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stormdogThe topic of my History of Urbanization term paper is the life and death of Pike Creek. Pike Creek was a watercourse that once ran through downtown Kenosha. It, and its commodious mouth, were the primary factor in the choice of the Western Emigration Company to choose the site to establish the village of Pike Creek in 1835, which became Southport, which became Kenosha. With a name like Pike Creek, I always thought of a somewhat unassuming body of water. A peaceful little brook.
Let me introduce you to Pike Creek in 1916.
For those who know Kenosha, or who feel like poking around southeastern Wisconsin in Google Earth, I'm pretty sure that is the sixth avenue bridge. In the background is the Allen Tannery complex, the largest tannery in the United States at the time.
But now, it's gone. Not just the tannery. The bridge, the creek, everything. The harbor just ends in front of Sixth Avenue, which now is a plain old road at the top of an embankment where you'd never guess a bridge used to be. The creek runs through an underground pipe that approximates its former route all the way up to Washington Park at 43rd Street, a distance of about three quarters of a mile.
This project has drawn me in further even than I expected. I knew, generally, the former course of Pike Creek and that it had been tunneled and buried. It's what sparked my interest in the project. Changing urban spaces are central to what I went back to school for in the first place. But I had no idea that the transformation of this landscape was of such enormous scope or such totality. Yet now, it seems that few people in Kenosha have any idea Pike Creek was ever there, let alone that it was a primary motivator for the city's placement that figured prominently enough to be the community's namesake.
I wish I had the time to research this as fully as it deserves. I think there might be a book in it. But historical research is *so* time intensive, and the sources on this are so hard to come by!
Let me introduce you to Pike Creek in 1916.
For those who know Kenosha, or who feel like poking around southeastern Wisconsin in Google Earth, I'm pretty sure that is the sixth avenue bridge. In the background is the Allen Tannery complex, the largest tannery in the United States at the time.
But now, it's gone. Not just the tannery. The bridge, the creek, everything. The harbor just ends in front of Sixth Avenue, which now is a plain old road at the top of an embankment where you'd never guess a bridge used to be. The creek runs through an underground pipe that approximates its former route all the way up to Washington Park at 43rd Street, a distance of about three quarters of a mile.
This project has drawn me in further even than I expected. I knew, generally, the former course of Pike Creek and that it had been tunneled and buried. It's what sparked my interest in the project. Changing urban spaces are central to what I went back to school for in the first place. But I had no idea that the transformation of this landscape was of such enormous scope or such totality. Yet now, it seems that few people in Kenosha have any idea Pike Creek was ever there, let alone that it was a primary motivator for the city's placement that figured prominently enough to be the community's namesake.
I wish I had the time to research this as fully as it deserves. I think there might be a book in it. But historical research is *so* time intensive, and the sources on this are so hard to come by!
