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 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 the Fox River a length of 182 miles (293 km).[1] Counting the distance through Lake Winnebago gives a total of 200 miles (322 km).[1]
The Fox River (Green Bay tributary) should not be confused with the
Fox River (Illinois River tributary) which also flows through Wisconsin having its origin starting at a point approximately 10 miles northwest of
Menomonee Falls, Wisconsin, and flowing through the cities of Waukesha, Mukwonago and Burlington, before flowing out of Wisconsin into Illinois. The Fox River (Illinois tributary) is the longer of the two rivers flowing from southeast Wisconsin and terminating in
Ottawa, Illinois where it joins the
Illinois River, for an estimated journey of 202 miles (325 km).[citation needed]
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 the lower Fox River identify themselves as the "Fox Cities".
Course
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 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).[1]
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)[1] course northeast towards Lake Michigan. The river drops around 164 feet (50 m) over this short stretch. Prior to 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.
Hydrology
Altogether, the Fox-Wolf
watershed drains an area of about 6,429 square miles (16,650 km2). The Fox had an average annual discharge of 5,200 ft3/s (150 m3/s) into Green Bay.[2] The highest recorded flow on the Fox near its mouth was 33,800 ft3/s (957 m3/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.
Name
The name 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".[3] In the
Ho-Chunk language (Winnebago, Hoocąk, Hocąk), Fox River is known as Nionigera.[4] According to a member of the party of
La Salle, it was also called the Kakaling River.[5]
Demographics
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 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.
History
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 the Fox River area as early as 7000 BC.[6]
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 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 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 the North are classified as a distinct ethnicity because of their shared culture.[6]
Industrial Revolution
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.[7] The company was hoping to establish Green Bay as a port city to rival
Chicago by making the Fox-Wisconsin Waterway into 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.[6]
The Lower Fox was developed instead as a center of riverfront industry.[7] During 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 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.
Paper industry
The Lower Fox remains a major area for
paper production. There are 24 paper and pulp mills along the Lower Fox River that produce more than five million tons of paper per year and employ around 50,000 people.[citation needed] 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.
Environmental issues
In the section between Lake Winnebago and Green Bay at Lake Michigan, 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 a widespread effort to clean the Fox River.[8] Dredging of the chemicals in the river began on April 28, 2009[9][10] and capping started soon after during the summer of 2009.[11] The cleaning project concluded in 2020 and cost an estimated $1 billion.[12] The Fox River will continue to be monitored by the
Environmental Protection Agency and
Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources for many years following the cleaning project's completion.[8]
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), 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 a U.S.
Superfund site, the Lower Fox River bottom has some sections contaminated with toxic chemicals. These
contaminatedsediments 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 the Fox River and Lake Michigan.[8] The federal government banned PCBs in 1979 due to their environmental threat to humans and other wildlife.[13]
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 the City of Appleton and Neenah-Menasha Sewerage Commission.[14][15] 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.[16]
Since the late 19th century, dredging of river bottom sediments has been done to allow large ships to enter 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.[17] There have been several proposed plans for the land, including turning it into a
National Estuarine Research Reserve.[18]
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.[6]
The Fox River region has been dominated by
dairy farms that benefited from the rich soil and plentiful water supply.
Recreation
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 a section of unpaved terrain that permits horseback riding.[19]
The
Wiouwash State Trail runs concurrent with the Fox River from downtown Oshkosh to Lake Butte des Morts for about 4 miles (6 km).[20]
Fishing
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[when?] 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.
Taken from the International Space Station on June 17, 2022; north is oriented to the left
References
^
abcdU.S. Geological Survey. National Hydrography Dataset high-resolution flowline data.
The National MapArchived 2012-03-29 at the
Wayback Machine, accessed December 19, 2011
^
abSchultz, Gwen M. (2004). Wisconsin's Foundations: A Review of the State's Geology and Its Influence on Geography and Human Activity, pp. 128-29. The University of Wisconsin Press.
ISBN0-299-19874-X.