tracks to the northeast (figure b). About two-thirds of the canal's length, the area between the railroad tracks and the ruins of the Ft. Winnebago Lock at the east end of the canal near the Fox River (figure c), has a rural landscape with scattered residences, wooded areas, and marshlands. Trees overhang the canal along much of this distance. Constructed in 1832, the Indian Agency House which stands immediately to the northwest of the lock was entered onto the National Register in 1972. The site of Fort Winnebago occupies a hill across and above the Fox southeast of the canal's entrance into the river (figures 6, 8-9).

The precise width of the right-of-way along the canal property has been periodically questioned primarily because of encroachments upon it. Giving the state title to the property, the Wisconsin Board of Public Works selected the right-of-way for the canal from lands granted by the federal government on July 3, 1851. Additionally, in September 1853, 36.07 acres on both sides of the Fort Winnebago Lock were reserved for waterpower from the sale of the Fort Winnebago United States Military Reservation for the canal (U.S. ACE 1958-59 [map]). The United States eventually regained the property through a deed dated September 18, 1872 from the Green Bay and Mississippi Canal Company. L.M. Mann, assistant engineer of the Army Corps of Engineers, surveyed the tracts in 1901 (U.S. ACE 1901). His 1901 report described the then approximately twenty-two acre Canal Reservation (figure 8) and the 190 foot wide right-of-way along the canal which extended southwest from the canal reservation to the Wisconsin River (figures 9-10). The original description included a reference to a towpath, probably placed along the north bank of the canal. In the city limits, the canal right-of-way extended 40 feet on the left and 150 feet on the right side of the inside top of the towpath along the north or left bank. Although the waterway was intended for steamboats, the towpath appears to have been built. And, it was used prior to 1876 when the Army Corps enlarged the canal (Schultz 1941). The report further indicated that the lot lines of the private property extended across the government land as far as the canal. Encroachment by dwellings and outbuildings and, west of Jefferson Street, by commercial buildings occurred west of the Milwaukee, St. Paul, and Chicago Railroad bridge (figures b, 16).

By 1912, Major Charles Bromwell of the Milwaukee District of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers concluded that the government possessed no title to lands in the Grignon Claim and section 8 southwest of the Canal Reservation at the west end of the canal. The United States granted only odd sections to the state in 1848. The state never took steps to legally confirm the lands selected for the canal by the Board of Public Works in 1851 which traveled through even sections in the City of Portage. Bromwell concluded that the Corps had no interest in lands adjacent to the canal except for the use of a strip necessary for repair of the revetments or walls along the canal and the two locks. A 1948 study confirmed this conclusion (East Central Wisconsin Planning Commission 1948-85 [file: Portage Lock Correspondence]).

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers transferred the canal property by quitclaim deed in 1961 and 1972. The deed described: "A strip of land including the United States Canal and 190 feet wide [tract]..." (Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources (WDNR), Southern District 1946-92 [File: Portage Canal, 1979-81]; WDNR, Facilities and Lands 1958-97 [file: Portage Canal, 1958 copy of doc. 308165, p. 71, vol. 288, Columbia County Register of Deed]). Although each investigation appeared to render a clear conclusion, the location of the two boundaries defining the limits of the canal property remained unclear at least in part because the original boundary definition threatened the ownership of a significant number of buildings in the retail and industrial area. As late as 1979, the Portage Canal Society requested a review of the land description associated with the title to the canal. In 1980, the Wisconsin Attorney General concluded that the state did not have title to lands outside the canal because of the long-standing encroachment of commercial and residential properties onto the strip of land (quoted in Kleist 1985: 15). In 1981, Governor Lee Dreyfus directed the Department of Natural Resources to complete a certified survey. Completed June 21, 1983, this survey conducted by Bridwell Engineering Company, Inc., Madison provided a right-of-way of 75 feet across the property from the centerline of the Fox River to the north line of the Wisconsin River in part of government lots 8 and 9, section 33, T13N, R9E; part of government lots 6 and 7, section 4, T12N, R9E; part of government lots 5 and 6, section 8, T12N, R9E; and part of the Grignon Claim No. 21 in sections 4, 5, and 8; all in the City of Portage and including a total of 21.2 acres (Bridwell 1983).

SIGNIFICANCE OF THE PORTAGE CANAL AND THE ORGANIZATION OF THEMES

The historical significance of the Portage Canal lies not in whether it succeeded financially as a carrier of goods from and through the Fox Valley, but in what the structure represents. The canal is historically associated with several related areas of water resource policy. It gains National Register significance as part of the Fox Waterway. State, private, and finally federal agencies developed the waterway in the third quarter of the nineteenth century to construct a transportation corridor connecting the Erie Canal and Great Lakes via the Wisconsin River to the Mississippi. Because the direct role of the federal government in transportation improvements remained a constitutional dilemma until the Civil War, the states and less often private enterprise continued as the primary agencies in waterway improvements. The Army Corps of Engineers completed studies determining the feasibility of navigation but did not usually engage directly in the supervision of such projects until after the mid-nineteenth century. But, after the Civil War, navigation became a recognized area of federal involvement. The development of the Portage Canal and Fox Waterway reflected this shift in policy.

During the canal's initial conception and development in the 1820s into the early 1850s, a waterway connecting the Great Lakes to the Mississippi River appeared to provide the most efficient method to transport goods and settlers to the Upper Midwest. Transportation by canals and improved waterways was heavily promoted during the period between 1815 and the 1850s as significant settlement and commercial development west of the Appalachians required transportation improvements. The growth of commercial wheat agriculture and trade centers in Wisconsin depended on the movement of goods to the Great Lakes and eastern markets. There were major waterways developed during and after this period which did move a significant amount of commerce between the East and Midwest (Taylor 1951: 169; Wyatt 1986 [vol 2, sec. 2, transportation]: 1-3). Before the rapid displacement of water transportation by the railroad which occurred in most areas during and immediately after the Civil War, water routes remained a reasonable means to move particularly bulk goods.

When the Wisconsin River did not prove susceptible to navigation improvement in the 1880s and the Fox-Wisconsin Waterway would no longer connect the Great Lakes to the Mississippi, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers developed and maintained the Fox Waterway to provide low cost, local transport of goods to and from central Wisconsin. The Portage Canal then became the west end of the waterway. Although carrying limited cargo by the late nineteenth century, the Fox Waterway and similar local waterways were viewed as significant by contemporaries because their lower rates helped reduce railroad costs.