- Business - Janesville Sesquicentennial
-
- Riverboats plied Rock's waters
- Boaters cruise up and down the Rock River today for many
reasons: fishing, skiing, pleasure-riding
- and partying.
- Perhaps one of the biggest parties on the river, known as
the Sinnissippi to Indians, was one of its
- first.
- It was a perfect day for a celebration: the Fourth of July
in 1844. A 130-foot Mississippi River
- steamboat arrived in 9-year-old Janesville to take a "major
portion of its inhabitants" on an excursion to Jefferson,
according to a 1908 history of Rock County.
- But the boat and its revelers encountered problems, first
physical, then social.
- The boat got past the bridge then spanning Milwaukee Street
but when it reached Fort Atkinson,
- it confronted a bridge it could not get under.
- The passengers "desired the proprietors to remove part
of it so they could get by; the proprietors
- refused, and there was nearly a riot. But the passengers
greatly outnumbered the whole population of Fort Atkinson, and
as there was such a determination to go by, the proprietors finally
acceded and took out a bent, allowing the boat to pass."
- The excursion party stayed all night in Jefferson and returned
the next day.
- Now that was a party.
- The steamboat captain plied the river waters until fall,
running excursions up and down the river
- until her returned to the Mississippi. "And thus ended
navigation from the Mississippi up the Rock," the history
said.
- The first Mississippi steamboat arrived here in 1836, a year
after the city was born.
- Henry JANES and Aaron WALKER established the
first ferry to cross the river where
- Milwaukee Street is, and it operated until 1842 when W. H.
BAILEY, Charles STEVENS and Thomas LAPPIN
built the first bridge at Milwaukee Street at a cost of $2,000.
- While Mississippi riverboats stopped sailing east and north
to Janesville, steamboats were built
- here to pick up the slack.
- The first steamer was built here in 1854 by HAMMOND
& THORNE.
- About 1860, William FOSTER built the 85-foot "Star
of the West," but the "Star" was born under
- a bad sign. After a few trips, a quarrel ensued between her
owner and Milwaukee & Mississippi Railway Co. over the construction
of [a] drawbridge to accommodate the riverboat.
- Cheaper for the railroad than building the bridge was buying
a controlling interest in the boat, and
- she "mysteriously disappeared."
- Fifteen years later, William BROOKS found that the
hull had been loaded with stones and sunk in
- the Rock. He secured the title, raised the hull, rebuilt
the decks and christened her "The Lotus." With a capacity
for 500 passengers, she carried parties up and down the river
for several years.
- Then, according to the 1908 history, came the steamboats
"Bower City Belle," the "Lottie Lee"
- and the "Billy Burr." In 1908, the city had the
"Columbia" and "one or two smaller boats run by
steam."
- The first internal combustion boats, first known as "naptha
launches," came to Janesville in 1888.
- A. C. KENT had the first, and his was followed by
the "Lorna," owned by George McKEY.
- "John C. HARLOW soon afterwards bought the first
gasoline launch, operating by the explosive
- force of gasoline. Since then the number of boats has increased
rapidly," according to the 1908 history, "until at
the present time, there are over 60 gasoline launches plying
on the river above the upper dam.
- "These boats have a free run for 15 miles up the river,
and during the last two years a launch rail-
- way has been put in around the dam at Indian Ford, so that
with a little effort a launch owner can take a party from Janesville
clear to Fort Atkinson through Lake Koshkonong."
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