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bjbjU Moss: This is xe "Moss, Len" Len Moss from Glidden Drive. Today I m sitting with
a good friend and neighbor, xe "Brogan, John" John Brogan. John has an interesting background,
both in the world of finance and banking, and also as a man who had a vision about xe
"Glidden Drive" Glidden Drive and saw it through. We re sitting today on John s property on
Glidden Drive and we re going to ask John if he could brief us a little on early history
of this beautiful peninsula and especially this area here, along Glidden Drive and down
to xe "Portage Point" Portage Point. John, who was here originally? Brogan: Well, Len,
briefly the history of this area starts with the first presence of western man, xe "Father
Marquette" Father Marquette and xe "Nicolet, Jean" Jean Nicolet. They came through here
in 1672 and used the Portage Point area, where the xe "Indians" Indians would portage from
the lake to the bay which is now right next to the xe "Coast Guard Station" Coast Guard
station; the canal. They were exploring the area for the French who had established their
presence in what we now know as Canada they called it xe "New France" New France at the
time. Then this land changed governance from France to England after the xe "French and
Indian War" French and Indian War in 1757. Then, shortly after that the xe "Revolutionary
War" Revolutionary War this land became part of the United States under the xe "Northwest
Ordinance" Northwest Ordinance which was appended to the xe "Treaty of Paris" Treaty of Paris,
where we got our independence from England. The French convinced the Brits, and the Brits
convinced xe "Adams, Franklin" Franklin Adams, that they ought to maintain navigation that
the water should be forever be free because the French sold the Brits on the idea that
the only thing that was out here was fur, and the canoers and voyagers had to get free
access, so you couldn t have ownership by property owners of sections of lakes and streams
fenced off. Moss: John, where was the American native at this time? Brogan: American natives
were the xe "Winnebago" Winnebago, now called the xe "Ho-Chunk" Ho-Chunk, and the xe "Potowatami"
Potowatami, for which a state park is named. Transient natives would come out for the fishing
season to Whitefish Bay, camp and catch whitefish in primitive wooden twig nets and traps. They
would dry them for the winter and then move on. There s still a burial ground up in the
Park. In 1848, xe "Wisconsin" Wisconsin was the last of the five states to go from territorial
status to statehood: xe "Ohio" Ohio, xe "Michigan" Michigan, xe "Indiana" Indiana, xe "Illinois"
Illinois and Wisconsin. In the treaty from xe "England" England, and the 13 original
colonies were given this area south of the xe "Great Lakes" Great Lakes, north of the
xe "Ohio River" Ohio, west of the xe "Allegheny Mountains" Allegheny Mountains, and east of
the xe "Mississippi River" Mississippi River. The first American presence was xe "fur trading"
fur trading. xe "Astor, John Jacob" John Jacob Astor had a trading post in xe "Green Bay"
Green Bay and Green Bay was a first settlement in the xe "Wisconsin Territory" Wisconsin
Territory. When we became a state, Wisconsin was 35 million acres, and in the 1820s and
30s, there were a series of treaties with the woodland Indians. Five million acres went
to them, and around 20 million acres was government land. It gave 10 million acres to the State
of Wisconsin so that they would sell it for internal improvements, roads, etc. They retained
20 million acres which the federal government sold, and gave as patents for services rendered.
So a lot of the land up here in Door County was relatively infertile. A lot of it was
given to xe "Civil War veterans" Civil War veterans. Door County had some pines not a
lot, but it had some pineries and so you had Whitefish Bay, with sand, and xe "Sherman
Bay" Sherman Bay, with sand, and that would support pines. The shallower soil wouldn t
support white pines. In the middle of the Nineteenth Century the commercial efforts
were at logging and fishing. By the 1820s fur was trapped out. Moss: Was it fish that
was transported out of this area? Where would they send it, down to xe "Chicago" Chicago?
Brogan: The fish, and almost all of transportation was by boat. And so you had big lumber docks
built in many of these villages along the lake and the bay. I think there was a thousand,
fifteen hundred foot long dock that was built out in xe "Jacksonport" Jacksonport. You can
still see the timbers. Moss: When did farming get underway? Brogan: After the Civil War. But it was pretty
primitive stuff. There s only 18 inches average topsoil, so it wasn t very prosperous. North
of Sturgeon Bay it was German and Norwegian. The xe "Mennonites" Mennonites settled Ephraim;
south of Sturgeon Bay where the soil got deeper were the xe "Belgians" Belgians. They came
over for the same reason the xe "Irish" Irish did; they had a famine in the 1840s. The first
settlers before the migrations were xe "Yankees" Yankees. The early governors in Wisconsin
all came from New England. The early xe "German immigrants" German immigrants came to Milwaukee
and Manitowoc and spread out and farmed eastern and southern Wisconsin. The later immigrants
were the xe "Swedes" Swedes, the xe "Danes" Danes and the xe "Norwegians" Norwegians and
they settled more in western Wisconsin and xe "Minnesota" Minnesota. But out here, one
resource they had was several: fishing and timber and very minimal subsistence farming.
The big event for this area was the xe "Chicago Fire of 1871" Chicago fire of 1872. The fire caused a tremendous
demand for lumber resources, so they cut everything they could cut to ship to Chicago, particularly
pine, in lower Michigan and eastern Wisconsin. The xe "Peshtigo fire" Peshtigo fire happened
at the same time far more extensive damage in fact, the Peshtigo fire blew burning ashes
from Peshtigo on the west side of the bay all the way over here and caused some blackening
in xe "Brussels" Brussels. So that was another impetus for logging, and that logging sporadically
went on, even with the hardwoods for the paper mills that were developing in the xe "Fox
Valley" Valley. By the turn of the century, these areas were pretty well all logged off.
What you had left is this relatively remote geographic area that ended at the tip of the
peninsula and was on the way to nowhere. My grandfather, a contractor in Green Bay, built
part of the road system that became state highway 57. But in the early 1920s the way
to get here was to go from Green Bay to xe "Algoma" Algoma first. Moss: Now, John, when
did the xe "trains" trains run up through and into this area? Brogan: The trains ran
up here in a kind of a stub connection of the xe "Green Bay & Western" Green Bay & Western.
It was the xe "Ahnapee & Western" Ahnapee & Western and it came up the xe "Ahnapee River"
Ahnapee River from Algoma and serviced Sturgeon Bay, it never went further, it never went
through, cause it was on the way to no place, and so it just ended there. And it s my understanding
that there was minimal or limited passenger service at all. Northern Wisconsin developed
considerably at the time, because the rail system was much more extensive. They were built to
take the timber out, and that was big timber; it took them 40 years to clearcut the northern
part of the state. Moss: Let s fast-forward into a kind of a personal recollection of
your own. As a youngster, were you vacationing up here, did your family have a place up here?
Brogan: My father had a 20% interest in the xe "Smith shipyards" Smith shipyards in Sturgeon
Bay, in 1939. He had a cottage with his partner xe "Leathem Smith" Leathem Smith on xe "Portage
Point" Portage Point, now on xe "Lake Forest Park Drive" Lake Forest Park Drive, near the
modern xe "Coast Guard Station" Coast Guard station. Our home was Green Bay but I got to know this area as a very young boy
and during xe "World War II" World War II, when most of these roads, including Glidden
Drive, were all just gravel, and there was no power. The power on xe "Glidden Drive"
Glidden Drive was only built to xe "Goldenrod Lane" Goldenrod Lane, about 3 miles from the
south end of Glidden. And there was no power down on Lake Forest Park; electrical service
wasn t brought out yet because of the copper shortage in World War II. Moss: Was the same
true of the other side of the peninsula? Brogan: No, the other side was always more highly
developed and popular because the farming was a bit better over there and those little
bayside communities existed as group clusterings of people and so forth. Out here it was always
pretty lonely. Moss: When did the xe "Glidden Lodge" Glidden Lodge appear on the scene? Brogan: Ewald Schmock worked for
his older brothers at the xe "Schmock Ice and Coal Company" Schmock Ice and Coal Company
in xe "Michigan City, Indiana" Michigan City, Indiana, and they came to Door County working
for xe "Glidden, Orrin" Orrin Glidden to build the roads through this area. Orrin Glidden
was a most interesting fellow. He did very well with investments in the early 20s and then he partnered with one of the
country s largest scalawags, xe "Insul, Sam" Sam Insul, who had a rather checkered career.
Sam was the utility king and he promoted a railroad called the xe "South Shore Railroad"
South Shore Railroad from downtown xe "Chicago" Chicago to xe "South Bend, Indiana" South
Bend. The bondholders and stockholders kept losing money, but Sam made a lot of it by
promoting and getting land grants from the Illinois legislature in the 20s. According
to the story I heard from the Schmocks, Glidden went to Insul and said, ve got some Indiana
sand dune land. Let s develop it to the burgeoning middle class in Chicago and they can get to
their weekend house by just an hour s ride on the South Shore Railroad. Sure enough,
it was very profitable. They platted places in xe "Long Beach, Indiana" Long Beach, Indiana,
that still exist today in the national park. They found out, that unless you allow easy
access to the water from the inland lots, the non-shore lots develop into trailer trash.
So that s why Glidden Drive has these shore accesses and so many 60-foot wide lots. Moss:
How did Ewald end
up with this stretch of land? Brogan: Glidden came up here with Insul in the mid to later
20s, and they developed xe "Point Beach" Point Beach in Egg Harbor, around the xe "Alpine"
Alpine. They bought and sold xe "Chambers Island" Chambers Island. They had this idea
that would be an elegant place for the yachting community! Then he hired xe "Klatt, Mr." Mr.
Klatt, a Chicago attorney, and they took options on all of this property. Essentially, Glidden
optioned or bought everything from xe "County Road T" County Road T at the south end of
Glidden Drive near xe "Wester s Fish House" Wester s Fish House all the way to xe "Schauer
Park" Schauer Park in the Town of xe "Jacksonport" Jacksonport, with the exception of the few
families who were xe "Whitefish Bay fishermen" Whitefish Bay fishermen. This was 9,000 acres,
over 10 miles of shorefront, and included xe "Clark Lake" Clark s Lake. And they had
this idea that they were going to have a little private airport and other developments. But
this is 28, 29, 30. Glidden platted out the southern part of what is now Glidden Drive,
but he owned all this property. He hired the Schmocks who had put the roads in for him
down in Indiana to come up here and lend a hand. xe "Schmock, Ewald" Ewald was the younger
of several brothers, and with his German wife, xe "Schmock, Babette" Babette, arrived in
the 30s. They built the road from where the Fish House is to Whitefish Bay and beyond,
past xe "Cave Point" Cave Point and up to Schauer Park. Moss: And now through Bark Road?
Brogan: xe "Bark Road" Bark Road was there already. Glidden didn t own it; it belonged
to the fishermen: the xe "Ellies" Ellies, the xe "Lauschers" Lauschers. The trick in
real estate is not how much you pay for it, or how cheap you buy it, or how much you sell
it for, it s how quick you sell it at some profit after you buy it, it s the velocity
of the thing. And so, in the Depression, Glidden had financial reverses, he was busted, he
couldn t pay his creditors, and he couldn t pay the Schmocks. In the meantime, the Schmocks,
as contractors would do at the time, whenever there were remote areas, they would have crews
that they would board and feed. They had a camp at xe "Shivering Sands" Shivering Sands
Creek. Even though they weren t getting paid, there wasn t much business back in Indiana
either, so Ewald and Babette stayed here as agent for his brothers. Glidden passed away
in the mid-30s, leaving behind all these claims against his assets. The probate judge made
a determination that half of this 9,000 acres was enough to settle the Schmock s claims.
And so the judge asked the xe "Schmock Brothers" Schmock brothers, Which half do you want?
And the Schmocks said, ll take the half that goes from Whitefish Bay to the south end and
back to the woods and timber, because the roads generally stayed there. The roads they
built up in the dunes were prone to getting washed away from sand movement. So the judge
then awarded the Schmock brothers the Glidden Drive shore and inland areas, back to the
farmland. The north half of Glidden s holdings, including Cave Point, Clark Lake, and what
eventually became xe "Whitefish Dunes State Park" Whitefish Dunes State Park was bought
by some investors from Green Bay. My dad and Ewald were friends. In 1956, Ewald s brothers
were on in years; he was suffering from multiple sclerosis, and in a wheelchair. A xe "Minihan,
Doctor" Doctor Minihan used to vacation up here and encouraged Ewald to come and borrow the money from the xe "People
s Bank of Green Bay" People s Bank of Green Bay to build the Lodge, and take advantage
of Babette s good German cooking. Since Ewald was not yet owner of the land, he arranged
to get some property from his brothers for the Lodge site, but all the remaining vacant
land was still owned by the xe "Schmock Brothers Ice and Coal" Schmock Brothers Ice and Coal.
In 56, (Ewald told me) they said, We want to straighten out our affairs here, and will
you buy it? And Ewald said, Well, fine, and he paid them $50,000 because Ewald was in
a wheelchair, and hadn t sold a lot of lots; he sold some lots in the 30s and 40s, but
he hadn t been very aggressive in selling the property. And so he went to the bank,
borrowed $50,000 and paid his brothers off, and quickly got very aggressive in selling
real estate. Ewald went to my dad, but dad didn t buy it, and died in 59. I came back
from Madison and went into the securities business and Ewald was one of my customers.
About 1963 I had a pretty good few years in the market, and thought I ought to buy some
land in Door County. We still owned the Point down at Lake Forest Park. Moss: But by 1964,
how many cottages were there up and down this lake? Brogan: The first cottages were built
in the 30s. And then nothing, of course, through World War II. xe "Moyers, Dave" Dave Moyers,
who was the Vice Pres xe "Sherman Road" ident of International Harvester, said it took 13
hours, to drive hippity-hoppity up the highway, through xe "Sherman Road" Sherman Road, xe
"Green Bay Road" Green Bay Road, up through xe "Racine" Racine, xe "Kenosha" Kenosha,
xe "Milwaukee" Milwaukee So
a lot of the homes got built after the war and the Korean War, in the mid- 50s. I was
in the Lodge one night in January, 1964, a lucky day for me, when Mr. xe "Lauscher" Lauscher
brought in the tax bills. They were for what Ewald still owned of the original 4,000 acre
tract 2,800 acres or so and it was assessed for $160,000. His tax bill was $1,600, not
including the Lodge. Ewald, chewing on a cigar, said, By God, this ain t worth $160,000! He
said, d sell it all for $100,000! And xe "Schmock, Babette" Babette, with that southern German
accent that many of the people will recall, said, Evald, Evald, mit a hundredt tousend
vee cud lif like kings! Moss: And your ears started to perk? Brogan: And I m sitting there
in my old Korean War jacket and oh! and so we made our deal, and essentially what I bought
was 7,200 feet
of shorefront and a strip on the inland side of the road 400 feet deep and about 22,000
feet long. Moss: The curves that we all see today, were they all up and down the road
or was it just a straight line? Brogan: No, no, no, this was all put in by the Schmocks,
for Orrin Glidden. They carved this road out of the forest. The road is typically 200 some-odd
feet from the water. In fact, there are a couple of places that I remember when I was
up here hunting in the 50s d hunt ducks up here on the point that the road split and
went around a clump of trees. Part of that was esthetics, part of that was they were
getting paid for a road and Glidden wanted it to be as small as possible, as cheap as
possible. But why so many curves? There are 93 curves on Glidden Drive, when you do your
survey points. I had a friend of mine, xe "Fairfield, William" Bill Fairfield, who was
writing a book and living at my dad s old hunting shack, and I said to Bill, I ll give
you half of it, you just have to raise $7,500 for the $15,000 down payment, so he did the
rest on a land contract. We started selling land at $30 a foot on the shorefront and $15
a foot for the inland property. We had 7,200 feet of shorefront, all rock except one sand
lot at the south end it was all the lots that Ewald didn t think he could sell. We went
to the courthouse and laboriously teased out all the property owner s names on the Drive.
Most of the people who bought land down here before we did had stayed at the Lodge. Ewald
was so casual about what he had talked to people about, so we sent everyone a letter
introducing ourselves and said Ewald can t remember who he made any commitments to, so we re going to give you 90 days to
buy before the price goes up. Ewald was selling inland property at $9 a foot and on the shore
at $25, and so we will honor any adjacent property owner who wants to either buy inland,
in back of his land, or next to it at that price. Some of them did, but others said we
were just a bunch of outrageous, high-binding real estate musclers. This was awful, awful,
awful, $30 a foot was terrible, a terrible travesty. But by the end of that year we had
sold over $150,000 worth of property at that price and with less than 20% of our property
sold, we paid off Schmock and we were free and clear. Moss: What about the xe "Glidden Drive access
roads" access roads? Brogan: The access roads we put in were the 6-foot walking accesses
to the shore to give value to the inland property much as Glidden had reserved those 60 foot
outlots down to the shore at the southern end of the Drive for public use. You ll notice
that all of our accesses are north of xe "Oak Lane" Oak Lane. We created them for the same
reason Glidden created his, so you get attractive properties on the inland side. The inland
lots were essentially 200 by 400 feet deep. On the shore, the average depth was set by
the road and the average frontage was 165 feet. Moss: Were you getting any advice from
any professional groups as to how to manage this or how to set up? Brogan: No, Bill and
I had been on xe "Nelson, ***" *** Nelson s staff and so we were familiar with
some of the conservation issues in the 1950s and 60s and in looking over the last 40-odd
years I don t think we hurt anybody. Moss: I think it was good vision, to see both sides
of the road develop the way it did. Brogan: Schmock continued to sell the property in
back of the inland lots. The xe "Nature Conservancy" Nature Conservancy now owns a block of it
and xe "Baudhuin, ***" *** Baudhuin, and so it s not developed. Moss: John, I m struck
by your comment that your lots were being sold here originally by you were $30 a running
foot on the lake side, and $15 on the inland. What drove the real estate prices over the
years? Brogan: Before I bought this property, the peninsula had pockets of xe "St. Louis"
St. Louis people, some xe "Chicago" Chicago, some xe "Green Bay" Green Bay, some xe "Milwaukee"
Milwaukee and some the xe "Fox Valley" Fox Valley, it was kind of a mixture. In the 30s
it took 12 to 13 hours to get from Chicago up here. By the 60s that was down to 6 hours,
but still painful going through the small towns, so Wisconsin got federal monies and
put the I-43 Interstate highway system through Milwaukee. That cut the travel time down to
5 hours and prices doubled in all of Door County in the fall of 67. So you could come
directly at least north of Milwaukee, but then you still had to come up 42 through the
small lakeshore communities. The other factor was a feature article in 1969 in the xe "National
Geographic" National Geographic, 10-15 pages devoted to the wonders of Door County. Then
in
the mid-70s you could get on the Interstate in Chicago and up to Green Bay and this cut
another hour and a half off; you could do the trip in 4 to 5 hours. Well, the real estate
prices doubled again. And I don t think we ll see that big an impact, but we will see
an impact this fall or next year when the xe "Interstate" Interstate finally gets from
Green Bay up to Sturgeon Bay. So it effectively means now that the Chicago trip will be down
to four hours, at least from the north side suburbs to here. I had been appointed to the
xe "DNR Board" DNR Board in 1975. We could see what was happening to real estate in these
attractive vacation areas. The department had outlined a possible state park in what
was left of the dunes that
hadn t been sold off, because the original investors had all died and they had never
broken the property. So I jumped up and down and said I wouldn t vote for any more small
out holding acquisitions until they dealt with the creation of xe "Whitefish Dunes Park"
Whitefish Dunes Park. So, through condemnation, the state paid $570,000 for 10,000 feet of
shorefront in 1980. And, based on current prices, it would cost over 80 million. Moss:
John, thank you, you jumped up and down at just the right moment. Brogan: Yes, I did.
But again, the great impact up here, on property values, and on the mixture of people, was
the transportation access, the Interstate highway system. And now, Door County has become
more and more Chicago people. Moss: John, on some of the early maps, there appeared
to be a road running alongside the water near xe "Goldenrod Lane" Goldenrod Lane. Could
you tell us what was going on there? Brogan: When Glidden and the Schmocks built Glidden
Drive from the south and got to Goldenrod, they went out to the edge of the lake and
came back inland farther north at what is now White Pine Lane. The lake is not to be
tempted and it tends to go up and down, in fact its peak to low is about 6 feet. They
built the road when the lake was down, it came up, and ***! No more road. Rather than
trying to fix that, they simply went back in the woods and swamp and cut the Drive where
it is now. Glidden was a private road of course when Glidden had it in the 30s. Ewald was
on the County Board, and he also served as Sevastopol Town Chairman, so in the 30s they
dedicated the road to the Town. But the County had a north-south road further in, in the
farm country, so Ewald did a swap. The County took Glidden Drive, named it xe "County RoadT"
County Highway T and the Town got the better, improved road with less maintenance costs.
So that s why this is a County Trunk and that s why it was not deeded, it was an easement
road, narrower and twistier than a normal County Trunk, and yet the County must pave
and plow it. Moss: When was it designated a xe "Rustic Road" Rustic Road? Brogan: That
s back in the 60s. My partner, Bill, and I worked on that. The rustic road designation
is a state designation that simply means it s on the state tourist maps as one of the
more scenic roads. It gives certain protections in that it s more difficult for local units
of government to start widening straightening it. Moss: I want to say thanks, John, on behalf
of the Glidden Drive residents for your contribution not only today but back through the years.
Moss: This is Len Moss from Glidden Drive Sherman Bay Normal.dot Sherman Bay Microsoft
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