Over a million years ago, a vast shallow sea covered the central part of Wisconsin, including the entire Fox River Valley. Through a process of erosion and a heaving and settling of the earth, the land eventually rose above the water. The glaciers spread into the Green Bay region and gouged out the channels of the Fox and Wolf rivers. This natural water route connecting the Mississippi and the St. Lawrence River basins would carry Indians, trappers, missionaries, and settlers to a land rich with promise. To know the Fox River is to know the history of this valley, for the river is the thread that weaves one generation to another in the tapestry of our Fox Cities heritage.
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It seems that the Fox River has always flowed through the economic veins of the woods of northeastern Wisconsin, lands that would eventually nurture the Fox Cities.
It was home to Native Americans and to the early trappers and traders, a highway of commerce, the source of both supply and demand. Commerce depended on it in those days; the fur traders and early settlers would not have had business to conduct without it.
Then there were the people who came to push seeds into the rich soil that the river's watershed created, or to graze fat dairy cattle on the lush land. Theirs was the business of growing things, and for them the river was the primary link with the rest of the world.
The area grew, developing its own internal commerce, and the enterprising businessmen who came to the area quickly saw that the Fox had still more to offer. It had the muscle to power the region's early industry. It turned lumber mills, then flour mills, but perhaps most important, it turned paper mills, and paper making became central to the economy of the Fox Cities, forming a financial foundation that was almost unshakable, emerging virtually untouched by what had been hard economic times elsewhere.
The river also carried in its relentless flow another kind of power, something new and intriguing, and the youthful Fox Cities became the first in the nation to use water power to turn an electric generator and illuminate private homes. It happened barely days after Thomas Edison put his first power company into business.
And thus the community that was to become the Fox Cities grew, building first on the economic footing of the river and then on its own strength.
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And now …it is more than economic prosperity that sets these communities apart from others. The difference lies in their extraordinarily high quality of life.
Appleton
Downtown Appleton is an urban area that has survived the economic challenge of retail centers in the suburban areas. In the spring 1980 issue of Lawrence Today, William Brehm, Jr. (Director of Planning and Development, 1980), said, "A great amount of community pride and satisfaction in Appleton exists among its residents. A central theme is a pride in the downtown. There is an almost emotional love of College Avenue."
Music, dance, theatre and art are alive and well in Appleton. With its roots at Lawrence University, a population of 60,000 plus, and the largest city in the area, the city asserts itself as the cultural center of the valley. School, university and college campuses provide concerts, lectures and film series.
From the strongly supported Fox Valley Symphony to the orchestras, jazz ensemble and concert groups at Lawrence; from children's choirs to barbershops and Sweet Adelines, much of the voice of the valley is musical. And as much as its residents love music, they flock in even greater numbers to anything theatrical. The Lawrence Community Artist Series and the Lectures and Fine Arts Series of the University of Wisconsin-Fox Valley bring well-known performers and speakers to the area.
That Appletonians identify proudly with their landscape, their traditions and their mutual sense of community is evident in the hundreds of volunteers and thousands of people who line the streets for the annual Flag Day Parade (the only one of its kind in the nation), the Christmas Parade, and "Octoberfest"--when College Avenue is closed off to make room for ethnic food, craft booths, sound stages, bands and a variety of entertainment.
Kaukauna
Kaukauna, one of the oldest communities in the valley, has also been called "The Friendly City" and "Electric City." The Fox River, with its 50-foot drop within the boundaries of the city, generates electrical power from five plants. Kaukauna's municipally-owned utility offers one of the lowest electrical rates in Wisconsin. Thilmany Pulp and Paper Company, a division of International Paper, is the largest employer and is nationally recognized for its packaging and paper specialty lines.
Revitalization of downtown Kaukauna began in 1980. A Downtown Improvement Committee was formed to work hand-in-hand with the East Central Wisconsin Regional Planning Commission. The '80s also brought a federal Community Development Block Grant for low-income and elderly housing, and new quarters for the Heart of the Valley Chamber of Commerce, which represents 13 communities from Appleton to DePere.
Downtown revitalization continues as one of Kaukauna's most important issues. Quoted while Mayor of Kaukauna, Robert Van De Hey said, "The people in this community feel good about themselves and you can sense the civic pride. You can walk down the street and talk to people and to the merchants and see it, hear it and feel it."
Neenah and Menasha
The League of Women Voters of Neenah-Menasha, in the revised edition of A Tale of Two Cities and Four Towns, paints Neenah and Menasha as a "blend of town and country, a study in contrasts." Industries include both national and international giants in the fields of paper, printing, packaging and metal casting; yet ten minutes to the south or west is prime Wisconsin farmland, rich and productive. The waterways offer year-round recreational activities and beauty in all seasons, but they are working waters too, and historically have drawn industries rather than tourists.
Former Mayor Thom Ciske explained to the Northwestern newspaper: "The days of large department stores coming into a downtown and increasing shopper traffic is over. Major retailers now want the people there first. I think our first step should be to try to get office buildings downtown. When shopper traffic picks up because of this, then the businesses will come."
A 42-year-old mill worker who has lived in Menasha all his life explains, "We're kind of a small town with a personality as pleasing as a cool glass of beer. But people go other places to shop. Everything we've tried for downtown has failed. But we're used to fighting for what we believe in. We'll find a way to bring it back, just wait and see. Menasha won't die."
Neenah, with its dozens of decorative old Victorian homes, hundreds of sailboats in the harbor, the Bergstrom Art Center and Mahler Glass Museum, old clock tower, and new auditorium, has a cultured look. Despite this seeming sophistication, Neenah is just as well known for its dozens of parks and its feeling of "hometown-ness."
Neenah came at their downtown redevelopment problem from a different angle. Viewed by some as a pioneering effort, The Future Neenah Committee (formed in 1982) is a mixture of private, public and political leaders, whose goal is to revitalize downtown by raising funds, involving downtown merchants and eliciting community support.
Neenah's first woman mayor, Marigen Carpenter, explained during her tenure, "More than ever before, we're realizing that the future of the city is in our own hands. With diminishing state and federal financial aids, the city must choose its own direction in the future and rely on its own resources. I've always felt that Neenah has a great deal going for it. The city is in sound financial condition, has a high quality of life, and potential for improvement."
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So how do you best describe the valley? Perhaps you start and end with the river where memories and tradition still cling like moss. Old Father Fox, a bit tired now, twists and winds his way through the very soul of the valley. And for every mile, for every bend, there are legends and stories as old as the Grignon house, the Doty cabin, the old weathered buildings that stand like sentinels in Appleton's industrial "flats." The Fox became a first highway, cradled and nurtured the early settlers and became one of the likeliest places in the world to build a paper mill. Few rivers anywhere have etched a more enduring history.
Maybe the valley should be portrayed by its people. The people for whom the Fox became a handy waterway, who cherished a close bond, who learned to mesh their movement with the river's. The Indians, the Jesuits, the explorers. The fur traders, settlers, and farmers. Today, the valley has become home to Vietnamese and Hmong people from Laos with one of the largest concentrations of Hmong refugees in Wisconsin.
For all their individuality and differences, Fox Citians live and think in terms of "community." The common heritage of uniqueness and pride, stability and success gives each village, each city, an insistent feeling that they, all together, are the Fox River Valley. This sense of community, which has cast the shape of the valley, continues, and it is worth preserving.
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