Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition/Green Bay

GREEN BAY, a city of the United States, capital of Brown county, Wisconsin, is situated at the head of Green Bay, an inlet on the west shore of Lake Michigan. The bay is 100 miles long, from 15 to 35 miles wide, and of considerable depth. The city stands near the mouth of Fox River, with a small stream known as the East River on the other side, its situation affording it a secure harbour. It is 242 miles N. of Chicago, 114 N. of Milwaukee, and 120 N.E. of Madison, the capital of the State. By the completion of a canal connecting the Fox and Wisconsin rivers at Portage City, Green Bay has become the terminus of the inland water-system which unites the great lakes with the Mississippi and the Gulf of St Lawrence with the Gulf of Mexico. The nearness of Green Bay to the forests of the State makes it a centre of the lumber trade, and it exports annually large quantities of planks, boards, shingles, staves, and headings. It has several other manufactories, an iron furnace, a foundry, machine-shops, tanneries, planing-mills, and breweries. The fishing interests, especially in white-fish and lake-trout, are important. Three lines of railway and the largest lake steamers minister to its commerce. Though the French formed settlements on the bay as early as 1745, the site of the present city was not laid out until and 1835, when the villages of Navarino and Astor were founded. In 1839 these we re incorporated under the name of Green Bay, and in 1854 a city charter was granted. It was in 1868 created a bishop s see by Tins IX., and a handsome cathedral church in the Romanesque style has been erected since. The growth of the place has been rapid even for an American city. The population in I860 numbered 2275, and 46G6 in 1870, exclusive of Fort Howard across the river, with its population of 2462, which commercially may well be regarded as part of the city. In 1875 the State census gave 8037 to Green Bay and 3610 to Fort Howard.