Online Encyclopedia

PORTAGE

Online Encyclopedia
Originally appearing in Volume V22, Page 110 of the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica.
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PORTAGE  , a

city and the county-seat of
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Columbia county, Wisconsin, U.S.A., on the Wisconsin
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river, about 85 m . N.W. of
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Milwaukee . Pop . (189o) 5143; (1900) 5459, of whom 1184 were
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foreign-born; (1910 U.S. census) S440 . It is served by the Chicago, Milwaukee & St IJaul, and the Minneapolis, St Paul & Sault Ste
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Marie
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railways . The city is situated at the west end of the government
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ship canal connecting the Fox and Wisconsin rivers, and river steamboats ply during the open season between Portage and Green
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Bay and intermediate points in the Fox River Valley, Portage being the head of navigation on the Fox . Portage is in the midst of a fertile farming region, and has a trade in
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farm and
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dairy products and
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tobacco . Its manufactures include brick, tile,
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lumber,
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flour, pickles, knit goods, steel tanks and marine engines and launches, and there are several tobacco warehouses and grain elevators . As the Fox and Wisconsin rivers are here only 2 m. apart, these rivers were the early means of communication between Lake Michigan and the
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Mississippi river . The first Europeans known to have visited the site of the city were Radisson and Groseilliers, who crossed the portage in 1655 . The portage was used by Marquette and
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Joliet on their way to the Mississippi in 1673, and a PORTALIS red granite monument commemorates their passage . About 1712 the Fox Indians disputed the passage of the portage, precipitating hostilities which continued intermittently until 1743 .

The first settler was

Lawrence Barth, who engaged in the carrying trade here in 1793 . Jacques Vieau established a trading
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post here in 1797, and by 182o it was a thriving depot of the fur trade . During the Red
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Bird uprising (1827) a temporary military post was established by Major William Whistler of the U.S. army . Fort
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Winnebago was begun in the following
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year, was remodelled and completed by Lieut . Jefferson Davis in 1832, and was subsequently abandoned . It was from there in the same year that the final and successful
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campaign against Black Hawk was begun . After several failures the Fox-Wisconsin canal was completed in 1856, and in
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June of that year the " Aquila," a stern-wheeler, passed through the canal on its way from Pittsburg to Green Bay . The shifting channel of the Wisconsin has retarded navigation, and the canal has never been as important commercially as was expected .

End of Article: PORTAGE
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