47-637: The Fox Cities of Northeastern Wisconsin are the cities, towns and villages along the Fox River as it flows from Lake Winnebago northward into Green Bay . The Fox Cities communities, as defined by its Chamber of Commerce and Convention and Visitors Bureau, include: Major points of interest include the Fox Cities Exhibition Center , Community First Champion Center , Fox Cities Performing Arts Center , High Cliff State Park , and Neuroscience Group Field at Fox Cities Stadium . The Fox River Mall
94-560: A National Estuarine Research Reserve . Among the wildlife in the Fox River Valley are birds such as mallard ducks and Canada geese , and fish such as walleye . Before the 1950s parts of the Fox River were used for recreational purposes. This only lasted for a short period of time as the water quality deteriorated, and the water was considered unhealthy. The Fox River region has been dominated by dairy farms that benefited from
141-458: A Jesuit school in Quebec as a child and focused on philosophical and religious studies, aiming for the priesthood. He also studied music, becoming a skilled harpsichordist and church organist. He received Holy Orders in 1662 but abandoned his plans to become a priest, leaving the seminary in 1667 to pursue fur trading instead. While Hernando de Soto was the first European to make official note of
188-710: A U.S. Superfund site, the Lower Fox River bottom has some sections contaminated with toxic chemicals. These contaminated sediments are the river's current environmental problem. One contaminant of special concern is a group of chemicals called Polychlorinated biphenyls or PCBs. The largest deposits of contaminated sediments are traceable to the local paper recycling mills. Beginning in the 1950s, many mills along to Fox River began producing and recycling carbonless copy paper . The Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources explains that carbonless copy paper caused PCB pollution in
235-586: A fort and maintained soldiers. In 1693, he was appointed "Royal Hydrographer", and on April 30, 1697, he was granted a seigneury southwest of Quebec City which he named Jolliest. In 1694, he sailed from the Gulf of St. Lawrence north along the coast of Labrador as far north as Zoar , a voyage of five and a half months. He recorded details of the country, navigation, the Inuit and their customs. His journal ("Journal de Louis Jolliet allant à la decouverte de Labrador, 1694,")
282-662: A member of the party of La Salle , it was also called the Kakaling River. Along the banks is a chain of cities and villages, including Oshkosh , Neenah , Menasha , Appleton , Little Chute , Kimberly , Combined Locks , and Kaukauna . Except for Oshkosh, located on the Upper Fox River near Lake Winnebago , these cities and villages identify as the Fox Cities . Farther north along the Lower Fox River, from its outlet from Lake Winnebago and before its mouth at Lake Michigan, are
329-578: A section of unpaved terrain that permits horseback riding. The Wiouwash State Trail runs concurrent with the Fox River from downtown Oshkosh to Lake Butte des Morts for about 4 miles (6 km). Fishing was a huge aspect of life on the water as many fisheries were set up along the river. This remained large for a short period of time but also was soon limited by water pollution and the depleted amount of fish. Restrictions were placed on how many and what kind of fish could be caught. The Fox River has produced multiple state records in fishing. Currently
376-473: A widespread effort to clean the Fox River. Dredging of the chemicals in the river began on April 28, 2009 and capping started soon after during the summer of 2009. The cleaning project concluded in 2020 and cost an estimated $ 1 billion. The Fox River will continue to be monitored by the Environmental Protection Agency and Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources for many years following
423-477: Is most tangible in the Midwestern United States and Quebec, mostly through geographical names, including the cities of Joliet, Illinois ; Joliet, Montana ; and Joliette , Quebec (founded by one of Jolliet's descendants, Barthélemy Joliette ). The several variations in the spelling of the name "Jolliet" reflect spelling that occurred at times when illiteracy or poor literacy was common and spelling
470-572: Is the earliest known detailed survey of the Labrador coast from the Strait of Belle Isle to Zoar. In May 1700, Louis Jolliet left for Anticosti Island in the Gulf of St. Lawrence . He then disappears from the historical record. There is no listing of his death or burial place, and the sole record of his fate is the notation that a mass for his soul was said in Quebec on September 15, 1700. Jolliet's main legacy
517-509: Is the largest shopping mall in the state at 1.2 million square feet. Area post-secondary schools include Fox Valley Technical College , Lawrence University , and the University of Wisconsin-Oshkosh, Fox Cities Campus . Bus transit for the area is provided by Valley Transit and commercial airline service is provided by Appleton International Airport . Major highway routes in the area include: Interstate 41 / U.S. Route 41 , which connects
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#1732845365915564-683: Is the translation of Rivière aux Renards (French for River of the Foxes ), given by explorers Louis Jolliet and Jacques Marquette because it went through the territory of the Meskwaki people, called Renards in French. In the Menominee language , the river is known as Meskwahkīw-Sīpiah , which means "Red Earth River". In the Ho-Chunk language (Winnebago, Hoocąk, Hocąk) , Fox River is known as Nionigera . According to
611-645: The Fox River to the site now known as Portage, Wisconsin . There, they portaged a distance of slightly less than two miles through marsh and oak forest to the Wisconsin River . Europeans eventually built a trading post at that shortest convenient portage between the Great Lakes and Mississippi River basins. On June 17, the canoeists ventured onto the Mississippi River near present-day Prairie du Chien, Wisconsin . The Jolliet-Marquette expedition paddled along
658-621: The Ile d'Orleans , an island in the Saint Lawrence River in Quebec that was home to First Nations . Jolliet spent much time on Ile d'Orleans, so he likely began speaking Indigenous languages of the Americas at a young age. Besides French , he also learned English and Spanish. During his childhood, Quebec was the center of the French fur trade . The Natives were part of daily life in Quebec, and Jolliet grew up knowing much about them. Jolliet entered
705-629: The Mississippi River . After flowing past Montello , the river goes northeast until reaching Lake Butte des Morts . Here it is joined by the tributary Wolf River before entering the west side of Lake Winnebago at Oshkosh . The Upper Fox flows for a total of 142 miles (229 km). The Lower Fox begins at the north end of Lake Winnebago, where it flows north past Neenah , Menasha , and Appleton as it begins its 40-mile (64 km) course northeast towards Lake Michigan. The river drops around 164 feet (50 m) over this short stretch. Prior to
752-695: The 2010 Census, the CSA had a population of 392,660 (2017 estimate: 406,540), making it the third largest CSA in Wisconsin, behind Milwaukee and Madison . Fox River (Green Bay tributary) The Fox River is a river in eastern Wisconsin in the Great Lakes region of the United States . It is the principal tributary of Green Bay , and via the Bay, the largest tributary of Lake Michigan . The city of Green Bay , one of
799-534: The City of Appleton and Neenah-Menasha Sewerage Commission. Several settlements ensured that the responsible parties paid for a large sum of the cleaning project costs and other restoration efforts. A settlement, reached in 2019, required that NCR Corporation, P.H. Glatfelter Company, and Georgia-Pacific Consumer Products LP cover the cost of all future cleaning efforts. Since the late 19th century, dredging of river bottom sediments has been done to allow large ships to enter
846-569: The Fox Cities with Green Bay and Milwaukee ; Wisconsin Highway 441 , known locally as the Tri-County Expressway, which is an auxiliary highway of Interstate 41 that serves as a beltway around Appleton; and U.S. Route 10 which travels east–west, connecting the Fox Cities with Stevens Point , Waupaca and Manitowoc , along with Interstate 39 and Wausau . Television and radio stations in
893-509: The Fox River a length of 182 miles (293 km). Counting the distance through Lake Winnebago gives a total of 200 miles (322 km). The river's name is the English translation of the French name for the Meskwaki people in the 17th century. The river was part of the famous 1673–74 expedition of Jolliet and Marquette , in which they went on to become the first Europeans to traverse the upper Mississippi River . A particular set of cities on
940-629: The Fox River and Lake Michigan. The federal government banned PCBs in 1979 due to their environmental threat to humans and other wildlife. The U.S. government and State of Wisconsin filed suit on October 14, 2010, against nine paper companies and two municipalities for their failure to pay for PCB cleanup actions. The companies named in the suit were NCR Corporation , Appleton Papers, CBC Coating, Kimberly-Clark , Menasha Corporation, NewPage Corporation , Glatfelter , U.S. Paper Mills ( Sonoco ) and WTM (Wisconsin Tissue Mills). The local agencies sued were
987-454: The Fox River area as early as 7000 BC. Prior to European settlement in the late 17th century, the shores of the Fox River and Green Bay were home to roughly half the estimated 25,000 Native Americans who lived in what is today Wisconsin. The first Europeans to reach the Fox were French , beginning with explorer Jean Nicolet in 1634. In 1673 explorers Jacques Marquette and Louis Joliet canoed up
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#17328453659151034-436: The Fox River flows roughly south to north and descends through a height equal to that of Niagara Falls . As such, the Fox River was an ideal location for constructing powerful sawmills that made the Fox River area famous for its paper industry. A negative side effect of this industrialization was the dumping of hazardous material byproducts of the paper mills. To repair the ecological damage from this toxic waste, there has been
1081-434: The Fox River. The contaminated sediment has been used since the 1960s to fill local wetlands, causing adverse effects on wildlife and plants. After 1978 it was used to develop an off-shore engineered holding area called Renard Isle , also known as Kidney Island. Renard Isle was capped in 2015 and its ownership was transferred to Brown County in 2017. There have been several proposed plans for the land, including turning it into
1128-493: The Fox-Wolf watershed drains an area of about 6,429 square miles (16,650 km ). The Fox had an average annual discharge of 5,200 ft /s (150 m /s) into Green Bay. The highest recorded flow on the Fox near its mouth was 33,800 ft /s (957 m /s) on June 3, 1990. Tributaries of the Fox River include East River, Fond du Lac River , Wolf River, White River, Mecan River, Grand River, and Montello River . The name
1175-472: The Lower Fox River is much cleaner than it was before 1972. However, according to other measures of pollution (e.g., phosphorus , estrogenic compounds, discarded pharmaceuticals ), the river waters are slightly more contaminated than before 1972. As a result, debate over the river's contamination continues between environmentalists, the paper industry, Indian tribes, and elected officials at the federal, state, and local levels. While not officially designated as
1222-404: The Lower Fox River that produce more than five million tons of paper per year and employ around 50,000 people. The principal cities located in this valley are Green Bay, Appleton, Neenah, Menasha, De Pere, and Kaukauna. Although Oshkosh is a major city in the chain, active production of paper products is no longer located there. In the section between Lake Winnebago and Green Bay at Lake Michigan,
1269-635: The Mississippi River by discovering its southern entrance in 1541, Jolliet and Marquette were the first to locate its upper reaches, and travel most of its length, about 130 years later. De Soto had named the river Rio del Espiritu Santo, but tribes along its length called it variations of "Mississippi", meaning "Great River" in the Algonquian languages . On May 17, 1673, Jolliet and Marquette departed from St. Ignace, Michigan , with two canoes and five other voyageurs of French-Indian ancestry. The group sailed to Green Bay . They then paddled upstream (southward) on
1316-546: The Mississippi River. During the French colonization of the Americas , this route was used frequently by fur traders . French-Canadian men who established homes on the Fox River married First Nation women, producing mixed-race descendants who were generally raised within the matrilineal cultures of their mothers and identified with the tribes. In Canada, the Metis of the Red River of
1363-710: The North are classified as a distinct ethnicity because of their shared culture. The Fox-Wisconsin Waterway's importance continued into the 1850s, when the Fox and Wisconsin Improvement Company built locks and dams on the Fox and the Portage Canal to connect it to the Wisconsin River at Portage. The company was hoping to establish Green Bay as a port city to rival Chicago by making the Fox-Wisconsin Waterway into
1410-527: The area, usually originating out of Green Bay , identify as serving "Green Bay/Fox Cities" to acknowledge both major population centers in the region (for stations licensed to Green Bay , that community must be mentioned first). The Fox Cities constitute a portion of the Appleton-Oshkosh-Neenah, WI Combined Statistical Area (CSA) , which also includes the City of Oshkosh and rural portions of Calumet , Outagamie and Winnebago Counties. As of
1457-469: The chief account of the journey. Jolliet married Claire-Françoise Byssot de la Valtrie. Like Jolliet, she was Canadian born, a daughter of Francois Byssot de la Riviere and his wife Marie Couillard. Claire Francoise was also a sister of Louise Byssot de la Valtrie, wife of Seraphin de Margane, Seigneur de la Valtrie. In 1680, Jolliet was granted the Island of Antwhere by Louis XIV as a reward, where he created
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1504-525: The cities of De Pere and Green Bay (located at the lake), and the villages of Ashwaubenon and Allouez ; although they are in the Fox River Valley, this grouping of cities and villages does not refer to themselves as Fox Cities. Since the recession of the glaciers that once covered much of Wisconsin , the Fox River has supported several Native American cultures, and has been important for its fisheries, waterfowl, wild rice , forests, and water. Archaeologists have claimed that indigenous peoples lived in
1551-572: The cleaning project's completion. The high concentration of paper mills and other industry along the Lower Fox has historically been the source of much pollution of the river. Public debate about this contamination began as early as 1923, but little was done to improve the river until the federal Clean Water Act was passed in 1972. Much effort has since been put into cleaning the Fox, but problems still exist. According to some measures of pollution (e.g. dissolved oxygen , pollution-tolerant worm counts),
1598-527: The construction of European-style dams after 1850, the river had many sizable rapids. The Lower Fox ends after flowing through the city of Green Bay and into Lake Michigan through Green Bay . The Fox River complex is one of only a few north-flowing river systems in North America east of the Mississippi River; the only other one is the Genesee River of Upstate New York and Pennsylvania . Altogether,
1645-406: The first European settlements in the interior of North America , is on the river at its mouth on lower Green Bay. Hydrographers divide the Fox into two distinct sections, the Upper Fox River, flowing from its headwaters in south-central Wisconsin northeasterly into Lake Winnebago , and the Lower Fox River, flowing from Lake Winnebago northeasterly to lower Green Bay. Together, the two sections give
1692-649: The first non-Natives to explore and map the Upper Mississippi River . Jolliet was born in 1645 in Beaupré , a French settlement near Quebec City , to Jean Jolliet and Marie D'Abancourt. When he was six years old, his father died; his mother married a successful merchant, Geoffroy Guillot dit Lavalle, until he died in 1665. Shortly after the passing of his mother's second husband, she was married to Martin Prevost until she died in 1678. Jolliet's stepfather owned land on
1739-516: The location of modern-day Chicago . Father Marquette stayed at the mission of St. Francis Xavier at the southern end of Green Bay, which they reached in August. Jolliet returned to Quebec to relate the news of their discoveries. On his way through the Lachine Rapids , Jolliet's canoe overturned and his records were lost. His brief narrative, written from memory, is in essential agreement with Marquette's,
1786-471: The lower Fox River identify themselves as the " Fox Cities ". The Upper Fox River begins as a small stream northeast of Pardeeville . It flows west by southwest towards Portage and comes within 2 miles (3 km) of the Wisconsin River before turning north. However, the Fox River and the Wisconsin River are connected via the Portage Canal , which was the first waterway between the Great Lakes and
1833-576: The mid-19th century, when Wisconsin was a leading producer of wheat , several flour mills were built along the river to harness its abundant water power. During the 1860s, as Wisconsin's wheat production declined, these flour mills were replaced by a growing number of paper mills , which processed the great amount of timber being harvested from the forests. The Lower Fox proved an ideal location for paper production, owing to its proximity to lumbering areas that could supply wood pulp to make paper. Several well-known paper companies were founded in cities along
1880-777: The mouth of the Illinois River , which friendly natives told them was a shorter route back to the Great Lakes. Following the Illinois river upstream, they then turned up its tributary the Des Plaines River near modern-day Joliet, Illinois . They then continued up the Des Plaines River and portaged their canoes and gear at the Chicago Portage . They then followed the Chicago River downstream until they reached Lake Michigan near
1927-453: The principal shipping route between Lake Michigan and the Mississippi River. This goal was never achieved, as the Upper Fox remained too shallow for significant shipping even after damming and dredging. In addition, the lakes that the narrow, winding stream flows through were frozen solid for five months every year. The Lower Fox was developed instead as a center of riverfront industry. During
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1974-424: The records for Striped bass , Shortnose gar and Northern hogsucker have all been caught in the river. Louis Jolliet Louis Jolliet ( French pronunciation: [lwi ʒɔljɛ] ; September 21, 1645 – after May 1700) was a French-Canadian explorer known for his discoveries in North America. In 1673, Jolliet and Jacques Marquette , a Jesuit Catholic priest and missionary , were
2021-471: The rich soil and plentiful water supply. The 25-mile (40 km) Fox River State Recreational Trail is part of the Brown County Park System. The trailhead is in the city of Green Bay where 7 miles (11 km) of paved trail follow the Fox River south through the city of De Pere . Biking, walking, jogging, and rollerblading are among the most popular activities on the trail. The trail also has
2068-482: The river as far as Portage. Here they made the short portage from the Fox to the Wisconsin River and then canoed on toward the Mississippi River . They established an important water route between the Great Lakes and the Mississippi River known as the Fox–Wisconsin Waterway . It was likely long used by Native Americans prior to European encounter, as they had extensive cross-country trading routes related to
2115-644: The river, including Kimberly-Clark , Northern Paper Mills (makers of Quilted Northern), and the Hoberg Paper Company (manufacturer of Charmin ). The Volcan Street Plant on the Fox river in Appleton was the first Edison hydroelectric station and one of the first in the world. It was put into service in 1882 within the building of the Appleton Paper and Pulp Company. The Lower Fox remains a major area for paper production . There are 24 paper and pulp mills along
2162-520: The west bank of the Mississippi until mid-July. When they passed the mouth of the Arkansas River , they became satisfied that they had established that the Mississippi flowed into the Gulf of Mexico. By this point, they had encountered natives carrying European goods and worried about a possible hostile encounter with explorers or colonists from Spain. The voyageurs then followed the Mississippi back to
2209-780: Was unstandardized. Jolliet's descendants live throughout eastern Canada and the United States. The Jolliet Squadron of cadets at the Royal Military College Saint-Jean in the Province of Quebec was named in Jolliet's honor. A street and subway station in Montreal, Quebec are named after him. The Louis Jolliet rose , developed by Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada , was named in his honor. Joliet Junior College in Joliet, Illinois,
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