1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Sheboygan

SHEBOYGAN, a city and the county seat of Sheboygan county, Wisconsin, U.S.A., on the W. shore of Lake Michigan at the mouth of the Sheboygan river, about 52 m. N. of Milwaukee. Pop. (1910 census) 26,398. The population is largely of German descent, and two German newspapers are published; many Greeks settled here after 1895. Sheboygan is served by the Chicago & North-Western railway, by interurban electric lines and by a steam-boat line (the Goodrich Transportation Co.). The city N. of the river and the southern half of the part S. of the river are built on a plateau 20–40 ft. above the lake level. Along the river is the factory district. The principal public buildings are a fine Federal building in which are housed the post office and the office of the internal revenue; a Carnegie library, the Sheboygan County Court House, an opera house, St Nicholas Hospital and a county insane asylum. Included in the public school system is a school for deaf children, partly supported by the state. The city has a good harbour and is an important distributing point for coal and salt. A rich agricultural region, devoted largely to dairying, extends to the N., S. and W., and large quantities of cheese are exported. Among the city's other manufactures are furniture, particularly chairs (for which the city is noted), toys, machinery, bee hives, gloves, knit goods, brick, carriages, wagons, excelsior, tanned leather, shoes, enamel ware, canned vegetables (especially peas), beer, flour, pianos and plumbing supplies. The total value of the factory product in 1905 was $10,086,648, 38.1% representing furniture; and 56.7% of the whole number of factory wage-earners were employed in the furniture factories. A trading post at the mouth of the Sheboygan river was established about 1820 and was maintained for about fourteen years; in 1834 a saw-mill was built at the first rapids of the river, about 2 m. from its mouth, and during the next three years many settlers came and a great city was platted on paper. Sheboygan was incorporated as a village in 1846, and was first chartered as a city in 1853. Several miles from Sheboygan Falls (pop. in 1905, 1411), a village about 5 m. W. of Sheboygan and S.W. of Plymouth (pop. in 1905, 2764), the Spring Farms Association, a Fourierite community of ten families, farmed successfully thirty acres of land from 1845 until 1848, when lack of interest in the experiment brought about a dissolution by mutual agreement.