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Wisconsin History Spot: An act to incorporate the village of West De Pere

DE PERE – A long time ago, on the banks of the Fox River at Rapides des Peres, two communities wrangled for an economic stronghold against a neighbor on the opposite shore.

Dr. Louis Carabin attended the first meeting of the Green Bay city council on May 6, 1854, at the town hall.

Along with John P. Arndt, Frederick A. Lathrop, and Charles Leclaire, Carabin was an alderman from “the South ward.”

At that meeting, W.C.E. Thomas beat out D. Agry and Baron S. Doty to become Green Bay’s first mayor.

In 1857, Carabin platted the community of West De Pere, where he and Dr. George Armstrong had established Brown

County’s first brick kiln in 1855. That same year, De Pere incorporated as a village.

From then on, a fierce rivalry existed between the communities situated across the Fox River from each other.

Approved March 16, 1870, and published March 25, in the Wisconsin State Journal, “An Act to incorporate the village of West Depere,” contained the legalese of the newly-established village, by then “the leading manufacturing center of Northeastern Wisconsin,” outstripping De Pere and Green Bay in commercial growth.

The government of the village, the “exercise of its corporate powers, and the management of its fiscal, prudential, and municipal concerns,” would be vested in the village president and six trustees.

Elected positions included two constables, one or more assessors, and two justices of the peace.

All parties must be at least 21 years old, a U.S. citizen, and a village resident for at least one year.

Only those people (i.e., white men) who had resided in the village at least three months before the election date and were otherwise qualified could vote.

Andrew Reid was one of the area’s early mill men, associated with James and Robert Richie who built a steam sawmill at the west end of the De Pere bridge in 1851.

When area timber was exhausted, the Ritchies relocated to Ashland and Reid converted the business to a sash, door and blind factory.

Reid joined the Brown County Board in 1854, and was elected to chairmanship. Reid Street was named for him.

The first election of West De Pere village officers was held at Andrew Reid’s office, which also served as the town office.

One moderator, one inspector and one clerk received and counted the votes. Ballots were one slip of paper handwritten or typed.

Excepting the president and trustees, all elected officers were required to “give bonds, take and subscribe an oath to support the constitution of the United States and of the state of Wisconsin, and to faithfully perform the duties of their respective offices.”

In addition to other duties, the village president was the head of police, responsible for maintaining “peace and good order,” for suppressing “riots and other public disturbances,” and for appointing “as many constables as he may deem proper.”

The trustees were empowered “to preserve order and propriety [and] to punish in a summary manner, by fine or imprisonment, all disorderly or disrespectful conduct in its presence.”

Numerous general and specific powers were given to the trustees, including licensing and regulating any person or place “dealing in spirituous or intoxicating liquors;” restraining and prohibiting all “games of chance for gain;” preventing “riots, noise, disturbances or disorderly assemblies;” managing all slaughter houses and markets; preventing “horse racing or immoderate driving or riding in the streets;” restraining “the running at large of cattle, swine, horses, sheep, geese and poultry” and dogs; regulating the burial of the dead; procuring “fire
engines, buckets, hooks and ladder and other implements for extinguishing fires;” keeping horses or other animals off village sidewalks; restraining “drunkards or immoderate drinking, or obscenity in the streets or any public places” and arresting, removing and punishing anyone found guilty of same; and preventing the deposit of “any dead carcass or filth of any kind” within the village waters.

The trustees had the power to appoint and fire “at their pleasure” one village marshal, street commissioners, one fire chief warden, and “as many assistants as may be deemed necessary,” and to “inflict fines and penalties for any malfeasance in office.”

The trustees also had the power to “tax each male person who, by law of the state, is subject to perform highway work or labor, not to exceed two days labor on the streets of said village,” each male person having the right to pay “at the rate of one dollar per day for every day he may be bound to labor,” instead of working.

Anyone refusing to work or pay to escape work could be sued with 15 percent damages added, together with costs of suit.

In 1883, the City of De Pere was incorporated and the Village of West De Pere incorporated as the City of Nicolet; in 1887 the name was changed to the City of West De Pere.

Discussions to consolidate De Pere and West De Pere were already in the works when, on April 20, 1889, a fire wiped out West De Pere’s Meiswinkel Wooden Ware just a couple of weeks after German immigrant Richard A. Meiswinkel had been elected mayor of West De Pere.

His factory produced “over a million fish barrels, kegs, lard pails, butter tubs and similar articles a year,” and provided more than 300 jobs to the community of about 2,100 people.

Losses far exceeded insurance coverage, and Meiswinkel did not rebuild, a crippling economic setback for West De Pere.

Electors in both cities voted to consolidate in November 1889, and the act was approved by the legislature in 1890.

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