City of Marinette Revenue and Competitors

In the early 1820’s Farnsworth and his Native American common-law wife, Queen Marinette, after whom the city is said to have taken its name, operated the trading business from the log post for several years. Farnsworth associated with Charles Brush in a business venture, which marked the beginning of a new industry that would dominate the Menominee River Basin for the next fifty years. In 1832, the partners erected a water-powered sawmill at the foot of today’s North Raymond Street. In 1856, the New York Lumber Company built a steam-powered sawmill at Menekaunee. In 1853, the population was 478; by 1860 the number of people in the growing community had reached 3,059. Isaac Stephenson arrived in Marinette in 1858, became a town supervisor, county board chairman, justice of the peace, member of the state legislature, a U.S. Senator, publisher of the Milwaukee Free Press, instigated the construction of the Sturgeon Bay Ship Canal, and owned an iron mine. He doneated the Stephenson Public Library to the city, build the Stephenson Block, the Lauerman Brothers Department Store and founded the Stephenson National Bank. Marinette was incorporated in 1887, and by 1900, was the tenth largest city in Wisconsin.