Fox-Wisconsin Waterway
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The Fox-Wisconsin Waterway is a waterway formed by the Fox and Wisconsin Rivers. First used by white men in 1673 during the expedition of Marquette & Joliet, it was one of the principal routes used by travelers moving between the Great Lakes and the Mississippi River until the completion of the Illinois and Michigan Canal in 1848. The Fox-Wisconsin Waterway was traveled by taking a small boat or canoe into Green Bay and entering the Fox River, following it through Lake Winnebago and continuing on the Fox until reaching Portage, Wisconsin, where the travelers would carry their boats and supplies a few miles west and resume boating on the Wisconsin River, continuing upon it until reaching the Mississippi at Prairie du Chien, Wisconsin.
The waterway was improved with a small canal, the Portage Canal, between the Fox and Wisconsin Rivers. Locks were not completed until 1876, at which point the move from canals to railroads was in full swing. Later development on the waterway introduced barriers to navigation, such as the dam at Prarie do Sac. Use of the waterway slowly died out, and the canal was closed in 1951. The lock system on the lower Fox River, from Lake Winnebago to Green Bay, was closed in 1983 to prevent the upstream spread of invasive species such as the lamprey. The Fox-Wisconsin is no longer used as a transportation route between the Mississippi River and the Great Lakes.
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