The Lunch Box Journals

Green Bay, WI to Algoma, WI (Hwy 57 northwest to Sturgeon Bay; Hwy 42 north to Ephraim: Hwy 42/57 south to Baileys Harbor; Hwy 42 south to Algoma)

The Fox River rises in north-central Wisconsin, flows south into Lake Winnebago at Oshkosh, and then streams for an additional 30+ miles north to empty into Green Bay at the tip of the bay at the city of Green Bay. Driving down from the north after crossing the state line into Wisconsin the suburbs of Green Bay begin to fill in the landscape. Approximately 100,000 people call Green Bay home with another 200,000 in the immediate area. An industrial and commercial center for the northwest side of Lake Michigan, modern Green Bay is all about the NFL team, the Green Bay Packers. Visible from virtually all areas of the city is the giant “G” atop Lambeau Field, home of the Packers.

A visit to Green Bay isn’t complete without a trip to one of the most hallowed sites in professional football, Lambeau Field.

Lambeau Field
Lambeau Field is named after Curly Lambeau, one of the founding fathers of the Green Bay Packers as well as a player and coach. Recently renovated with a $379 million dollar facelift, it’s an impressive facility located on Lombardi Avenue (named after famed coach Vince Lombardi).

Fronting on Lombardi Avenue are giant statues of Lombardi and Lambeau.

I was there in the middle of the week and was surprised at how many fans were in the facility and to the extent that the devotion to their team was on display. People spoke in hushed tones as they walked in the atrium with several groups waiting to go on tours of the facility.

A massive “Pro Shop” occupies a ground level corner of the stadium, roughly the size of a small department store. The range of merchandise (available at stratospheric prices I might add) was amazing as were the number of people spending. This is one of the small displays inside the store.

Leaving the stadium I see a giant tent used for VIP tailgate parties as well as the Don Hutson Center, the indoor practice facility for the Packers.

I resisted the urge to spend my savings on Packer memorabilia and moved on…

A couple of miles north of the stadium is the city center, a tale of two cities on either side of the Fox River. Running parallel to the river of the west side is Broadway, center of Green Bay in the 1800’s running south from the site of Fort Howard towards the railroad yards and manufacturing plants.

The 1898 train depot sits on the river and is now part of the Titletown Brewing complex across the street.

Across the river is the financial and business center of the current city, punctuated by several striking examples of Art Deco architecture from the early 1900’s.

While the downtown core was “modernized” with art deco buildings, vestiges of the earlier era remain. Most impressive is the Brown County Courthouse, opened in 1910.

Evidence of the impact of the Green Bay Packers is the presence of historical plaques around the downtown area, memorializing the history of the franchise in the city. The plaque outside the courthouse is no exception.

The other collection of historical buildings of note are the many churches clustered around the city center dating from the turn of the century.

And yes, even churches are no exception to the Packer mystic. The plaque outside the 1891 St. Willebrord Catholic Church leads with the Packer connection!

Southeast of the city center are a line of small hills, one of which is crowned by Heritage Hill State Historical Park, our next destination.

Heritage Hill State Historical Park
Heritage Hill is a living history museum that documents the history of northeastern Wisconsin in areas cascading down a gentle hillside individually devoted to agriculture, Fort Howard, community building and the early European settling. In each area people in period clothing explain details from the era as they explain the exhibits. Unfortunately I am here after the living history programs have closed for the season so most of the experience is missing. In addition, three school buses in the parking lot tell me that a quiet, contemplative exploration of history is probably not in my immediate future (I was right!). Buildings in the park are a combination of original structures and reproductions. Exiting from the entrance building (and ever-present gift shop) the view to the left is the agricultural section, to the right are hints of the community area.

The 1872 Belgian Farmhouse began as a log cabin with brick veneer later applied.

Farther down the hill is the reproduction of Fort Howard, designed to provide a view of the fort as it appeared in the 1830’s via a combination of original buildings and reproductions designed in the Federal style popular during that period.

The Guardhouse is original, built between 1833-1835.

Next to the Guardhouse is the fort hospital and across the parade ground is the company kitchen and the fort schoolhouse.

The hospital building, completed in 1835, is the largest building in the complex and contained wards for the ill, a meeting area and doctor’s offices.

One of the more detailed displays was the Dispensary where the medicines of the day were created and dispensed.

The community area contains several original buildings from early Green Bay including the 1835 Baird Law Office.

A highlight is the 1887 Franklin Hose Company, used by a volunteer fire department in Green Bay.

The bottom third of the park was being overrun by a mob of active elementary students. I passed on heading down there and walked back up the hill by the 1852 Moravian Church and the 1840 Cotton House.

My visit was interesting but would certainly be much more complete during the season when guides would have been present in the various areas to flesh out the physical presentation with the oral history accompanying each area. It’s time to go exploring some more…

Door County
Northeast of the city of Green Bay is the “claw of the crab” separating Green Bay from Lake Michigan. The Door Peninsula is a favorite retreat for vacationers from the metropolitan areas to the south. The micro-climate of the peninsula allows for famed cherry and apple orchards to blanket the rolling hills, recently joined by the growth of vineyards. The coast line on both sides is dotted with small fishing villages, now havens for tourists. The completion of the Sturgeon Bay Canal across the peninsula made the northern part of the peninsula an island with the only bridges connecting the two parts in the small city of Sturgeon Bay, still a working port. The drawbridge is up as I cross into the northern part of Door County so I have the chance to take a picture of the port to my left.

The main street of Sturgeon Bay is lined with buildings from the late 1800’s.

I receive my first hint that the strategy of heading out early on a Friday morning to beat the weekend traffic is not quite going to work The road is packed heading up the one and only highway into Door County. Just past Sturgeon Bay the highway splits and essentially I am going to drive a loop up the west side of the peninsula, across and down the east, then turning back and returning to Sturgeon Bay because that’s the only bridge across the waterway that cuts across the island. The first two villages are Egg Harbor and Fish Creek, both historical fishing ports that are now tourist towns. They are small, packed with visitors and have no place for the Lunch Box to park so I drive through, taking a few pictures out the window.

Egg Harbor and Fish Creek are the two most popular tourist destinations and the traffic thins a bit as I continue north to Ephraim, which curves along a small bay.

I pull into the marina parking lot to turn around and get a great shot looking south down the west side of Door Peninsula.

As I pass back through Ephraim I see one of the top curiosities of the town, A.J. Johnson’s Swedish Restaurant. The restaurant is topped with a real sod roof of growing grass. How does one mow a roof, you might ask? The answer is that you don’t. Instead you post a herd of goats on the roof. Not only will they keep the grass cropped, they’ll draw in crowds of tourists!

I cross the roughly 10 mile wide peninsula, passing orchards before gently dropping down to the small town of Baileys Harbor.

I head back to Sturgeon Bay, cross the canal and turn back towards the Lake Michigan side of the peninsula. The landscape begins to fill in with the northeastern edge of the famed Wisconsin dairy land.

At the base of the peninsula is the port town of Algoma, founded in 1834. By the late 1880’s Algoma was the largest fishing port on Lake Michigan but just as the fishing began to wane Algoma boomed with the arrival of the railroad in 1892. Several wood products factories were built in the town, taking advantage of its position between the vast forests of the interior of Wisconsin and a port on Lake Michigan.

Algoma, WI
Now a working town of approximately 3,000 people, Algoma is not as “trendy” a weekend destination as the villages of the upper Door Peninsula and also is not as dependent upon tourism as there are still several factories operating in town. Steele Street leads from Highway 57 down to the port and is lined with buildings constructed in the early 1900’s resulting from the wealth brought to the town by the impact of the arrival of the railroad.