Manitowoc County Courthouse on September 9, 2013
Manitowoc County was created in 1836 from unorganized land that had been part of the original Brown County. It is located in the northeastern part of Wisconsin along the Lake Michigan shore line. The name comes from the Ojibwe word “Mundeowk” meaning “home of the good spirit.” The county seat is the city of Manitowoc which is located at the mouth of the Manitowoc River. Just to the north is the city of Two Rivers; the two cities have pretty much grown together over the years. As you drive from one to the other on Highway 42 along the Lake Michigan shore, a road sign is the only indication of when you have left one and entered the other.
The city of Manitowoc’s origins go back to the 17th and 18th centuries when the fur trade was a major economic factor. A trading post was established in what is now the city of Manitowoc in 1795. The county government was established in Manitowoc in 1839 and the settlement became a village in 1851 and a city in 1870. In September 1962, the Soviet Union’s Sputnik 4 re-entered the atmosphere after a problem with its guidance system. A 20 pound piece of the satellite landed in Manitowoc, thankfully nobody was injured. Since 2008 and annual “Sputnikfest” is held at the art museum near where the chunk of Sputnik landed.
Manitowoc is also home to the Wisconsin Maritime Museum. Like many ports on the Great Lakes, Manitowoc has a long history of shipbuilding, and one of the featured attractions at the museum is the USS Cobia, a World War II era submarine. The Manitowoc Co. built 28 submarines during World War II.
Two Rivers is named after the East Twin River and the West Twin River which meet in the city and then flow into Lake Michigan. Two Rivers is the place where the ice cream sundae was invented in 1881.
The Manitowoc County courthouse is located at 1010 S. 8th Street in Manitowoc. It was built in 1906 and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. I visited on Monday September 9, 2013 on my way home from Door County. It was overcast but otherwise the weather cooperated and I was able to get some nice photos of the courthouse building, as well as some pictures of Manitowoc from the lake shore in Two Rivers.
I have a slight connection with Manitowoc County. One of my father’s college room-mates lived in Two Rivers with his family – he and his wife had three children. A couple of times a year during the 1960s, we would drive to Two Rivers for the day to visit them. My sisters and I would play with the kids (also two girls and a boy) and sometimes we would go to Neshotah Beach and swim in Lake Michigan. Usually we would just hang out at their house. Once or twice we went to their neighborhood swimming pool, so I think of Two Rivers not just as the place where the ice cream sundae was invented, but also as the place where I jumped off of a 3 meter diving board for the first time.