Early Port of Milwaukee Multi-Cache
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This is a multicache that will take you to two places that tell the story of Milwaukee as an early port city. There is a distance of approximately 0.75 miles from beginning to end along paved paths and city streets. It makes a nice walk through Milwaukee or can be accomplished via moped or car. The final is a micro- so please bring a pen!
The coordinates for the first leg are:
43° 02.210' N
087° 53.830' W
Near this location was located the very first cargo pier in Milwaukee harbor, built in 1842-43. The pier measured 1200 feet long and served as a location for vessels too large to enter the original mouth of the Milwaukee River to dock and unload passengers and cargo until it was destroyed by wind and waves in 1846. The natural mouth of the Milwaukee River was located 3,000 feet to the south of the current harbor entrance and was generally too shallow and narrow for larger vessels to enter the harbor. The first survey of Milwaukee's harbor was conducted in 1836, and a plan to create a more sufficient artificial entrance to the harbor was proposed at that time. Despite this, it was not until 1866 that work on the "straight cut" was ultimately began. Though attempts were made to improve the original river mouth with dredging, it was piers such as the one that allowed Milwaukee to continue to grow as a major port before harbor improvements could be made.
Use information from the Historic Marker to decipher the location of the final cache.
Milwaukee's East side was also known as = Ju_ _ _ _town
2 3 4 5
AE° 0N.116' N
087° UA.U77' W
You are now standing at what used to be the Goodrich Company docks at Milwaukee. Established in Wisconsin in 1856, the Goodrich Steamboat Line made significant contributions to the Great Lakes shipbuilding industry. As the oldest steamship company on Lake Michigan, the Goodrich Transit Company operated throughout the height of the passenger/packet freight service on the Great Lakes. Most of the Goodrich vessels were built with overnight passengers in mind, with comfortable staterooms for customers. It was an early and well- known carrier of passengers and freight as lake travel transitioned from sail to rail. Before roadways and railways were developed throughout the region, the passenger/packet service on the Lakes was the most efficient way to travel. Passenger/packet steamers were the life-blood of many Great Lakes communities. Transporting not only passengers across the lakes, packet steamers carried any variety of merchandise needed for developing cities and towns across Lake Michigan. In the mid to late 1800's, this location was a busy and important gateway for goods and passengers into Milwaukee and the rest of Wisconsin.
This cache was placed as a partnership Wisconsin Historical Society, with the Wisconsin Maritime Museum, and Milwaukee County Parks through the National Park Service's Maritime Heritage Grant. A Geocache Placement Notification Form has been submitted to Milwaukee County Parks. We hope you enjoyed learning about the early port of Milwaukee. To learn more about Wisconsin's maritime heritage please visit our other geocaches in the Milwaukee area and throughout the state, or visit wisconsinshipwrecks.org and maritimetrails.org!
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Treasures
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