Wisconsin

1862 map showing the Fox River navigation and other waterways in Wisconsin.
The waterways of Wisonsin taken from the Inland Waterways of North America by David Edwards-May.

Canal History

The waterways and navigations of Wisconsin serve to connect the state’s many lakes and rivers.

The Fox-Wisconsin Waterway was a 280-mile-long system of canalized river sections and lakes that served to connect Green Bay on Lake Michigan to Prairie du Chien on the Mississippi River. These two rivers, the Fox and the Wisconsin, created a natural water route across the state for the Native People and early European explorers. The movement to improvement of the rivers began in 1829 but was not completed until 1851. The route was in use up through 1959.

The navigation was in direct competition with the Illinois and Michigan Canal which basically served to connect the same two destinations, Lake Michigan and the Mississippi River.

While the Fox-Wisconsin Waterway is no longer operational, the 39-mile-long Fox River lock system of 17 locks continues to operate the locks along the Fox River. This allows traffic to pass between Green Bay and lake Winnebago, although one of the locks has been closed to stop the spread of invasive species through the river.

The upper Mississippi River system of locks, dams and dredged channel flows along the western border of the state. The US Army Corps of Engineers maintains the upper reaches of navigation that connects Minneapolis to the Gulf of Mexico.

Other navigations, such as the Yahara River system near Madison help to connect lakes for the enjoyment of recreational boaters.

Canal Groups and Organizations

Major Repositories and Archives

Canal Index Pages

The “canal index” project is an on-going project of the ACS to document canal sites. Most of the information is from the 1970-1990 time period, however new pages are being added. Feel free to contribute to this project by submitting a form.

Note: Canals in blue and underlined have index sheets which are accessible by double clicking on the hyperlink.  Canals listed in green below do not yet have index sheets.  They are listed here to make the list more complete.  It is intended to add index sheets for them in the future.

Please note that many of these are the actual pages done in the early 1970s.  Changes have occurred since and there are some inaccuracies in the information on the pages.

Revised 08/22/2019