NEW Water: Our History at a Glance - Magazine - Page 15
The Great Depression
During the 1930s, the Great Depression was
taking its toll across America, including Northeast
Wisconsin. Many people were out of work, most
had very little money and struggled to provide even
the family basics.
It was during this time that community leaders,
pushing to create a sewerage district, received
approval to move forward with the project. The
news was welcomed by many. Not only would the
new sewerage district help improve the region’s
water quality, it would also create more than 400
jobs needed to construct the new facility.
Work to build the Green Bay Facility began in
1933, which went into operation in 1935. The site
chosen was where the Fox River meets the Bay of
Green Bay which, at the time, was considered the
edge of town, creating a sense of “out of sight, out
of mind.”
Prior to our modern machinery, equipment, and
technology, manual labor was the way things were
built in the early 1930s. Crews worked long, hard
hours to construct the facility and dig the tunnels
needed to install the sewer pipes.
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