You Get Service OUT Because We Build It IN

 

Featured today are a couple of 1920 print ads for the Uncle Sam tractor, built in Menasha at its facility at 344 Sixth Street.  The first ad targets farmers and the second ad targets dealers in farm machinery and implements.  We first met US Tractor last year:  http://menashabook.blogspot.com/2014/04/us-tractor-company.html and http://menashabook.blogspot.com/2014/01/the-harris-six.html when we discussed how its demise led to a brief year or so of auto manufacturing.  Eventually, the US Tractor property, by 1931, fell under the auspices of Wisconsin Container Corporation.

Service in Printing

This ad from the 1920 City Directory provides a nice photo of Banta's modern Ahnaip Street plant on Doty Island.  Having moved from downtown's Main Street the decade before, Banta continued to tout itself as "The Collegiate Press" in its advertising, capitalizing on its sterling reputation as a fine publisher of annuals and other publications related to colleges and Greek life.

The Bradleys

The back of this photo states the subjects as George W. Bradley and his daughter, Inez Olive Bradley. Mr. Bradley was better known as G.W. Bradley, a prominent photographer in Menasha for many years and a justice of the peace.  Inez Bradley graduated from Menasha High in 1897 and went on to become a telegrapher in Oshkosh.  She married James Gibb Currie on June 27, 1905 and they moved to Grand Rapids, Michigan.  She lived to be 88, passing away in 1966. 

More on James Island

November 28, 1959 Appleton Post-Crescent

 

Many thanks to those who comment on the blog posts, to include Suzanne Winz who clued me in to the above article.  I apologize for the right side being cut off but there's enough there to make sense of it all.  Lots of good factual info, to include the old wooden bridge that once extended across LLBDM. 

At the Narrows

a 1887 rendering of a placid scene on Little Lake Butte des Morts

 

I'll admit that I know nothing about boating and water and navigation.  And, I have no idea where the "narrows" are in relation to Menasha.  But while I like this illustration, the hills in the background seem pretty high for the area.  Plus, with the passing steamboat, won't the fishermen in the rowboat be a rockin' quite soon? 

James Island

While seldom talked about, sitting at the mouth of the Menasha channel of the Fox River where it meets Little Lake Butte des Morts, is James Island. It's 1.81 acres remain a heavily forested piece of wilderness.  The island was once considered as a candidate for a nature preserve.  For whatever reason, the state's Bureau of Land Management once had its eye on the property in the late 1970s and threatened to take control but Menasha eventually won out. 

West Menasha Station

This map shows the location of a depot in "West Menasha" which was, at the time, a name for what later became the Town of Menasha.  You can see that the Wisconsin Central shared track with the Chicago & NorthWestern until it made it across the lake.

 

Note:  In reference to last week's post about Lake Street (seen above in this map, also), I may have been out of line in implying the street was some "fanciful" representation by a far-away mapmaker.  A reader pointed out numerous maps to me, (to include the famous Sanborn fire insurance maps) dating from the city's earliest days until about 1913/1920 which show this mysterious Lake Street.  And this is not be confused with the present-day Lake Street which is just north of Fourth between Tayco Street and LLBDM.  My apologies for dismissing this so easily.