Williams—The Passing of An Historic Waterway. 137 
must be made as to insure the return of the main stream to the nar¬ 
row channel. 26 Inasmuch as the Wisconsin was broad and shallow 
at low water, and as the wing-dams designed to narrow it were 
either quickly buried or destroyed, Major Warren advocated the 
building of a canal along the Wisconsin River, using the river itself 
for short distances. This would necessitate locking in and out of 
the river. He estimated the cost of the improvement of the Wis¬ 
consin alone at $4,000,000 and an additional $50,000 yearly for 
maintenance. 27 This large initial cost in conjunction with the de¬ 
crease in the use of canals in general caused the improvement of the 
Wisconsin River to be shelved. The government, however, did en¬ 
large and improve the locks on the Fox river, and now maintains 
navigation about 8 months of the year without toll charge. 
Up to this time about $4,000,000 has been expended on the 
waterway of which only $590,000 has been spent on the Wisconsin 
River. The average yearly cost of operation and care has been 
about $56,000, and since 1902 the yearly expense for operation has, 
with few exceptions, exceeded this average. 
After the opening of the canal, the major part of the traffic was 
on the Lower Fox from Green Bay to and on Lake Winnebago. 
Few records are found of boats of any size having made the con¬ 
tinuous passage from Green Bay to the Mississippi River. Men¬ 
tion has been made of the small steamer Aquila which made the 
trip in 1856 at high water. In the early 50’s, there were regular 
steamer routes for short distances along the Fox and six steamers 
were running between Green Bay and Kaukauna, one from Fond du 
Lac to Oshkosh and then up the Fox and Wolf Rivers to New Lon¬ 
don. During the sixties and the seventies, the decades in which 
the waterway was of most importance, steamboat building was ac¬ 
tive on the Fox and Wolf rivers. Over 60 boats were built between 
1844 and the present time, about 50 of which were constructed be¬ 
fore 1880. With the exception of coal barges and pleasure boats 
however the Fox River is of little use at this time. In recent years 
there have been approximately 800,000 tons of coal carried annu¬ 
ally, principally on the Lower Fox and Lake Winnebago. 28 
No regular lines of steamboats now run on the Lower Fox but two 
or three small steamers or power boats make more or less regular 
2« Warren, p. 92. 
27 Ibid, pp. 106, 114. 
28 Whitbeck, p. 35. 
